mother’s day brunch at GRUB Restaurant.

GRUB restaurant is like the hottest place to check out lately. it kept appearing on a lot of my friends’ blogs and their IG. with it being so near me.. I just had to check it out so I brought my mum there for a mother’s day brunch.

ermm.. having read all the rave reviews.. I think my experience fell a bit flat.

1. queues. I have heard about their no reservation rule so I dragged everyone out at 845am to make it for their opening at 9am. turns out, we parked at the wrong car park so we had to take a little stroll. we reach about 920am and was put in the waitlist (estimated 30 mins wait) but I was already prepared for that and even brought jerry’s skate scooter to entertain him. but, what I noticed was that the table turnaround wasnt fast enough. even when the customers left, and the tables were empty, customers were asked to sit. when some enquired, I think I heard the reply about serving by the rounds and even if they were being seated, the servers wont take their orders (someone correct me if im wrong ok?), so everyone was left standing around and loitering at the entrance, in the heat and there was only one table that guests could sit and wait. that, in my opinion sucks, especially if you are seeing empty tables around the restaurant. I personally feel, its perfectly alright to seat the customers and let them know that you can only come round to take their orders later. that would give them a place to sit, rest and hide away from the heat, and wait with more patience. a couple glasses of iced water would be great. they do wonders to ease some frazzles or sizzle some anger, especially on a hot day. you know, the saying about hungry people are angry people holds a lot of truth. I have no idea if they actually do serve ice water but I wasnt served any.

2. service. It needs a lot more improvement. like a server told me there isnt any baby chair available for me and that whether I could do without. while she was telling me, I spotted one behind her on an empty table and pointed it out to her. she told me I could have that and she’ll bring it to me. guess what? 15 mins later, still no baby chair. and it is very hard to managed an active, wriggling toddler and a baby and my brother had to go grab one himself and in his anger, knocked the pram of the guests seated beside me (sorry candice!). lucky for me, the table beside me happened to be my friends. I was also lucky my brother was with me and that he could help. in general, the wait for the food was quite long but I expected that from the reviews. but drinks? with no water served, and our drinks order taking a long time to be served.. let’s just say everyone was steaming and dying of thrist. this happened for both rounds of my drinks despite getting servers to check on the status. argh!! I also noticed that there were sone confusion between the servers inside and outside the restaurant so I am really not sure if the crew was briefed properly before the restaurant opened. having said all that, I must add that the servers were still warm at serving us, and apologetic about the wait. the cashier speed also needed to be improved. I asked for the bill and was shown the bill 15-20mins later. after I checked the bill and paid with my credit card, it took them another 15-20mins to let me sign it. my brother who came in a separate car and left earlier was already home and I was still sitting around waiting to settle the bill. argh. I totally totaly recommend going to the cashier to pay.

3. food. hmm.. some hits and some misses. here’s what we ordered.

soft yummy french toast, served garlic pork sausage, strawberries, sour cream and drizzled with maple syrup. the toast are surprisingly fluffly and nice but the sausages were pretty average. I would order this just for the bread and the strawberries.

grub cheeseburger. my brother gobbled this up because its so tiny (for him). I think it tasted pretty good since I dont remember any negative comments from him.

my mum had the grub breakfast set which had grilled focaccia bread, scrambled eggs, breakfast beef patty, portobello mushrooms and side salad and comes served with a coffee, tea or a homemade drink. it isnt anything wow or impressive but i reckon its pretty good value for $15.

tasmanian mussels & chorizo stew. hmm. my brother and mum BOTH spat out their mussels and der say he didn’t dare to try after seeing their faces. I tried the 3rd one and it was indeed stinky. we were unfortunately served a plate of mussels that had gone bad. I alerted the server about it and she took it back and served us a brand new plate without us asking and ensured that it was fresh. the fresh plate really tasted pretty good. plump, succulent mussels that had us lapping up the gravy. yummy. guess we were just unlucky the first time round.

pork steak burger. when it was served, the server told us we made a good choice! it was her favourite. der had this and we all agreed this was the winner for us. the pork was soft and had the right amount of fats that kinda melted when you bite into it. judging at how im a big fan of fatty meat, I love this to bits!! it didnt taste porky at all and neither did it feel oily. yummy. am very thankful I made der switch his choice because he wanted to order the same thing as me but I stopped him cos I wanted to try variety.

my crispy fish burger. the sight kinda wow you off first. hehe. I didnt eat it immediately because I was busy photographing and trying everything so when I turned to eat this.. it was a little cold, and I found it a little dry to swallow. it could be that I was a little filled up by then so I didnt finish this.

we rounded off the meal with these yummy churros. this took super long to come as well. this is super yummy! probably the best I have tried in sg and taste good even without any of the dips. but at $1 a piece, its a little ex as compared to the rest of the desserts. still,  I would still gladly pay simply because its good.

alfresco setting on the outside. while the sun was blazing, it was sufficiently cool to dine and it was pretty pleasant despite the service hiccups. there are also indoor seats for those who cannot live without aircon.

we washed everything done with 2 rounds of iced honey lime juice… and thats me alone waiting in the restaurant for my bill……………. I left the restaurant at close to noon, and way too long for a meal! my brother was scolding me because he had to rush home to finish up his work before rushing to the airport. =(

my verdict? the restaurant is pretty good for value and I would definitely return to try out the rest of the menu items like slow roasted pork belly, grilled steak and fries, waffles etc.. but it wont be soon since I hope the queue would at least die down a little and not having to wait so long.. and of cos, till they better their service.

my mum wasn’t at all impressed so I was pretty sad that her mother’s day celebration meal didn’t turn out happy to mark the occasion. oh wells. I should stick to a tried and tested restaurant next time!

p.s. I also had friends who have experienced pretty ok service without too long a wait, so I think maybe it boils down to the batch of service crew that we encountered.

disclaimer: this restaurant review of Grub Restaurant is purely for my own reference and a record of my experience. I was in no way compensated for this post.