Greyhound Cafe is a cafe hailing from Bangkok. They opened a cafe in Singapore in the heart of Orchard Road, at Paragon. Greyhound Cafe is my favourite cafe in Bangkok and we never miss visiting them in Bangkok.  I was delighted when I heard that they have opened in outlet in Singapore. We visited on a Saturday evening and the cafe was packed.

The cafe has an open concept layout, and sought to provide a leafy garden setting in a modern mall. At the entrance of the cafe, you are welcomed by a floral display on the table. You do feel like you are dining in a green house. You could see dried plants being hung and some butterflies cut out from Coca Cola cans. It’s certainly an innovative way of recycling the cans into displays. The key element that prevented a tranquil dining experience from materializing was the noise. The cafe felt somewhat boxed in and the conversations of the many diners  created noisy environment that was probably rivaled only by a wet market or a busy train commute.

We ordered our favourite Greyhound Famous Fried Chicken Wings ($12), Basic Fried Rice with Egg and Bacon ($14), Fettuccini with Grilled Vegetable in Pesto Sauce ($16) and Fruity Shaky Yoghurt ($9).  The chicken wings were served first. They tasted differently from the ones we has in Bangkok. The key issue is the lack of the fish sauce taste which is what the wings were known for. The color here was much darker and my wife suspected that a fair amount of light soya sauce was used. It was very oily too. Half of the wings tasted different from the other half; it was a clear case of very inconsistent marinating. On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 identical to the Bangkok wings), the first few scored 3 or 4 while the last few scored 1.

The fried rice was too salty. There were many small cut bacon pieces within the rice but there were hardly any fried eggs. The rice was dark brown in colour and overpowered with the light soya sauce taste. and  There was a generous portion of bacon slices served at this side, which were slightly pan-fried and had some slight crisp taste. The bacon was soft in the middle and tasted quite good but was not enough to salvage the rice. The clear soup was served with a small meat ball and a piece of winter melon.

The fettuccini was far too oily. Large amount of oil was used. The grilled vegetables were chopped to tiny pieces which could hardly be seen. The pesto sauce sauce was not fragrant and too much of it was used.

The fruity shaky yoghurt was the item that was most faithful to the taste we experienced in Bangkok. While it tasted fairly identical in that you could still pick out the various flavours of the fruits (such as orange, banana, pineapple), the disappointing quality of the food and the poor service rendered made it difficult to relish the drink as much as we we wished.

The service was quite a turn off in a few aspects.We took a while to order as we wanted to enquire on the terms of a dining promotion. Two of the service staff had no clue and finally the manager explained on the terms. In our view the staff should be briefed adequately about their ongoing promotions. A waitress gave an unpleasant glare and tone when we canceled our order for plain water after she informed us that it would cost $1. When we were having our wings, another waitress suddenly placed the plate of fried rice on my side and literally shoved it against my side plate from which I was having my wings. When my wife remarked about the service, another waiter nearby sheepishly came and gently aligned the plate. The waitress also cleared our plates without checking with us.

The overall dining experience was not enjoyable. The ambience was noisy, the service was poor and the food was a poor replica of that in Bangkok. We highly doubt we will return but you may want to consider visiting the cafe for some drinks at non-peak times on weekdays. Just go with low expectations and hopefully you will not be let down further.

Address
Greyhound Cafe Singapore
290 Orchard Rd
#01-25/25A Paragoon
Singapore 238859

Opening hours
11am to 10pm