13th
DEC
ADD sends mystery diner to Singapore’s 1st Maid Cafe
Posted by tsubaki | Filed under Cosplay, Meido
Need more news about the recently opened Meido Cafe that just opened yesterday?
Well I’ve taken the liberty to send someone to try out and test Cosafe’s standards on their first day and we’ve even got some pictures of the place!
So here’s what our mystery diner has to say about it:
Describe your impression when you first enter Cosafe.
There weren’t any maids around when we got there, which was around 4.30pm. One of the people involved with the cafe told us to come back around 6 to 7 pm. So we sat around and waited.
About 6 pm, a couple of maids appeared to have just arrived. Initial impression of uniform: KAWAII.
After we got a good look at their looks, meh. But it was dark by then and I could live with it… Dining was al fresco, by candlelight. I presume that the air con room was reserved for the up market people who could book the place. GAH.
Menu was printed on lousy paper bound together with tape. Very low budget doujinshi style, and there wasn’t enough to go around, so each table was limited to one copy.
Were you greeted the way Maids greeted their customers in Japan?
No. They gave off more of the waitress vibe than meido. NO GOSHYUJINSAMA WTF. And not enough customer : meido interaction, which isn’t surprising, given the ratio of 30 : 7
How is the atmosphere like in the cafe?
Busy. They didn’t have enough meido and kitchen staff. They probably didn’t expect a high turnout on their first day. In all, it felt like a regular cafe with cosplaying waitresses.
Were there other customers when you were dining?
i would say, around 30 others. Mostly cosplayers and people in the local anime scene and one foreigner who was interested in the meido (that guy ordered a beer)
What did you order? Food/Drink.
Total order, friends and all:
A lot of cold water. (They limited the water to 1 glass per customer, no refills. WTF)
Curry rice
Ciabatta toast
Fish and chips
Saw a lot of smoothies going around too.
How much was it?
If you order any thing with protein, it would cost you from SGD20-30. Stuff like fish or steak. Their first day promotion was 40% off all prices so I guess everything was grossly overpriced. A rundown from what I can recall:
Soup/appetizers: From $6
Pizza, pasta, salads and sandwiches: averaging $15
Fish/Meat: From $20
Sake: Didn’t look, but definitely expensive
How was the taste?
Normal. Like bistro style food at exorbitant, super high-class washoku dining in space with magic rocket fireworks prices. GAAAH. But i was treated. Yay.
Was it promptly served? How long did you wait?
Water: 5 minutes
Fish and Chips: 45 minutes
Ciabatta toast with blah wtf-is-that-red-raisin-like-thing topping: 1.5 hour
Curry rice: 2 (!!!) hours. And a little more.
Do you think it is worth the money?
NO. I give it around 6 months before their capital gives out.
Rate the Maid’s attitude and service towards you.
Friendly, but not really as much maid as the dinner host at a wedding. NOT MAID ENOUGH. TOO MUCH WAITRESS. NO GOSHYUJINSAMA (even to girls) = FAIL.
But I’ll forgive them because
1. It is their first day
2. They were not told what to do (they were just thrown into the lions den without any form of training)
And
3. One of the people involved in the selection criteria said that he chose based on how genki/hyper/on crack the maid is. WHICH IS TOTALLY WRONG.
Maids should span: tsundere-type, seme-type, uke type, motherly type, sisterly type, etc. So he ended up with a group of genki UN-MAID waitresses.
Rate the Maid’s attire and dressings.
From what one of the maids said, the attire is set to change. Form gothic lolita to sweet lolita to traditional victorian and whatever else they can come up with.
For now, I’d say its BORING. They should just rip a meido fuku off HiMM. Yoshitaka is a 1337 designer.
What is your overall impression of the cafe, and would you give it a 2nd try?
Maybe. And since the setting is completely al fresco (without any shelter), I’d like to see what they’d do when it rains.
—–
And that’s about it from our secret diner.
Of course it’s still a little too early to judge Cosafe since that was just their first day. I’ll be going after their so called “official” opening, and I’ll review it in this manner as well.
Reader's Comments
Leave a Reply
Sponsored Links:
Poll:
- Polls Archive
Loading ...Post Meta
-
December 13, 2006 -
Cosplay, Meido -
80 Comments
-
Comments Feed -
Del.ico.us
-
Digg This
Recent Posts:
- 30 May The Great Singapore Figur...
- 03 May I’m on teh newspape...
- 19 Mar Extras Needed!
- 17 Mar Evangelion 0.1: You Are (...
- 03 Feb Hello from space!
- 14 Dec Greetings from a film sho...
