If I only had to eat 1 type of meal for the rest of my life, what would it be? HOT POT!!! Not sure if I’m supposed to pick a specific type of ingredient but if there’s a choice I would gladly choose hotpot (and probably become fat from it too). I searched online for affordable steamboat restaurants and found out about The Flame Cafe – which serves a 4 tier Pagoda steamboat with cheesy dip to satisfy your mookata or steamboat cravings. Is it worth it? Read more to find out!
Updated post: http://mons-diary.blogspot.sg/2018/04/the-flame-cafe-with-new-prices-4-tier.html
There’s 3 different levels to choose from the Pagoda buffet – Deluxe ($19.90), Premium ($29.90) and Supreme ($38.90). You can view their menu below.
It was fully booked when we reached the restaurant, but lucky for us , we made a reservation at 830pm. The place is located near Taiseng MRT and I also had direct bus to the place.
Do take note that Flame Cafe is also halal certified!
We went for the Premium Buffet as anything below wasn’t worth it and anything above was too expensive. I think we made the right choice as we ended up spamming the seafood in the end. The meat selection is pretty decent but given the lack of space, there was a mini crowd at the buffet counter. Small issue though as I noticed that they refill the portions sufficiently.
For premium buffet, we can choose 2 soup bases and we picked the Chicken and Tom Yam (our standards). The soup was quite delicious, not top notch quality but enough to keep me addicted for a good whole 2 hours. The chicken soup is in a milky white type instead of a clear base (something that I prefer). Another bonus point.
Talking about convenience of cooking, i find it a little challenging to cook the food as the tiers seem to be blocking each other. The food also sticks on the aluminium foil quite a bit.
2 fresh oysters were included in our buffet for the premium selection too.
As for food quality, you just cannot expect too much. It was a hit and miss between some meat choices. I personally prefer to have the marinated chicken which is somewhat similar to Seoul Garden’s style. After 1-2 rounds of beef and chicken, we targeted on spamming the seafood instead (More worth it!). We ordered the Crayfish in 10s as requested by bf. From the springy and bouncy texture, we could tell that the crayfish is fresher compared to other places that we have tried before.
The marinated squid was quite disappointing and we hardly finished any. Anyway it also looks like a pile of worms.. haha. We both prefer the cute little squids which is more springy and fresh. I couldn’t bring myself to eat a second piece after trying one.
I was quite upset when we were told that the aluminium foil cannot be changed after it has been burnt. Apparently, we were supposed to finish dining within 2 hours and they refused to change the burnt foil. There is no problem with limiting the dining time, but we felt that this could be informed at the start as many BBQ restaurants allow changing of the hot plate. The service standards dropped after we dined for 2 hours as well. Not sure if it’s just a coincidence but they stopped refilling our soup, and took quite long to attend to us when we called for the staff.
Just a short rant here. But the restaurant is still packed with people and it’s highly recommended to make a reservation if you are interested in trying it out.
They also offer a DIY pizza corner which could be quite an interesting activity for the younger adults! We did not try it though.
The Flame Cafe
Level 1, 73 Upper Paya Lebar Rd, Singapore 534818
Contact: 6282 0251
