Artichoke

It's Sister's birthday. This year, she picked a hipster restaurant, Artichoke.

I took a cab there with parents. As usual, I was held up by work. We passed by this place in the dark:

Just imagine it's dark, ok?

The establishments in front were all closed for the day and it was just all DARK. Anyway, that's what the address said, so I asked the driver to drop us at the left of the building. But parents doubted that this was the right location. We were all running late, so I couldn't get any confirmation of the location from my siblings.

The overly-helpful taxi driver said he thought it might be a street further down, which has plenty of eateries. I think I know what he's talking about, but it's definitely not there! Father agreed to let him drive us there. Whatever.

Glad that we hit a deadend! So we just dropped off outside Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Why we were getting out, I got a call from Brother, who has arrived, not before having a hard time locating the restaurant. He came to walk us over. It's hidden on the inside of that picture, and as you can see, there's ZERO signage indicating their presence. And yes, not forgetting the rocky tiles path. Bad impression already.

We were ushered to a large table inside. A bit too big, I think. The tables were all well-spaced from one another. However, there was a serious echo problem in the premises. Our neighbors were loud-talkers and all we could hear were their conversations. We had to shout to one another and soon it just got too tiring. Let's just shut up and eat.

The concept is communal dining. The food was quite pricey, to us. Each dish costs the same as a main in a normal restaurant, like $20-$40-ish. If you need carbo, you have to order Pita Bread, $4.50 for 2 pieces. So it adds up. I wasn't very hungry and the food didn't rev up my appetite. Brother and Father did not seem impressed by the food. I think we ordered very little food, or maybe simply because the table was too big.

It didn't help that the manager/owner/whoever kept coming to ask how we were doing! He said coz we were rather quiet.

Want some feedback?

How about that you stop bothering us?

Of course we didn't say that. Just said we liked to eat quietly lah.

They have some cheeky neh neh pop popsicles with really fanciful flavors. Too bad I was still coughing, so Mother barred me from having one. Hey, cold things don't worsen cough one lah! They came too cold but I'm not complaining! Too cold is always better than melting. Just need to wait a while.

Nice place to hangout, if you are content with just staring at your companions without verbal interaction, or if you all have great hearing and the lung capacity of a marathoner.

Not recommended if it's your first time coming and trying to spot it from a taxi.