Novotel Clarke Quay

[ryanon123]

NCQ now allowed to change date? That time my contract got state that cannot change date lo, must be as per the contract stated.

Not even changing to a date that is available because i asked and they say might incur complaints if date is unavailable and later available again because people change... then told me they cannot control if everyone changes date so must follow as per the contract layout. Think must double confirm lo

 

[ryanon123]

Jerome,

(1) I had my dinner at NCQ last month and wine consumption is about 1.5 bottles per tables and i started serving wine when guests are seated at about 8pm. I had 21 tables and 1 barrel of beer is sufficient for my case, but got complaints from some guests who wanted to start drinking once they reached at 7pm. Another one or two complaint when there is not stout, another want heineken and got one insist on carlsberg.. they think i opening bar counter. Only tiger is available that night but all the complaints only comes from a group of people who i don't even know well.

(2) NCQ did not charge us for hard liquor.

(3) No need to hog the ballroom la... can hog the bridal suite also.. ha ha... and you can stay at the reception mah.. also quite comfortable with so many sofas and tables there.

 

[busygal]

hi will like to seek advise from u guys who hav held your banquet at the pheonix ballroom. Can I ask for those sitting at table 1-5, will they hav prob seein the screen at the side? TIA..

 

[rjwedding]

hi jerome,

i also got 50 tables.. Mine is a sunday wedding..

1) For wine, on top of the one free wine each confirmed table, extra 6 bottles of wine opened.. For beer, on top of one free barrel, I brought in bottles beer, extra 12 bottles are opened..

2) Think nowadays ppl also hardly drink hard liquor.. i also brought in 2 bottles.. no charge at all..

3) We ended everything at abt 11.30pm.. my friends went up to the bridal suite with us.. so we partied till abt 1am inside my bridal suite..

hi happygal: those ppl seating at table 1-5 have no complaints abt the screen.. anyway my reserve table is table 1.

 

[zer061zer0]

Hi R&J,

Did the hotel charge you any extras for opening the bottles of beer? Any restrictions on like you can only bring tiger or something?

 

[busygal]

hi R&J, thks.. so if i have 40 tables i guess all guests shld be able to see the screen rite? coz i m worried the table in front of the screen.. wonder if it is really near for them..

btw will like to ask.. if i have 40 cfm tables, how many shld i cfm wif HL 1 wk b4 my wedding? coz i m afraid though is cfm 40 tables rite.. sometimes last min some guest might not turn up... so wat is an advisable table to tell HL?

 

[ryanon123]

Zer061zero,

There is a corkage charge of $6++ per bottle if you bring in your own beer, or else buy from hotel.

happygal,

You can delay and confirm the no. of tables like 1 week before the banquet, by then you should have a good idea of the attendance.

 

[zer061zer0]

Hi Ryan,

Would you know how much per bottle cost from the hotel? Cause I know an extra barrel is about 600odd++.

 

[busygal]

zero61zer0 - from what i understand NCQ do not sell beer in bottles. they only sell in 30ltr barrel. they do allow u to bring ur own beer at corkage or 6++ per bottle or 3++ per can.

ryan - Yah i know i will only need to tell her the cfm no 1 wk b4 so i m thinkin how many shld i say then. normally do u all say the cfm no or u all will say 1 less table since there will be 2 reserve tables?

 

[ryanon123]

hi zer061,

i don't think they sell by bottles but a glass is about $9 to $11++ (can't remember the exact). DO the math, a bottle is equivalent to about 2 glasses which you would had to pay about $20++ to the hotel but by bringing in your own bottles, you pay only $6++ and $4.60 a bottle from market. It's a lot of different and you deifnitelyt will save by bringing in your own.

 

[ryanon123]

hi happygal,

I will suggest you just mention the confirmed tables you wanted.

(1) Not possible all the 10 person in the same table will be absent.

(2) If you are thinking of reshuffling seats among the tables for the absentees, i say better not because it's too much trouble if you have to tell a guest he is seating at a table number, then find him and tell him that he changed number.. because you will only know the no. absentee towards the end of the cocktail.. TOO MUCH TROUBLE.

(3) I'm sure you will have enough headaches on the seatings that day, i assured you that you won't want to bother about doing too much reshuffling of seats.