- 10 Dec Sinema Old School
- 01 Dec ADD and Tsubaki’s u...
- 28 Nov My shortfilm: swindle
- 22 Nov 2nd screening of Byousoku...
Wow, straight fiece comments, not saying its wrong, but quite true. I was dining with my friends which was why i did not really ask around. But i think we need to give it abit more time. They will definitly change from time to time, as what my experience tell me.
-.-” Omg~ Luckily I felt tired and didn’t went over today. Phew~~
Looks absolutely horrible! And you had to leave us with the last picture, which was absolutely eyeball-killing.
45 minutes for fish’n'chips? Much fail!
I’ll visit probably in 6 months time or something.
To let them warm up :)
The wait was quite long, guess their ordering system is still raw for most maids, lol. windbell was right, for those who want better service, you’re have to give more patient by letting them warm up first before visiting them.
Ok. fail. I changed my mind about going anytime soon.
@windbell assuming they are still around
sounds very much like your typical cafe, with high prices and well… waitress dressed in maid uniform
I still wanna see for myself :,D
though my friend says a girl going to that cafe is a little wrong >:D.
If those are the maids that they have, they’ll close down in less than 3 months. Seriously.
I knew there was something wrong when my eyebrow twitched before I saw the “maid/waitress” pictures…. And I should have trusted my instinct telling me not to look.
@XD I dun think theres any wrong, its just a new experience on this boring island lol.
I’m going to drag her along if I go.
@XD nice one, make her experience how it feels to be served by maids? Maybe she will get addicted on to it.
Actually, the girls look ok. I mean, considering the average Singaporean female is like… meh. Just don’t open a Host restaurant because local guys are worse.
The prices are expected. After all, its CHIJMES! Which resturant there doesn’t serve at these prices? But yeah, let’s wait a couple of months.
an appetizer is 1.5 times my daily allowance. woot ^_^
Yeah hey, how come it takes so long for them to serve the food? 45 minutes for Fish & Chips and even two hours for the Curry rice? That guy sure had patience. I’m quite disappointed though.
But the meido second from the left in the group photo looks good. Forgive me if I am wrong the picture is not big enough~
Hmm.. i totally agree with what that SPY of yours had said: YOSHITAKA IS INDEED A 1337 DESIGNER!! (*wat does 1337 means)
and ya. i dropped by the cafe in the afternoon with some friends. it was not open at that time. So we rotted at secret location XXX and went there again at 4pm…This time, we manage to see some people in it. It was: 1 construction guy. 1 mother and her daughter, in which is the girl in the right in the last pic. or she look kinda like her…
and when we approach them when it will be open, they said it was going to be “tonight”. Which kinda wasted our trip cos we heard it will be open from 11am to 2am..but further confirmation with them let us know that for this week only, they will open at 6pm due to some “reasons”
And from next week onwards, their time of 11am to 2am will START!!..
Personally: One of me friends said that “if the girl we say is the maid, he will come again.”
Now that i have saw the “maids” and their costumes, i might consider popping by again. And i mean it. lol. And their “site” is down….
I will be checking this place out after the CNY when I’ll supposedly have more money to spend if I didn’t went ahead to buy more (evil) HDDs…
EDIT: …girl we say is the ….say is saw…
Ok the place needs some fixes. Give them time. At least they’re trying (but… i don’t know…. the girls looked so strange that i would rather pay to stay out instead of in ). Anyway the question nobody asked: Who’s the mistery dinner??? Make your bets. hmmmmmmmmm we need to think of a prize too desho desho?
ooh. what’s their “site” anyway?
Was there at their opening day too. The wait for the food triggered a nasty gastric attack TT___TT
They need more kitchen staff. I need a job. It works out XD
@Jeremy : 1337 = Elite
i think i will go after CNY too lol when i have hong bao money to spare :D
anyway it looks quite disappointing but anyway its the first day.And how come theres malay girl ??
well, lucky.
My hongbao money is always taken by my mum to store in my banku. >_>
Off topic:
hey, this month’s Newtype the Voice got Aya Hirano on the cover:
http://pc.webnt.jp/newrerease/ntvo_index.html
Saw it today at Kinokuniya.
Was there last night when your mystery diner was there too. I saw the ang moh that ordered the beer. When the maid served, she forgot to remove the bottle cap.
I’ve visited three maid cafes in Akiba…and I must say that the Singapore one has got quite a bit to learn and catch up (I wonder if the management has visited maid cafe in Akiba?)
After speaking to the managers (not referring to Julia or Ferlyn) I must add that the management is quite clueless about Moé (and even Otaku) culture. And I even wonder if they know anything about fundamentals of the F&B and hospitality business too.
