Dinner buddy and I organized a quick dinner catch up sometime back in June. After much deliberation, we decided on a new-ish Italian restaurant at TripleOne Somerset. From the restaurant name, I had thought of the restaurant as a pure Italian play in the restaurant scene and not as an American-Italian diner as their website so proudly states.

To tell you the truth, while I knew that the old Singapore Power building had recently undergone a retrofit, I did not know that it was to be renamed Tripleone Somerset. At least, it was not renamed as TripleOne@Somerset (noting Singaporeans and their obsessive compulsion to use the ‘@’ sign. Read this quirky, fun post for more on this bad branding.

We arrived earlier than our reservation and tables were not freed up yet. As a polite gesture, the manager offered us a glass of coke each to quench our thirsts while we waited at the bar and I very much appreciated this. However, besides the complimentary glass, service was clearly lacking. They clearly had forgotten about the complimentary bread (I’m not a sucker for free things but — just one of those things where I saw tables who arrived earlier, seated behind us getting their breads while we were not served ours.

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