Drawling evening...

As the door opened, I expected the traditional greeting of: "いっらしゃいませ！" (Irrasyaimase!)... and there were none. I should have known then that something is not right...

I took the seat opposite of my Japanese teacher and then waited for the rest of her students to find the restaurant. When they arrived, everybody got busy ordering as we were quite hungry by that time. There were 2 people that I already knew, and three others. It turned out that one of the guy (from China) had just gotten married recently, and he brought his wife along. It took quite a while before he explained to us that his wife does not speak Japanese. So I tried to make some small talk in English. She looked at me blankly. Then the guy said that she does not speak English. Fine, I apologized to her in Chinese, and asked the some question (like where are you from?). There was no response. (No, she's not mute. She spoke only to her husband in the whole evening, in Chinese!) It's not only the lack of response that pissed me off. She gave me the kind of look that said: "you're beneath my notice." %&##@%@wtfomgbbq!!!!111oneone.

More was to come. The person who took our order, did it with a classical 'Ah Lian' "What do you want?!" kind of attitude. Not a single smile, and she looked like we're keeping her from talking with her boyfriend or something. On top of that, everything that I ordered either: came late, did not come even after 2-3 reminders, or came as a totally different order. I would understand if the servers are flustered due to the dinner crowd, but as for her? Nooooo... she was cool, and sour like a pickle!

My Japanese teacher had to remark: "Singaporeans really do not expect to receive good service do they?", and to my horror, 2 of them at the table agreed. The food was only so so (with really horrible ramen), and for the price I pay ($32 per pax), I could have had a much better dinner elsewhere.

To make things worse, the people there was not responding to attempts for communication. I really was feeling redundant there.

When we left the place, the usually hearty "ありがとうございました！" (Arigatou Gozaimashita!) was also missing. I will never, ever return to this restaurant again. This is NOT a Japanese restaurant. The 10% service charge just adds insult to injury. And may Il never ever meet with this bunch of people again (with the exception of my teacher)

I did not even bother remembering the name. It is near Tanjong Pagar MRT.