review: wedding lunch @ holiday inn orchard city centre

*back dated entry*

went down for my friend's wedding lunch banquet at holiday inn orchard city centre today ... my jiejie also held her wedding banquet there almost 10yr ago and i didnt have much recollection of the place but mama always told me that the food wasnt as nice as what we had during food tasting.... we shall see how their quality fair after 10years

location: the hotel is located behind cuppage, at somerset area so i would say location is pretty good & convenient.... you have to do a little walking from the station to reach the hotel, probably about 10min or so...

ambience: the ballroom was at the basement, same as where my jiejie had her banquet, she had her reception table just in front of the stairs, but my friend had hers besides the stairs which i thought it was worse cause there was even lesser area... there was barely 1.5m gap between the table and the stairs so people had to squeeze through to sign the guest book.... didnt really like that.... since i arrived slightly late, i didnt snap pictures of the ballroom but it was much smaller than what i remembered.... i read online that the maximum number of tables is 22, honestly if you have more than 15 tables, the place would be too cramp.... i remembered jiejie had like 30 tables so probably they partitioned the ballroom to a much smaller place.... another thing is that the ceiling seem pretty low which kind of makes the ballroom even smaller....

food: we had a 7 course meal & i would say the food was just average... i think the starter & duck were better compared to other dishes....

menu

i didnt take picture of the food cause i was seated in a "stranger" table, i only know 1 of the girls so not very nice to take photo of every dish.... & i think the portion was alittle bit small.... our tables had 7 girls & 2 kids, the portions were just enough to go around, pretty hard to go for second serving other than the duck... normally i would feel super bloated by the end of the meal (usually i finished about 80% of the food) but this time i felt just ok after lunch.... so if the table had more guys then maybe the portion wont be enough

service: i guessed there wasnt even staff cause we had to remind the staff quite afew times before we got our drinks served.... i felt the banquet manager was abit sloppy in terms of punctuality...... the cocktail reception start at 12nn and lunch supposed to start at 12.30pm... i arrived close to 1pm & i thought i would have to sneak into the ballroom but to my shock, all the guests were still outside... quests only start to enter the ballroom about 1.15pm... i understand not all the guests have arrived by 12.30 but i felt the manager should start requesting the guests to be seated... i would say more than 50% of the guests arrived by 1pm, all just hanging around.... as a result, the lunch only started about 1.30pm.....

price: the price i gotten online was $788Nett for weekend lunch banquet... price wise i think is quite attractive

conclusion: overall, i think holiday inn quality dropped even further compared to 10yrs ago.... i wont recommend people to hold their wedding at that ballroom if they intend to have more than 15 tables UNLESS the room can expand.... i think my friend had 15-16 tables & the space was pretty tight.... food & service were just average but i think the place is still attractive due to the relatively cheap price..... & if i am not wrong, most couples get 2 complementary nights at the suite instead of the normal 1 night... so i guess that's a bonus =)