This place is a bit unassuming and many a person would've walked right by and headed right on by to the main part of the food court and walked towards the exit onto Main St. But lies there is a restaurant called Grain Asian Cafe.
Caucasian diners are thin on the ground here, but you shouldn't have a problem with ordering at all, the staff should understand what you want.
There is a front glass counter which contains food that can be taken away. Foods for sale include are big white mounds of steamed roast pork buns (Char Siu Bao), steamed sausage rolls (Lap Cheong Goon), big foil trays of savoury daikon cake and lotus leaf wrapped sticky rice parcels with savoury contents which actually are sticky!
The noise level is high but that's due more to the fact that it's in a shopping centre more than the restaurant itself.
There's a lunch menu and a afternoon tea menu, as expected in a HK-style restaurant. But I came to have the Afternoon Tea menu, so let's focus on that.
There is of course, free water and tea (which is basically expected in this type of restaurant), but you must pour it yourself from a tray in the restaurant.
The meal itself, which has small portions, but it costs $7 and you get a free drink with it! I can't complain about that. It's quite affordable.
I had Char Kway Teow, which is the HK version instead of the original version. The The HK-version has stir-fried Chinese-style flat rice noodles with prawns, char siu, onions, and bean sprouts and tastes very different to the original. This was very good. It tasted like exactly what I was expecting.
The other person I went with had the Prawn and Pork Wonton Noodle Soup. The Wontons were very nice, and seasoned well. The noodles were just the right texture but probably needed a bit of sesame oil. But this is very minor and isn't the reason why a star was deducted to have 3 stars instead of 4.
It was very cheap though, two people cost just $14.
The reason for the deduction is two things.
One, the servers were a touch rude when they refilled chopsticks at our table despite the fact that the tables next to us was empty, they should refill it there and then put it back on the table instead of repeatedly refilling chopsticks and cutlery on our shoulders. A minor complaint but I feel it shouldn't be done that way.
The second and more serious complaint comes from this! They shouldn't be using plastic spoons in their drinks. In the cold drinks, this is acceptable (although annoying), but in a hot drink isn't so acceptable and more the reason why a star was deducted (along with the above complaint).
I may come back here but there's a few things that they need to change.
As for parking, try the underground carpark in the shopping centre where it's located in. read more