Located at Level 1, the restaurant is easily spotted. There's a huge huge candy store nearby.
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| shopfront |
Was my first time at RWS and first time dining there. Did not realise at first, but Baits is actually Din Tai Fung. Visited on a Saturday afternoon at about 12.10pm, and there was a short queue. Stood at the queue under the hot sun for a good 10 minutes without anyone coming out to attend. Also noticed that there are still some unoccupied tables inside the restaurant.
We saw the first two groups infront of us moved into the restaurant and were seated, so we followed suit and waited inside the restaurant. Stood there for a minute before a waitress walked past us and straight to the queue outside. So we called out to her and requested for a table. She looked at us and said we need to queue outside. We replied to say that we did, and came in just a little while ago because the group infront of us were already seated. She looked at us rather haughtily and insisted that we must queue outside. Puzzled, we went back to queue outside under the hot sun once more.
A minute later, the same waitress came back and said we can go inside now. Strange practice to shoo your customers out when they are already inside the restaurant and then to ask them to step back in a minute later. I do understand if the policy does not allow queues inside the restaurant but at least have someone come out and attend to the customer and let the customer know that they are visible.
Undaunted, we were still willing to try the food there. Ordered tom yum soup, champagne pork ribs, stewed beef noodles (soup) and pork dumplings (小笼包). We were seated on a table with 4 chairs, so we sat down with the plates to our left. Shortly after we had ordered, a waiter brought out the tom yum soup. I gestured that the tom yum soup was for my dining companion but the waiter still did not place the dish infront of my friend but on the unoccupied space beside him. Semi-service? Hahaa, perhaps we expected too much but it is logical to place the food in front of your diners, right? It's not like our table is full of dishes. Tom yum soup was just the first one!
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| chinese tea @$1.20++ refillable |
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| Tom yum soup for 1 pax that came with a droplet of soup on the plate. I thought they usually wipe clean the plate prior to serving? |
Ingredients in the tom yum soup included 2 medium sized prawns, squids, button mushrooms, mussels, chilies and tomatoes. The soup was thick and sour but not very spicy. Quite appetising.
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| prawn |
My friend commented that the prawn and the mussels did not taste that fresh. I did not have any problems with the prawn although certain parts of the meat were slightly soft and stuck to the shell.
Another waiter served us the pork dumplings, and he was very polite. He even warned us to be careful as the dumplings are very hot.
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| pork dumplings aka xiao long bao |
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| ginger in vinegar to dip pork dumplings |
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| let the soup out so that it won't scald the tongue later when biting into the dumpling |
The standard of the pork 小笼包 here is similar to any other Din Tai Fung branches that I've eaten before. Juicy with moist pork meat fillings wrapped by thin dumpling skin. Simple and yummy.
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| stewed beef noodles (牛腩面) |
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| beef (牛腩) |
The stewed beef noodles was disappointing. The meat was chewy and the tendon was not soft. The noodles was not springy at all.
Fortunately, the champagne pork ribs fared better than the noodles and tom yum soup.
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| champagne pork ribs |
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| delicious pork ribs |
Actually, it was hard to discern between champagne pork ribs or the regular pork ribs king (排骨王) taste. The sauce for champagne pork ribs seemed sweeter and less tangy. The meat itself was nicely tender and easy to eat.
The total bill for the meal came up to $50+ for 2 pax.
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