Shokudo at Hereen

Sat.25.04.09.

Yesterday, my friends & I went to Shokudo at Hereen for a gathering. Heard about the unique concept of the theme “Streets of Japan”.




As described by the website on Hereen :

" Themed “Streets of Japan”, Shokudo offers the best and finest representative dishes of Japanese cuisine conveniently under one marketplace. Preparation “a-la-minute” is the call of the day with our chefs preparing your orders “live”. The exquisite breath-taking interiors and ambience mimic the classic landscapes and streetscapes of Japan literally will leave diners in awe!"

Really? In my opinion, it is just like Marche but with japanese food. Though, I prefer Marche anytime.. So each of us is given the card at the entrance. Be warned, you will have to pay $100 penalty if you lost the card. Okay. We proceed to find our reserved seat by ourselves. After walking a full circle, my friends decided to ask for the waitress for help. I wonder why must we look for our reserved seats by ourselves in the 1st place?

Just like in food court, someone have to stay around to look after the bags while the rest goes to hunt for the food with the cards in their hands. I volunteered that position. As I take a look around, I have to say the surrounding is quite interesting. Wallpaper of animated market place, a framed map of Japan, Japan street stalls look alike stalls, some chamber seats that looked like those steamed bamboo container without the top. Too bad, because of the mass marketplace concept the place looked overcrowded & look pretty much like a maze.

Finally, it my turn to hunt for food. Omelettes, sushi, bamboo steamed rices, hot plates, fruits, desserts, teppanyaki and crepes. Maybe, things are starting to look up, although it just take 5 min to browse through all the stalls. So, I ordered steamed bamboo rice with eels & a hot plate with scallops. Thought I just wanna try how it is like & maybe "top up" later. So I passed my card to cooks & have to wait for 5 min to prepare the food for each stall with the receipts on the hand. It feel kinda dumb to go back to my seat & just come back to collect food for 5 mins. Out of boredom, just tapped my card on the reader while standing around like the rest.Pricing not too bad, I thought.

By the time, I collected my food & returned to my seat. Everyone is already enjoying their food. So,finally we get to eat as we chit chat. The bamboo rice with eel taste really so-so but what astonished me is the portion! Wow, that is amazing stingy. The container looked normal, but the portion.. Hot plate is okay, nothing great. Now come think about it, all the cooks looked young.It must be like those fast food like Mcdonald just have to heat up the food or something. And I always thought Japanese food culture is great. Marche is way better..Really made me lost my appetite.

As we continued our gathering, there's an arrival of 8 customers proceed to sit next to us. As there are no enough tables for them, the waitress added a table next to us. The gap with us & the new arrived customers is only about 5cm. Whether they reserved the seats or not, I don't know. All I know is now if we proceed to leave now, we can either move the table ourselves to get out or squeeze through other patrons area to get out. We chose the latter.

Disappointment is the word.. It just like an amateur dining area yet with overcharged pricing even with no culinary skill, no ambience and no service but with a service charge. Do you know the japanese food stall in Upper Changi Rd market ? Near the Victoria Junior Collegue? They have way more quality than this.