Birthday Celebration at Hai Di Lao Restaurant!

Recently, I celebrated my cousin's birthday at Hai Di Lao restaurant, a great hotpot restaurant known for its great service and awesome free manicure. We went to Orchard Somerset 313 shopping mall and went straight to the restaurant since I made a reservation already. If you never make any reservation, be prepared to wait for hours. It is really popular with locals and tourists. This restaurant is well known in China and there are more than 180 restaurants in China. 

If you want to enjoy their free manicure service, please make sure before you eat, you book first by writing down your name and phone number with the manicurist. We only asked for manicure service when we were almost done with eating. So we waited for about 3 to 4 hours while we went window-shopping in Orchard shopping malls. 

Soup provided is not loaded with msg as we didn't feel thirst. Instead its loaded with real good ingredients like the black chicken soup filled with mushroom, fishball and black chicken. We had 4 different soup bases which cost a hefty $24! Dishes are ala-carte so you have to select it via a tablet. But there is a buffet spread of fruit, seasoning, dessert and appetizer. 

Service is great. The staff assigned to us helped us to remove prawn shells. All in all, I must say service is great and food are fresh too. Of course it comes at a price. I paid about $110 for the food! But considering the fact that my cousin and I enjoyed the 'free' manicure service, I must say its worth it. I heard that the minimum manicure service is about $30. The manicurist is very professional and spent about 30 to 40 minutes filing my finger nails and cutting off dead skin. I felt very pampered :) . Then she painted a protective layer on my finger nails first and later 2 coats of sparkling pink stars on my fingernails and finally the protective coat. Wow, I felt so happy. Hehe, I don't spend money on manicure because I find its a waste of time. But since my cousin was also doing, I had someone to talk to.  Ok enough of rambling, take a look at the food we had! Since we were celebrating my cousin's birthday, they gave us a fruit platter!

We chose four soup and it costs $24! We selected spicy laksa, mushroom, black chicken and tomato soup. I like both tomato and laksa soup!

 There is a fruit, seasoning and dessert buffet section.

 You can also have pumpkin porridge. I didn't eat this but my cousin said its delicious.

 Beancurd strips

 Overview of Hai Di Lao Restaurant

 I like sesame sauce

 We ordered half quail eggs, pork corn ball.I took bean curd pudding from the buffet section.

My own seasoning concoction.

 Half portion of black pork. Quite expensive. More than $10.

 Prosperity noodles at $2. Good to add this to spicy laksa soup!

 Half portion of seafood platter

My laksa noodle.

 Black chicken soup

Dipping the meat to sesame sauce.

We had this tan tan mian. Not so delicious. Just order prosperity noodle and add in laksa soup.

Fruit platter for my cousin, the birthday girl.

We came back for the free manicure and had these free fruit while waiting.

The queue never stop one. Their business is really good!

The staff gave us this platter while we wait for manicure service.

Yeah time to do manicure. We had to decide the colour!

I love sparkling stars and pink colour. So I chose pink sparkling stars gel colour! Everyone I met said the colour is pretty.

Is this colour nice? Look like sparkling stars in the galaxy!