I was there earlier this evening (again). Only one other table was filled when I went there at around 8+.
[...] × • = bj0rN = • × tamago.sg Anime Desho Desho? [...]
I…..am……petrified……by the…..looks of the….maids…..
Creative idea, execution needs a little work I guess..
But still gets a cookie for at least trying, ha… ha… *stoned*
rather good review… thanks for providing the initial groundwork for qnyone who wants to go there
hey hey, not all of them are that bad! I like the second maid from the left! haha
i bet you guys have seen this. its in toronto
http://www.imaidcafe.com/
@wyred: true…. but take note of the service time it’s horrible… what do u do for 45 mins???
i’d wait 2 hours for curry rice if the maids were cute…..but based on the present maids pictured, i’d take my curry in a hurry.
just a minute tsubaki…. who’s the mystery diner???? and are u treating any more mystery diners???
From the pictures of the girls, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to go there.
They are anything but cute looking.
@Somatic Lol, and I think I saw you today. PMC uniform, queuing at payroll right? Black Samsung phone with GSD handphone strap from Newtype.
@bj0rn Don’t lie. You were dying to visit it.
@icie Haha, I hope I didn’t ruin your dinner.
@windbell Warming up is one thing, but they really need to hire moe-looking girls.
@TedFox LOL! Eh, don’t be so bad. Go visit them.
@XD There’s nothing wrong. Trust me, because tsubaki says so.
@sky9r Lol, so when are you coming back to Singapore to try this?
@tj han Wow, you’re so nice. But honestly, it’s probably because you grew up around ugly women. I think there’s a lot of hot girls in Singapore. Well, my school at least.
@緋村剣心 Because those are godly moe food! That’s why it takes so long.
@Jeremy Did you dine there as well?
@AeroFlare Let me know when you’re going. We’ll go storm the fort.
@lazyshinigami You’ll never guess it. The person wishes to remain annoymous forever.
@umehiko Lol, are you sure you want to work there?
@Chicken What’s wrong with having a malaya girl? Are you racist?
@Zer0 I’m still waiting for you to share your experiences on your blog. Oh and thanks for telling me about the VoiceNewtype. I called Kino a few weeks back asking whether will they be bringing it and they said that they didn’t know. Fuckers.
@SilverCrimz *Gordon’s Gaze*
@ebilfox A little is really polite you know. Lol
@jinyamato I’m pretty sure this review convinced a lot of people to not go. Lol.
@wyred I’m not too sure whether it’s because of the flash that’s making them look so ugly, or whether they really are that bad looking.
@Lss Yeah, and they have hotter maids. If they were photoshopped of course.
@weew Lmao, love the way you put it. I’d take away my curry too.
@jinyamato Not telling. And no I won’t be treating anymore.
@6six6 Not even try the food?
Yea, i saw you too, green tshirt, with a hair which really need cutting. LOL. In the morning while having that god forsaken Nasi lemark i already spot you.
Im might go down on sunday again during the official launch, will you be going?
@tsubaki: when u go ther, can u also take a picture of their visual display of the food? display is also very important
@Somatic Actually I already realized it was you in the morning. When I saw a PMC dude who’s tall, and plus I recalled seeing you around in AP’s uniform, I was already pretty much tempted to ask whether you’re Somatic. But since you were in a group I just decided not to. Suspicion confirmed when I saw that Gundam strap on your phone. Lol.
@jinyamato Photography’s actually not allowed. We sneaked this pictures out.
@Tsubaki – Its the same reason i did not approach you at payroll, since youre with your friends and most likely my friend will be thinking that im mad as to approach some one all of a sudden. I took out that handphone for the purpose of making you confirm your suspicion. LOL
@Somatic I think it’s your extremely loud discussion of Bleach that confirmed everything. ROFL. Working tomorrow?
@Tsubaki – Sat and Sun, and i will be in a diff uniform, dun spread the news here, i dun want to get stalk (You will understand it when you see me in that uniform) lol
@Tsubaki You know, when I was typing that comment, I was pretty much on the verge of cussing all over the place already. So “a little” isn’t just really polite of me, I was practically treating them like royalty already.
=X
@Somatic ~~ Ma..ma..masaka…you wear a maid uniform and work there?!
@tsubaki: never dined there at all.. but if you happen to see a guy whose around 1.5m tall and looks like some funny looking guy who look quite mature for a 12 years old (i’m 18) carrying a blue and black sports bag..its me.. and i nromally wear quite t-shirt with collar and normal pants guy. no fashion etc..
South East Asian maids
What happened to my comment?
Anyway, what I was trying to say was East Asian Maids pwns South East Asian maids. Maybe it was because of the “less” symbol.
