Month: April 2013

Review: St. Regis Singapore

My rating:

We had a weekend staycation at St. Regis Singapore with J and her family.

The first thing that you will notice as you step into the hotel lobby is the sheer size of it. Our room is located on the 7th floor and like many other hotels, the room keycard is required in the lift to operate it (unless you’re going down to the lobby).

Even though the Executive Deluxe room is the smallest among the rooms and suites in St. Regis, 7 of us could settle down comfortably to watch a movie in the room before  calling it a night Although only 2 adults and a child stayed over in the end, I reckon that all 7 of us could have slept pretty well in there.

Without boring everyone with lengthy descriptions, I’ll let the photographs speak for themselves and will also list the good and the bad, based on my personal observation:

Good

  • Extremely courteous Butler (). We are very appreciative of his professionalism.
  • Grand and spacious lobby
  • Spacious room with thoughtfully planned amenities

Bad

  • The kettle was the cheap type and was a mismatch for a hotel of its class. And it was faulty! A call to housekeeping saw it replaced within 5 minutes though.
  • I called a day earlier to ask about the connections available to the TV as I wanted to connect my Android phone to watch movies. I got a verbal confirmation HDMI is supported and that the butler services is able to provide us with a loan of a HDMI cable. However, when I called butler services after check in, I was told that they do not have any HDMI cables and they will only be able to help connect the guest’s own HDMI cable to the TV. Luckily, I brought my own HDMI cable along otherwise we would have no movies to watch.
  • Connecting a HDMI cable requires two staff to lift the TV off the mounting bracket! We feel embarrassed for the hotel.
  • On check out day, we called for assistance to remove the HDMI cable from the TV but no one came. It was already 12:45pm and we were worried about checking out late. A staff came after our chaser phone call but she could not remove the cable and had to page for a technician to help her.

Overall, I still find St. Regis a very good hotel to stay in. Hopefully, we’ll get another chance to stay over and try their bigger rooms next time. I need to clarify that my 4-star rating for this hotel is not the same as the 4 stars awarded to other hotels as St. Regis is a very grand hotel and I am ranking it 4 stars among others hotels of its class.

St. Regis Singapore Lobby
St. Regis Singapore Lobby
Bathroom (Executive Deluxe Room)
Bathroom (Executive Deluxe Room)
Executive Deluxe Room
Executive Deluxe Room
Executive Deluxe Room
Executive Deluxe Room
Watching Iron Man 2 with the rest
Watching Iron Man 2 with the rest
IP Phone
IP Phone

 

Tambuah Mas Indonesian Restaurant

My rating:

Tambuah Mas is an Indonesian restaurant with branches in Paragon and Tanglin Shopping Centre. We went to the Tanglin branch as we were staying over at St. Regis, just next to Tanglin Shopping Centre.

The place wasn’t really crowded for a Saturday and that’s probably because we were there at about 6:30pm while most of their customers come in after 7. I am pleasant surprised to see that this restaurant is extremely child-friendly. There was no need for us to request for a baby chair, nor did we have to ask for a plastic plate and straw in Ray’s glass of ice water 🙂

For 4 adults and 1 child, we ordered their signature Tahu Telur, Beef Rendang, Sayur Lodeh and Deep Friend Chicken with our rice. We also ordered Es Cendol, Es Teler and Es Gula Melaka for desserts.

The Tahu Telur was pretty nice but we found the spicy-sweet dark sauce a tad too spicy for our liking. Sayur Lodeh is just like Lontong with sambal but without the rice cakes. For a person who seldom take vegetables, I have to say that I can finish the whole dish if I wasn’t sharing with anyone else! The fried chicken was way too dry for my liking and you are hearing this from someone who loves to eat chicken breast. The desserts were nice but nothing to shout about though.

Total bill came up to about $68. Not too bad!

Tahu Telur
Tahu Telur – Fried beancurd with egg served with spicy-sweet dark sauce
Tahu Telur - Fried beancurd with egg served with spicy-sweet dark sauce
Tahu Telur – Fried beancurd with egg served with spicy-sweet dark sauce
Top right - Beef Rendang. Top left - Sayur Lodeh Bottom - Tahu Telur
Top right – Beef Rendang. Top left – Sayur Lodeh
Bottom – Tahu Telur
Deep Fried Chicken
Deep Fried Chicken
Es Teler - Tropical medley of avocado, jackfruit and young coconut meat in coconut milk
Es Teler – Tropical medley of avocado, jackfruit and young coconut meat in coconut milk
Restaurant decor
Restaurant decor

If you’re interested, you can visit their website at http://tambuahmas.com.sg/.

Review: Hatten Hotel

My rating:

Jamie and I spent a night at Hatten Hotel in Malacca as part of a weekend getaway with her and her family.

Hatten Hotel is new and is in fact currently celebrating its first anniversary. The lobby is spacious but it can get really crowded during check-in hours.

We were lucky that we’ve already done the registration prior to check-in hours and only had to collect our key cards to our respective rooms.

Since Hatten Hotel is new, the rooms are very clean, at least for ours. Our room didn’t come with nice view and we could only see the city. It didn’t help that a crane was parked right outside our window due to some construction works outside the hotel. Due to this, we kept the curtains drawn all the time.

The bathroom was well lit and clean. One side of the wall is made up of a big piece of mirror. What we didn’t like was the fact that the toilet bowl being too close to the door. If we didn’t lock the door, anyone crashing through the bathroom door will certainly knock the current toilet bowl user off the seat – or minimally inflict painful knee injuries.

On the plus side, having two televisions in the room meant that couples won’t need to fight over which channel to watch before going to bed. Then again, I’ve almost never found time to sit in front of the television when I travel.

While we can rave about the room, the hotel buffet dinner was nothing to shout about. At rm$80++ per pax, it is not cheap by Malaysian standards. We were extremely disappointed by the variety of food. I happily walked to the chilli crab section only to find the tray full of crab shells. Any remnants of flesh that could be found were hard and powdery – definitely not fresh. The breakfast was slightly better but we have seen better spreads elsewhere.

Would we stay again? Most certainly! Enjoy the room, forget about taking any meals in the hotel. In fact, we have already made plans to return this coming September.

Hatten Hotel Lobby
Hatten Hotel’s Lobby. Spacious, yet prone to overcrowding due to the number of rooms they have.
Upon entering the room, we can see the bed. Thankfully, there is a blind which we can let down for privacy.
Upon entering the room, we can see the bed. Thankfully, there is a blind which we can let down for privacy.
One of the 2 flatscreen televisions in our room. Pardon Jamie's extremely pink bag ;)
One of the 2 flatscreen televisions in our room. Pardon Jamie’s extremely pink bag 😉
Nice little bathroom
Nice little bathroom
Another bathroom view. We can't understand why the toilet bowl is so close to the door
Another bathroom view. We can’t understand why the toilet bowl is so close to the door
The Hatten-branded toiletries
The Hatten-branded toiletries
Our king size bed!
Our king size bed!
A couch facing a second flatscreen TV in the room
A couch facing a second flatscreen TV in the room