What you can do is to call up the guest one week before the dinner, confirm that they are coming before confirming with NCQ on the no. of tables. I say 95% of my guests turns up. As far as i remember, out of all my friends only 1 didn't turn up because he got the wrong date. (presumably) and i did what i just said, by that time they should had a good idea whether they will be coming.

 

[busygal]

hi ryan,

thks so much for the above explanation. think about it, i do agree on what you say. on the actual i guess we don't have much time to reshuffle also.

do u have 1 or 2 tables whereby u allocate 11 adults each? i m thinking if it is ok coz i have 1-2 excess friends.

hi anyone request 12 paxs for the VIP table? did you top up money for that extra 2 paxs? is it ok to have 1 VIP 12 pax and 1 VIP 10 pax?

 

[zer061zer0]

Hi Ryan,

That's what I was trying to find out too. If ultimately it would be cheaper to pay corkage, or to buy direct from NCQ.

Thanks for all the help!

 

[rjwedding]

what Ryan explains is really very clear.. buying beer from NCQ is really too much as compared to you brought in yourself.. as for myself, NCQ actually waive the beer & wine corkages for me.. they don't bother what brand of beer u brought in..

as for the seating arrangement.. just need to tell HL 1 week before ur confirmed number of tables.. (actually till the eve of my wedding day, I still got changes to the tables and I got to quickly tell Jaime abt it) as what Ryan said.. even ur guests did not turn up, ur whole table wouldn't be empty right?? i have abt 3-4 tables with only 5 people.. i don't bother to shift them around.. very troublesome too.. I got few tables with 11 pax, but those tables are mainly tables with babies/young kids or muslim/veg friends.. try not to have too much tables with 11 pax if u are going to have 50 tables.. it will be very cramped.. also for those 11 pax tables, try to put at the corner..

for my wedding, one VIP is 10 pax, the other is 11 pax.. no extra cost.. not too sure abt 12 pax..

 

[ryanon123]

happygal,

You can decide whether you want 10 to 12 pax in the VIP table, cos those tables are bigger. When i asked a coouple of months ago, i was told by Jamie that if we had 12 pax, we can choose to pay for 10 or 12 pax price and the food volume will adjust accordingly. I have 10 pax at each VIP table in the end, but i suggest if you wanted to put 12 pax in the groom's VIP table, there is not need to pay for another 2 pax share because the bride and groom will not have much time to eat. Also, i think if i pay for 12 pax, ultimately the fish will also be 1 fish, they won't give you 1 fish + 2 fin.. ha ha.. only those like soup, mee or vegetables etc can give you more so not worth it..

For normal tables, i have like 3 tables with 11 pax. It's still okay but if you want 11 in a table, then try to put more kids as they eats less. Most of my 11 pax table is because there is a vegetarian or muslim eater in the table.

 

[busygal]

Hi R&J and Ryan,

Thks for all the advise. I understand from HL that at VIP table, the food for the guests r all served individually rather than they scope themselves. is that right? then the bride and groom's share will be brought to the room after the whole thing. hmm is there really a need for this? do u guys still eat after the whole event?

 

[starskyz]

Dear all, i read in the past postings abt the negative feedback on the food quantity. Can anyone verify about the food quantity for the recent banquets?

i understand the issue on wastage if the guests couldn't finish the food, but it's definitely a better image than having all the food finished on every course.. you can't even tell whether the food is sufficient in the latter case..

My wedding is in Mar 09 but I kinda worried abt this issue..

 

[busygal]

starskyz, i recently went for the food tasting and I would say the food portion is barely just right. I have feedback to HL to increase the portion as i feel it may not be enuf if there r some big eaters in a table.

as for food quality, i would say they r pretty gd, only negative remarks will be the fish. i think it is v hard. to us it is like overcook but when we feedback to the restaurant, they comment that the fish texture is like this. if we wan something more tender we can change to red garoupa which means additonal top up..

 

[ryanon123]

Starskyz,

We had the same thoughts as happygal. My guests commented the food quality is not bad, but the quantity is kinda short to me. I don't think you should get over worried on this, you got much more impt. thing to worry abt.

