My sisters and I went food hunting two weeks ago and decided to check out Victor's Kitchen for their widely acclaimed Golden Custard Buns, otherwise known as Liu Sha Bao. I am a big fan of Liu Sha Bao, but I simply do not have the time to run around Singapore trying the various famous dim sum recommended by bloggers and gourmets. Usually I steal a bit from my parents/brother when they go out to buy them, but otherwise I am a big fat bum waiting to be fed at home, so when I actually stepped out to buy the buns myself, I felt a tingling sense of pride!
Victor's Kitchen is situated in Sunshine Plaza, which is in the vicinity of Dhoby Ghaut and Bugis (address below!) My sisters and I walked from Prinsep Street after trying Pat Bingsu at Snowy Village, and by the time we reached we were ready for another serving of food! As expected the queue was long, and the eatery was packed, but lucky for us we only wanted takeaway so we managed to skip the queue and order immediately.
Now before I go on I must say that service is a very important aspect of business, as personality is to a relationship partner. For myself, despite the glutton that I am, if your service is lacking I am sure not to visit again. And why am I saying this? Because the service I experienced at Victor's Kitchen was appalling - If I had not been in a good mood, I would have made a fuss out of it, but nope, I didn't. Here are the details:
My younger sister ordered 3 custard buns for takeaway and an eldery woman took the order from us, telling my sister that it was $4.50 in total. She then fished into her wallet and took out a $5 note, and then rummaged her coin purse for presumably a 50 cent coin so that she could receive a $1 change. She took merely 5 seconds before giving up and was just about to hand the $5 over to the lady when she commented, "你们是交不出钱是吗？" At that moment I stared right at her, who wasn't looking in my direction, and I seriously felt like smacking money her right across the face for saying that to my sister, to tell her that we had more than enough money to buy the food. What was she trying to insinuate? That my sister was a pauper? But I told myself that she was a senior citizen, so I let it pass. We waited for about 7 minutes for the takeaway and she returned $0.20 to my sister, indicating that the total bill was $4.80. We quickly did the calculations and came to the conclusion that it was the extra 7% GST, so we did not pursue further. It was just an extra 30 cents, but it would have been good if she had simply informed us that it was $4.80 earlier. With an attitude of hers, if my sister had paid exactly $4.50 she might have burst out of the eatery accusing my sister of cheating the shop ._.
Anyway, the taste-test. I was hoping that I would dislike the bun, because after what I had experience I didn't want to like Victor's Kitchen at all.
The buns were steaming hot when we got them - a good sign. I did the oily bun test by flipping over the bun to see if there were any stains and true enough, there were some oily patches on the piece of paper. Not a good sign.
Upon breaking open the bun the custard did not flow, which is good because it would have been a hot mess, but on the other hand it meant that the filling was not in great amount. I squeezed the bun slightly and out protruded a thick layer of salty egg oil. It was so oily that I had no idea what I was in for if I were to bite into it. Nevertheless it smelt so good I just had to try it.
And despite the bad service I must say that I did enjoy the Custard Bun. Everything was kept in moderation so it was not too salty, and not too 'heavy'. Surprisingly despite the copious amount of oil I saw, I did not 'taste' the equivalent amount, which might be extremely sinful for fans of Victor's Kitchen.
Will I be back again? No, because while it is good, it does not justify the amount that I have to travel just to get the bun, not to mention the service I might be getting there. For a quick sodium fix I might just visit again if I were in the vicinity just to give another chance, but for now I have my eyes set on Mouth Kitchen's.
Victor's Kitchen
91 Bencoolen Street
Mon-Sun 10.30am-8pm (Open on public holidays)
xoxo
Valerie
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