Hippopotamus Restaurant Grill @ Marina Square

Was sourcing a nice restaurant to dine in with my friend for our Thursday night movie and dinner date. Happens to see an online deal from Groupon, a french steakhouse at Marina Square so decided to give it a try!

Hippopotamus Restaurant Grill, a french steakhouse with the a Hippo mascot. Located at Marina Square #01-204/205. The place wasn't fully packed at about 7.40pm. It is good place for a casual dining. The ambience there is really good and lighting are cosy.

 Once settled down, we are served complimentary home-made chips. Crispy and yummy which you will not say "No" to it. Heheh

The main course comes with 2 side dish and one sauce.

There are different sauces where you can choose and pick for every main courses. Other than that, you can choose 2 out of 6 side dishes to eat with it.

I ordered B.B.Q Ribs. I chose Baked Potato and Green Beans as my side and the Barbeque sauce for dipping. The vegetable just felt soggy to taste. The meat was really hard to cut, other than that, is yummy!

My friend ordered well done Beef Sirloin with french fries and steamed vegetables for sides. The sauce is the roquefort cheese.

 Both of us ordered Hippo Smoothies which was blended with exotic nectar, lime nectar, strawberry, pineapple and banana. Refreshing and healthy!

 Roasted Pineapples with Vanilla Ice-Cream. An unique hot and cold dessert combination! Its yummy!

For me, I decided to have a try of multiple deserts. The Combo Dessert come with crepe topped with chocolate sauce, floating island, scoop of strawberry sherbet, creme brulee and fruit salad.

Total cost of our meal was S$97 (roundup) for 2 pax inclusive of GST and service charge. By using the voucher from Groupon, I only spend S$65 for 2 person.

Overall, the environment was awesome, the price of the food was reasonable and affordable! :)

Tony Roma's!

Gosh! Finally the exams are over!!!!! Although I think I'm pretty confident my marketing paper is probably going down the drain, but its over, so I'm not going to think about it anymore! Moving on, I was really looking forward to a dinner date with my hubby, and just the day before, I picked out an interesting deal from Groupon, and it was a $30 Tony Roma's voucher, for the price of just $15!

Now, because Suntec City was under renovations, its actually much easier to locate the place. Once you exit from the Esplanade MRT station through Citylink, the first escalator going down to the basement of Suntec City will bring you to the front entrance of Tony Roma's.

Entering into the restaurant, I was really intrigued by the environment! From the photo above, you can see that the lighting and atmosphere was just perfect! Honestly, if there wasn't an annoying couple talking really loudly, and behaving like they are at some neighbourhood coffeeshop, it would have been a perfect atmosphere! Moving on...

After verifying on how to use the voucher, we understood that whatever you order in a single bill, the total bill will be deducted by $30 from the voucher itself. So for example, in total, my hubby & I spent $84.50. After deducting the voucher, we only needed to top up $54.50. But frankly, after we have tasted the food, we can tell you one thing! The $54.50 was under rated.

The waiter provided excellent service by explaining to us that ordering the combos will be much more worthwhile as compared to ordering ala carte, since we are there to try the food. So, I decided to go ahead and order the BBQ Chicken & Ribs combo, topped with Blue Ridge Smokies sauce. I also had the Corn on the Cob + baked potato as a side order. And my hubby ordered the Steak & Ribs combo, topped with Carolina Honeys, he ordered the French fries and coleslaw as sides to go along.

I have to warn you first, what you see in the photo on the menu, is really down-sized! The real deal was a huge portion. But because I was so hungry after my exam week, and my hubby just had a crazy mid-week training in the gym, we were both feeling so hungry, like we can eat a horse! BUT....wait for it.... The portion was so huge, we couldn't even finish the sides, and I didn't even finish the Chicken drumstick, and the ribs!!! * sobs *

BBQ Chicken & Ribs Combo

Steak & Ribs Combo

Next, my hubby! According to him, the Steak was done with an amazing job! It was thick and juicy! Never dry, and the Ribs was so delicious, he ate it all!! Leaving only the bones for the waiter to clear! Haha!!

Generally, this is how I will rate this place:

Service:
Price Range:
Ambience:
Food:
Will we be back again:

We rated the Price Range as 4.5 because eventhough it might be a little pricy as compared to eating at Aston Specialties, however, because of the service provided by the staff, and the quality of the food, the price is reasonable.

Outback Steakhouse @ Millenia Walk

So, without much rest break in between my adventures, my hubby and I decided its time we tried the Outback Steakhouse deal, which I bought through Groupon! And seriously, it was one of the best deals ever!

We were early today, reaching the place around 5.30pm, when our reserved timing was actually 6pm. But by the time we made our redemption, and they started serving the soup of the day around 6.15pm, the restaurant was already about 70% packed! 

One of the things I've noticed is how big the space of the restaurant was! Compared to many other mainstream western restaurants like Jack's Place and Aston Prime, or even Swenson's. And one of the things I did like was the environment within the restaurant.

So, to skip right to the juicy part of my food exploration today, we went ahead to order the Black Pepper Steak for my hubby, and I ordered the Ribs and Chicken Combo. Let's start with the beef shall we!!

Pardon the blurness in the picture towards the left, due to my hubby's lack of photography skills, haha. So, according to him (since I am not a beef-person), the beef was well done, and it wasn't too dry. Together with the shredded onions it made each bite something to remember! The fries were a great side to the beef, since we seldom indulge in fries since we stopped having it after changing our eating lifestyle. The portion of the beef wasn't too heavy, as my hubby only felt 3/4 full after finishing his main course + sharing some of my ribs and chicken!! haha! So, for those of you who are not big eaters and are concerned that you might waste food, you don't have to worry.

Looking at this photo of the ribs really makes me salivate once again! The meat of the ribs were so juicy, and tender, than when I stick my knife between the ribs and the bones, they would just fall apart! This is one good sign that the meat wasn't too dry, as compared to the usual ribs eaten at many other places. The chicken breast was a little dry for me, so I decide to pass half of it to my hubby.

On the overall, having bought 4 deals so far, only 3 have been up to standard, and worth trying again, and this one by far is definitely the best deal ever! I remember by the time I bought this deal online, there had been more than 2000 people who also bought the deal before me! So 2000 people can't be wrong! We'll most definitely come back to this place again without any doubts, and we can't wait to explore the menu and try out many of the other dishes available on the menu!

The deal for 2 person was worth about $85. Making it roughly $40 per person. But for the deal, I got it for $40+ for 2 pax! Now, that is truly amazing! At the current moment, I believe the deal might have closed, so too bad. But if you still want to try out something new, or if you are in Singapore for a stop over, and wondering where to go, this is definitely a place your can chill out!