Not such a wonderful dinner

As some sort of reward for my son for doing quite well in his prelim exams, we brought him to satisfy his craving for lobster salad and sharksfin soup. After searching around, we picked the No Sign Board Seafood Restaurant at Vivo City on a Sunday evening.

The restaurant was quite crowded for dinner, but not full. And after tasting the food, we sort of knew why.

We ordered the Lobster Salad (local lobster, the Australian lobster weighs like 2kg and costs over S$500 for the dish which we found absolutely ridiculously expensive). Even at only about 600 grams, the lobster dish came up to over S$120. Fruity and reasonably tender, the dish was passable.

We also ordered the Sharksfin Soup with Crab Meat. The sharksfin soup was rather pale in comparison to those served at other restaurants, but was not bland. After adding vinegar and pepper, it tasted much like other sharksfin soup. This small serving cost S$40, but enough for 4 persons.

I liked this dish best, Deep Fried Soon Hock. Crispy and tasty, and the meat was crunchy proving that the fish was freshly slaughtered. My wife complained that the fish was tough, even though she finished almost half of the fish by herself.

My son wanted the Yam Ring with Spicy Sauce, so we ordered it. Not really up to my standard. The yam was not fluffy enough and the whole dish did not look appetizing at all.  Even the taste was nothing special. Quite a disappointment.

The Pea Sprouts Fried with Sambal was tough and dry and not spicy enough for my liking. Another disappointment.

And finally dessert. We ordered 3 different desserts from the menu, costing between S$6 and S$8 each. See how miserable they look for that price.  The most expensive and not really very good is the Herbal Jelly (S$8 for such a small bowl).

The Mango Pudding did not fare well too. Quite bland and without any taste of mango, even though there were tiny mango cubes sprinkled sparingly on the pudding. My son's choice of the Lemongrass Jelly fared better, thanks to the lime.

All in all it was an expensive and not such a wonderful dinner at all. Total disappointment. I would have preferred to go to my usual haunt Little Red House at the East Coast Lagoon. Shall go there soon when my friend from the Philippines visit next week.