Tekong Seafood Restaurant in Changi Village.

Saturday night.

Photo by Leonardo Menezes.

The boss of the restaurant came to take our order. We ordered our food, followed by drinks.

That done, we waited.

It was early, about 6:30 pm, so there was no crowd. Only one other table was filled.

Photo by Michel Meynsbrughen — not Tekong Seafood Restaurant!

Ten minutes later, our drinks still haven’t arrived. Waitresses were just milling around doing nothing.

We asked one of them to check on our drinks. She came back and asked if we could order again because there’s no record of us ever ordering drinks.

Not wanting to risk a double order, we told her to check with the boss.

Just then, the boss wandered in.

Graphic by Lynne Lancaster.

When the waitress told him what’s happening, he said, “Oh, I didn’t take your drinks order. Can you order again?”

*Profound silence*

Then everyone at the table started swearing that we saw the boss acknowledging our drinks order and writing it down.

His reply was, “Oh, I sent your food order in only. I didn’t take your drinks order. Can you order your drinks from this waitress?”

*Stunned*

We speculated that the boss must have been either drunk or not interested in doing business.

Photo by Konrad Baranski.

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Seperate incident that happened in the same restaurant!

My brother was having dinner there some time back. He stopped a Chinese waitress and asked for sambal chilli.

Ten minutes later, the chilli still hadn’t arrived and he wondered what happened to it.

Twenty minutes later, the waitress brought a dish to the table. It was a big chicken dish which no one ordered.

Photo by Kristina Mileva — not actual dish.

My brother said, “We didn’t order this.” (In Chinese)

The waitress said, “Yes, you did.” (In Chinese)

“No, we didn’t.”

“You did.”

My brother thought for a bit and then said, “I asked for sambal chilli.”

The waitress said, “That’s right! This is san ba ji.”

(“San ba ji” is the Chinese term for “Kampung chicken”.)

Joke of the year!!!

I guess “sambal chilli” does sound a bit like “san ba ji”.

Be careful what you ask for and who you ask it from.

ROFL.

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This restaurant has the weirdest service ever. It’s not strictly bad. The waitresses and boss are actually quite friendly and easy-going. There was no rudeness or anything.

They just gave us the impression that they’re all clueless and not really present.

Strange, because this restaurant is supposed to be quite popular and has been around for decades.

Sorry I had to use stock photos for this post. I didn’t feel like taking photos that night because of the weird service, plus the food is average only, so I don’t really want to advertise for the restaurant. Hah.

Don’t go there. There are better places to eat seafood.