 

[ryanon123]

happygal,

She is right. All the food is served individually, it's quite standard across every hotels and restaurants for VIP tables.

And Yes, you really need to have your food brought into your room after the banquet had ended. You don't have time to eat anything during dinner and after all the work you will surely be quite hungry. And maybe you will not have time to eat the pre-cocktail dinner because it's quite early and you maybe like us, not so hungry and have a lot of issues to attend to so just skip it. On the contrary, i thought i did not have enough food to eat at the room after the dinner. ha ha

 

[ryanon123]

and i realised that during the food tasting, no matter what we feedback, they always had a reason to retort us. I think they are so used to the same feedback that they had a standard reply to all. I somehow feel instead of listening to our feedback, they are simply telling us that what we said is WRONG because we are stupid and there is a reason why it is saltish, or hard etc.

I do have that feeling after the food tasting because everything i said he say it's normal to be like that etc. We say the roast chicken we said some of the parts are too salty and not even, he say its like that one because "can't remember the reason". we say the shark's fin too watery and he say "most people like it sticky"and we will be making a big mistake.

 

[happinessbliss]

Erm , i do have good experience with the food feedback after the food tasting. 1 day before our dinner, someone called my husband and he is chef XXX... can't remember his name... he says he did rec'd the feedback and will pay special attention to what we feedback, like the shark's fin too gluey and chicken too salty... and on the actual day the food is actually better then what we taste during food tasting...

And i do have a table that did not turn up... yes the whole table... cos its a family of 4 + some people... and "coincidently" all did not turn up even after i cfm with them the nite before... but thks to experienced xiong di, they manage to seat some people at that table so that it will not look empty.... I would advise BTB and GTB to make sure that the xiong dis and jie meis knows exactly what they have to do ... that will take away a huge chunk of yr headache... for us we do have some minor hiccups, but was eventually even out by the helpers...

 

[starskyz]

happygal/ryan> thanks.. i noe it's difficult to oversee such details like whether the food was enuff for everyone.. i juz hate to have my guests not enjoying themselves and later had to go for supper etc.. i just hope (and i believe every couple hope) that the guests had too much to eat and leave with a bloated stomach..

it also makes no sense for me to place less than 10 persons each table to ensure enuff food for everyone, it's as good as taking up the other hotels of higher pricing.. come to think of it, novotel's low prices are compensated by the lack of seafood(scallops) and abalone. if the food portions are small, it's not worth it to hold the banquet there anymore.. not to forget, the prices for 2009 has gone up by $80.00 per table for all packages..

haiz.. dunno if it's pre-wedding jitters, i'm getting kinda depressed with the negative issues i see in novotel's thread..

 

[ryanon123]

starskyz,

are there many negative issues here? think there were more positive than negatives.. ha ha

ya, maybe the pre-wedding jitters had gotten you

relax

 

[xuer21]

hi all,
i am havinbg my wedding this sat.. and after seeing all these feedbacks i am getting worried .. as for the food tasting.. actually i graded all only as average or poor.. mayube my expectations high ba.. but when huiling saw my grading.. she sounds disappointed.. but no choice lor got to let them know my honest opinions.. then one thing i agree is the standard answer.. as if we are in the wrong.. cos when i feedback to the restaurant manager abt the food not being served warm.. he says " the kitchen is just right behind the ballroom, it might be due to the guests delaying their time eating and as a result, the food turned cold" pengz...

as for the chicken, i also had the same prob.. some were salty, some bland.. so when i feedback.. he says maybe nv mix properly ah.. bla bla.. always got a reason one lor... then my prawns the most jialat one... only got 9 pieces of prawns!! although its big but then its not presentable.... then when i feedback.. he says " cos they go by weight of it " so i also dunno wat to say..... they dunno what is call presentation is it ... haiz... after repeated feedback.. i do hope they will improve...

 

[starskyz]

ryan> perhaps i'm over-sensitive bah.. but kinda worrying seeing that Novotel is not receptive with all the feedback given by the couples.. i tend to see the same issues faced by couples who held their banquets there: the attendants are untrained and insufficent to attend to your guests requests, the food quantity and also abt Huiling's attitude.. (i signed up with Jamie before she left. i was impressed by her professionalism back then.)

michelle> i agree, the 9 prawns scenario is really ridiculous.. if they go by weight, even if they provide 10 prawns, the prawns will be relatively smaller too.. it also dun look nice to have only 1 prawn for each guests.. wad happens if we have 10+1 (10 adults and 1 kid)? there wun have enuff food to go round..

