Hippopotamus Grill Restaurant (Paris)

1 Boulevard Capucines, 75002 Paris, France

Started in Paris (France), the Hippopotamus Grill Restaurant features a wide selection of cuts such as sirloin, tenderloin rib steaks, all the way to the rare hanger and skirt steaks. Thankfully despite its name, the restaurant does not sell hippopotamus meat. Apparently the restaurant’s founder saw a Hippopotamus during one of his voyage trips and left an impression on him, enough to actually start a restaurant using the animal’s name!

The Hippopotamus Grill Restaurant was established in Paris 1968, and grew to over a hundred restaurants mainly in the French regions before... Read more>>

Review of Thai Restaurant: Sakon Thai (Singapore)

Sakon Thai is a "restaurant", more like open air cafe? It is located in a quiet part of Singapore along 77 Jalan Wangi, Macpherson. Initially what attracted me to this place was the reasonable pricing. However, standards don't seem to be consistent and fluctuate each time I go there. I have been to this restaurant a couple of times already, but today might be my last.

When my group of 4 arrived at the restaurant, business was rather good with a crowd forming a queue waiting to get seated. So we joined in the queue and waited patiently, however when it was our turn we were conveniently ignored by the restaurant staff and had to find our own table ourselves. Disaster soon ensued after we seated ourselves, despite our waving and calling the waitresses totally ignored us. It took some for time to take our orders and the food to actually arrive (45 min!). The drinks arrived first, however they were blend and tasteless. I had ordered an iced lemongrass drink and it tasted more like flavored water, it tasted better the first time I had it. Even my friend, who had previously ordered the lemongrass drink commented that the drink was much more blend and tasteless then the previous time she had ordered it.

After waiting (patiently) for 45min close to an hour, and some serious prompting the food arrived.  We had reminded them and asked about our order 3 times, each time they replied that the food was coming. There was a group that ordered after us, but by the time our food arrived they had already eaten, paid and left. All my group of 4  ordered was one tom yup seafood soup with rice (which they forgot and we had to remind them twice, which ended up in two plates of rice), one rice with bail leaf beef and egg, and 2 phat thai noodles.


It would be interesting to note that there was a lady seated at another table who demanded a change of her drink. She was asking the waitress why the drink tasted horrible when it had (previous) tasted fine. The waitresses were non-apologetic when it came to the appalling service and sub-standard drink quality. Neither were they friendly or helpful. Maybe it was because of the high influx of guests, but service standards nonetheless should not have been so deplorable to such an extent. Perhaps there was really too many people that the staff cannot cope with, perhaps we were just "forgettable" customers. Who knows?

Maybe the food is ok, maybe the pricing is reasonable (no 10% GST...yet), but the inconsistent service and drinks, on top of the bad attitude make it not worth the while. So either you avoid this place, or you may want to try this restaurant when there is no crowd. Now if the food was worth the wait and the waitresses approachable and friendly... that would be a totally different story altogether...Whichever the case, do let me know if you visit this place and is the service and food have improved.