Oh my god. Thanks for taking the brave step!
And anyway the first day is a very good day to judge, considering that I don’t really expect them to really improve, and the service will generally slip as the days go by.
@kristalyamaki: yes, it’s probably the less than sign, which makes the web think that you’re putting in an html tag..
And 2 hours for curry rice??? Man, I can make delicious instant imported-from-Japan curry without any vegetables in it in, like, 10 minutes! XD Reminds me of an Italian Restaurant I went when I was visiting Parma… I had to wait three hours for some Penne all’Arrabiata XD
So it’s more like a restaurant than a Cafe`… Oh well.
the 1st day is actually very rush for them to open tt day cos they not really prepared.. n tt day happen to be having onli 1 chef working.. thus resulting in the waiting time.. there wasnt enuff supply of the ice tts y they arent allow to refill
btw there r no malays there.. tt gal is a chinese wif tan skin colour..
my eyes… my eyes…..
the uniform looks cheap to me.
@helspectre You need to go there yourself. Lol.
@ilya They shouldn’t open if they weren’t prepared yet. They should have known that alot of people are expecting to go on the opening day itself.
@aoh The ironic thing is that each uniform cost about 100 bucks to make. I read about in on today’s New Paper.
@Jeremy – If i wear a maid suit ill pratically kill all appatite of all dinners, so dun guess.
LOLz, 1st maid on the left Kaolla in Meido uniform?
cool place, jus happen to see it when i went for dinner. i like the service, makes u kinda like a king. btw anyone knows the girls around there? most of em quite cute. looking for the girl named gabrielle or sumthin lidat. anyone knows?? pls tell me thnx.. hahaha.
@Somatic I don’t think they have your size… you’re really really tall! swt!
@笑い男 LOL at Love Hina reference. Yeah I suppose. I wonder if she likes eating bananas. Hahaha.
@somebody Cute? Oh dear.
$100 for that costume? Since they have the capital to open at chimes.. shuld at least chip in abit more for better looking ones -_-”.. japan maid cafes standard is waaay better than that.
well can’t comment much, guess i’ll go take a peek too ;)
I think I saw them at EOY. o_o;
they were doing the maid-jingle-dance-kinda-thing..good publicity effort though
Hahahz… Love eating bananas?
Would like to know about that too. =P
Wasted, didn’t get a chance to talk to “Kaola chan” when I went there today. Seems like business is picking up for them, tables are at least 60% filled for most of the evening.
Surprisingly, “Kaola chan” is not as tanned in person when I saw her today. Might be the lighting of the pic bahz? And the maids there today seems to be different from those 5 in the pic. They even upgraded their menus to high quality ones!
Found this article in the online New Paper, provides more background information on the cafe itself and the bosses of the cafe.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,119598,00.html?
tsubaki >> eh.. wat i can say is they r very disorganised.. everything is based on last min.. alot of gals wasnt happy wif it oso..
base on normal tailoring rate.. tt costume is abt $120 ~ $150 i guess…. a normal ffac tifa costume cost $250.. so judge the pricing ba.. somemore the costumes r custom made to their size..
笑い男 >> pls do not any how gif nicks to the gals.. its very rude.. the 1st day opening is very rush for them cos all stuffs r based on last min.. thus doesnt have time to improve on things like tt.. there arent onli those gals in the newspaper working.. there r another 8 gals oso…
somebody >> theres no gal named gabrielle inside..
[...] You can check out more pictures of maids on opening night at Tsubaki’s blog, who’d sent one of his spies to the cafe. Some of the maids working at Cosafé maintain blogs: roseatte and sparkling-diamonds (this girl apparently fell out of favour with the management of Cosafé ). Later that evening, Julia came over to our table and apologised for the SNAFUs. Apparently many of the maids had not received enough training and was thrown to the deep end of the pool on opening night. [...]
hey! they are actually very sweet girls, and easily hurt! don’t just judge them based on their appearances, and if you think that they are not cute enough, i’d ask u to try finding cute girls who have good attitudes. Some girls have nice faces, but its whats inside that is impt isn’t it so?Not everyone is perfect. They’re trying hard okay? And not all the problems fall on the management, many factors also contributed to what it is now. I just hope you people will find it in your heart to give them more time to get used to it, and hopefully, you’ll visit them again when it does.
Arigato.
