A White Rabbit Valentine's Dinner

He booked The White Rabbit for a Valentine's Day dinner three days prior to the Day itself. Yup, I was surprised he managed to get a table too!

I had long read that this was a romantic and gorgeous place so I had wanted to check it out.

It is set in a 1930s grand chapel. I thought it cute that they played on the words.

We tried to enter via this entrance but was ignored even when the staff walked past the door! So we made our way to the other side of the building to enter via The Rabbit Hole where a bar and alfresco drinking lounge were located.

There is a spacious drinking area at one end of the restaurant

Taken from where I was seated

It was a crowded day. All the tables were occupied and the diners at the centre tables were seated quite closely to one another! There was ambience music but it was largely overpowered by the market-level talking made by the lovebirds!

Very lovely place indeed but ambience for romantic dining is not that fantastic. Not very private except perhaps for the circle booth seats at the sides of the restaurant that I did not take pictures of.

The circle booth seats are the ones with accompanying arched lamps. 

Put the request down in the 'Notes' when you are placing a reservation if you want those tables.

The menu for the day

We decided to try all. So one set on the right for him and one set on the left for me.

This was served before the appetiser. It tasted like creme brulee or puree made of beetroot.

William did not like it. While I was not repulsed by it, I acknowledged that it would be too much if he gave his share to me. One serving was just nice.

The sour dough and a dollop of plain butter

I didn't finish the bread and butter. Period.

          

Appetiser: Ora King Salmon and Scallop Carpaccio

     

                             Wagyu Carpaccio

Basically, they were Italian raw fish slices and raw beef slices. Quite tasteless to me. 

Roasted Kuhlbarra Burramundi

He told me that burramundi is a more costly fish than cod. Then why do I prefer cod over burramundi? 

Well, I thought the burramundi was ordinary. I didn't like the sauce in the dish though.

Iberico Pork Collar

I am not a pork person. If there had been beef or lamb, I would have opted for either. For a non-pork lover, this was acceptable. The meat was tender and succulent for pork. However, at this point, I was starting to fill up. I could not finish the pork collar and had to ask William to finish it. William seemed to enjoy my main course though.

I honestly enjoyed this sorbet the most! 

The sorbet was lime-refreshing and not overly sour like most sorbet. William preferred its heart-shape chocolates though.

Fine Apple Tart

The apple tart came in the form of well-arranged apple slices with crepes underneath. I thought it was delicious and sweet all by itself. The vanilla ice-cream and sweet syrup added another level of sweetness to the already-sweet apple tart. A little too sweet for me.

It is very rare that I enjoy the desserts the most since I do not have a sweet tooth.

You are going to think I am crazy but I love the decor there and I liked even the washroom.

Just outside the washroom. This is so quaint.

I took so many pictures that a Caucasian lady I met outside the washroom asked,"Are you an Instagram person?"

Valentine's Day Flowers - The Good & The Bad

William always bought his Valentine's Day flowers from Xpress Flower. The flowers were beautiful, and the presentation, I would say, rather modern. I came across a florist's Facebook advertisement and thought the bouquet was grand and gorgeous. I showed William the picture and told him to order from another florist this year.

And he did. But not from the florist I asked him to.

He ordered from Far East Flora since it is an established florist and enjoys fantastic reviews.

Unbeknownst to us, we were about to be very surprised for our Valentine's Day.

I came home on the eve of Valentine's Day to a supposedly pleasant surprise: 

There was a carton box of pink roses waiting for me.

Except that the surprises were nasty.

Firstly, Valentine's Day roses are supposed to arrive on Valentine's Day itself, right? Where's the surprise when they come so early? At night too?

Secondly, I am not exactly a pink-roses person. Roses are beautiful but this shade of pink is a little old-fashioned and cringey. But well, he did spend a bomb on the bouquet, so I shouldn't complain about the choice of colours and flowers.

Thirdly, the bouquet looked like it was something from at least two decades ago. 20 years ago, or even 40 years ago, the trend for flowers would be something like this: roses with baby's breath. But now it's 2020! I have seen better flower fashion than this. This was as if the florist's flower sense was still stuck in the 1980s.

The nastiest surprise of all, though, was the flowers themselves. Upon closer look, the petals of most, if not all, flowers were curling and browning. It was a dying bouquet.

I asked William what he did to make Far East Flora send a bouquet like that. He replied,"What could I have done? I wouldn't have written 'Please send dying flowers' when I ordered them!"

I passed the verdict,"These flowers are not acceptable."

He said,"Okay, okay. I will give them a bad review (online)."

!!!

I yelled,"NOOOO! Go and ask the florist to change a new bouquet! How can they even use this kinda flowers?!!"

A sister of mine asked if William had kept the bouquet for three days before he gave it to me.

My sister-in-law was in my house and she asked,"Is the florist implying that your marriage is withering?"

At 10pm, William wrote an email to Far East Flora to complain about the state of flowers and asked for a refund.

I was rather impressed that the florist replied within half an hour that a refund was not possible but we could choose another bouquet and they would deliver it the next day.

So I deliberated between these two available ones and chose the one on the right. William requested for a 2-5pm delivery since we would be going out for a dinner at 5pm. The florist agreed and 'explained' that the roses could have been bruised during the delivery.

I told William he should rebut the explanation since that was such a lame excuse. How could every stalk of rose be bruised? However, he wanted to be nice and let it go.

Well, at 12.30pm on Valentine's Day, William informed me that Far East Flora called him to tell him that delivery that day was not possible. They could deliver it on any other day except that day and they would throw in a complimentary bouquet if he would allow them to deliver on another day!

Wow! We wouldn't expect something like that to come out from the mouth of an established and highly experienced florist. It was as if the florist did not understand the significance of flowers on a Valentine's Day.

Doesn't Far East Flora realise that they could spark a quarrel between a couple - over a missing bouquet on a Valentine's Day?

William asked for a refund. Far East Flora insisted that he had to pay the delivery charge of $10 - for delivering a wilting bouquet of roses that we didn't want!

William decided to go find another bouquet. He went to the nearest florist, which was Xpress Flower  (again), and showed the florist a picture of the bouquet he wanted.

By then, the flower choices had become limited, since most flowers were packed in big bouquets for delivery and small bouquets for teenage or army boys buying for their girlfriends.

And of course, prices of flowers would have shot up to double their normal days'.

This was the last-minute make-up bouquet

And we loved it

I have since read about the Floral Garage and The Better Florist sagas and I think my situation is a little bit better than those disgruntled customers whose wives and girlfriends did not receive their flowers or the delivery was ridiculously late and the flowers turned out dying or haphazardly arranged but I am still very disappointed with the sub-par service and flower sense of a long-time establishment like Far East Flora. 

Shouldn't a florist understand the significance of flowers and its delivery on a day like Valentine's Day more than an average person? Suggesting that a complimentary bouquet would be thrown in if they could deliver the flowers on 'any other day except today' only adds insult to injury. It only aggravates the situation and makes the customer angrier.

Like what a Facebook commenter stated on one of those erroneous florists' pages: Even if they have to cab around to deliver the flowers, they should for the damn money we paid.