@Misa I’m sure they are all nice people, but everyone has the expectation of been served by really cute and moe-looking maids, thus the letdown. It’s actually outside that counts more in that maid cafe industry. But I do understand where you’re coming from. I’ll definitely give them a try, but not until they have settled down. =)
they look the same!! i can’t categorise them to the various types of maid just by looking.
and why is it like.. open air with glass. should be more exclusive, or be more “mysterious” and not show everything to everyone. maid cafe =/= starbucks or coffee shop
btw, i read in the newspaper that they are having a “girls only” theme and are looking for guys to be hosts (ie, ouran..?!)
Hi Tsubaki,
may I know if i can borrow the pix of the maids for show and tell? I just re-visited Cosafe and have a follow up review. Will credit your site for the pictures (if it’s not too much of a trouble, is it possible to send me the original size pix? that’s because I use 600pix wide image for my template else the format will run…)
I have been there for dinner after few day of opening. The food there DON HAVE to wait so long la.. maybe the starting 2days were busy lor. The prawn pasta there very very nice, prawn are fresh lor.. eat in mouth QQ one la… and the root beer also very nice… don believe me??? go and try it yourself ba…. thing have to try and u will know the true. just blank saying no use ; )
[...] The Cast on soft-launch night (pix courtesy of Anime Desho Desho) [...]
[...] Last night was my first visit to the much maligned Cosafe Maid Cafe. I heard some really polar views on it, ranging from the drooling trolling farmers at Sgcafe.com to the secret agent from Tsubaki’s blog, and even Bjorn’s "interview" with the manager. For today’s post, I’ll just describe my first impressions and discuss some of its merits and demerits. [...]
Hi there ^O^
Lolz…thanks for your serious comments and omg…they were the same as mine!
And yes, Its Julia here.
one of the owners of this place.
currently I apologise it for being an utterly-hopeless place lolz.
My partners’ misjudgement…and I warned them…
they just werent ready to open.
Mystery diner,
If you remember me, I am that girl with the only black ribbon.
and I have been the only one doing almost all the serving.
And called into my role less than 15mins in advance by my partners who were too full of themselves.
Everything u saw there was not even half of what was planned to be done.
If you havent noticed, there hasnt been a grand opening yet.
When that grand opening is nearing- I will personally send an invitation for you here.
Come test us again,
once I am done revamping everything that were more or less destroyed to this point =).
Julia…at your service *bows*
@Julia Hello, thanks for taking the time to read and comment. This is just an impression of Coscafe when it first opened. I’m pretty sure you guys have ironed out most of the little problems and have improved tremendously (based on other blogger reviews), so take this with a little pinch of salt. I was initially apprehensive with your brand of a maid cafe, but it seems that it’s getting better, so, all the best =)
[...] Not only that, Tsubaki also received a comment from Julia herself from his post. [...]
Dude!! I want to know where this cafe opens at!! me want to go see see look look
but most likely i will not go in there and make myself hungry and broke, i will just stand out there and spy
*shifty eyes*
Hi
Linux software,news driver ,games
http://italiagame.org
Bye
Hi
This is spam.
http://www.sauce-dan.com
Bye
Was certainly better than is described here when I went, which was like two days ago. Things are improving nicely, I presume ^_^
You can supposedly get more customer-maid interaction through some special deal, though no photos and no touching is the policy (read this in a Singapore newspaper article).
Got service charge and GST included?
Peace people
We love you
What time did this coscafe open recently?
That time i going there with my friend around 2pm plus but haven open yet. Standing there doing nothing. So wasted our time there.
If you know can pls let me know,
A Back Reply, Thanks Alot!
Whoa. Only realized this post just now.
I was there too at the opening ceremony thing…me and my two bros. Coz it so chun opened when we were vacationing in Singapore (Im from Malaysia).
I’ve never seen an Akiba maid cafe, so I was not sure what to expect. It was an ok experience, I guess. We ordered a smoothie for like $6.80 and shared among the three of us. -_- Well I thought it was normal pricing for a Singapore upmarket cafe so it was alright. I can’t remember how long it took for the lil smoothie, but I do remember asking aloud why it was taking so long.
The maid that served us was relatively cute (XD) and the service was alright, it just lacked the anime-moe touch that so many people were expecting. I suppose it would be a bit unnerving for a non-anime-watching girl to say ‘hello master’ to complete strangers, and from what Julia said they were pretty rushed, so I’ll let it pass.
The highlight of it, of course was taking pictures with the maids. Back then me and my brothers had never even seen a cosplayer so a bit of sakai-ness was bound to happen. On the whole I won’t say it was a bad experience, they just needed more TIME, and if I had the chance I’d go again (and order that smoothie). :)
Wonder how they’re doing now though….any word? Still there? Or folded? Or how?
I was planning to go there… But if they don’t treat moe-ly that will be dissapointing :C
But Singapore’s not Japan though, so I think I can be okay with that… :D