 

[busygal]

starskyz, all along i deal with HL and I find her quite nice. Maybe some bad pts will be she reply email a bit slow (like 1-2 days later) and she is quite strict wif the perks). apart from this i find her friendly n approachable.

for food wise i guess is really see ur luck. i read both gd n bad comments on the serving n the service.

ryan - earlier i read u hav a cake from them.. how come so special?

 

[youkie]

happygal, i ve the same feedback as you on the fish. mine was undercooked, the flesh stuck to the bone. the answer was the texture is like this, if we want a softer one, got to change to red garoupa.
Did you change in the end?

 

[ryanon123]

wa, it appears like the food tasting feedback is really no use huh...

But having only 9 prawns for a table of standard 10 person is really ridiculous ... not even appropriate at all.. so 1 person is supposed to go empty on the prawn? HA aha... speechless...

happygal,

i think they will give you a 600gm fruit cake after the dinner. It should be in your room by the 2nd march in.

As much as all the negativity regarding the food quantity, the food tasting feedback, the poor service by the waitress etc... i think we all have to agreed that the setup was quite impressive.

 

[ryanon123]

btw michelle,

good luck this saturday. got any doubts to clarify, you can ask me here

 

[xuer21]

ryan,
yeah thanks! I sincerely pray hard everything goes on smoothly.. i dunwan any major hiccupps.....

 

[busygal]

hi youkie, no i did not change coz need to top and if so not cheap.. n i feel it has nothing got to do wif the type of fish.

hi ryan, u mean is a complimentary cake that is not stated on the contract? they put in ur room? means they enter the room when u r not ard?

 

[ryanon123]

yes someone did entered the bridal suite when we were at the ballroom. i think housekeeping did because the stuffs were tidied up and the nice flowers and water from the bathtub was drained off and removed. its funny but we thought we are supposed to enjoy the bathtub but they removed it in the mid of the dinner.

when we went up for the 2nd march in change, it's gone liao.

i don't think they should enter the room w/o us asking for, i didn't like it

 

[ryanon123]

michelle,

i think the biggest problem is when relatives didn't want to sit with one another and you need to reshuffle seats..

you need to get someone to be in charge of this. it's pretty common problem.

 

[xuer21]

ryan,
ya i think i shouldn't have this prob la.. cos i already placed my guests in the best arrangement.. as for frens so long as they move within the few tables that they are allocated to then i think its alright..

I also dun like the idea of the person going into the room le.. did u put ur hongbao box in the room???? safe?? cos i rememebr seeing someone post here regarding abt the bath was suppose to be for after the wedding one ... maybe i will request to huiling that i dunwan anyone to enter

 

[pannie]

Hi all.

I have booked the pheonix ballroom for my wedding. Min is 30 tables.

What if I have only 28 tables? Do we still have to pay for the balance 2 tables and eat another time? Or can we put the 2 tables as reservation table??

Please advise.

Thanks.

 

[ryanon123]

Michelle,

Yes there is a safe inside the washroom closet.

 

[edwin_teoh]

Hi Ann,

Even if you have only 28 tables, you still have to pay for 30 tables price even if 2 tables are not opened.

 

[footprint]

Yup, minimum is 30 + 2.

 

[xuer21]

Ann,
i only confirmed 28 tables with huiling and 2 reserved.. the other 2 i am going back again to consume..

 

[xiaoli]

Vegetables --- Stewed Mixed Mushrooms with Broccoli

Hi, does anyone has tried the above dish? I tried it during the food tasting and the mushrooms taste bitter. Have feedback, but was told to top up to change to a more expensive dish.

 

[ryanon123]

hi michelle,

i didn't know they allow you to come back and consumed the unused tables.. very good

 

[xuer21]

ryan,
ya but that depends one cos beginning i told huiling that if i only have 28 tables then how.. then she says can go back and consume lor.. but then yesterday she told me cannot then i retort back lor then now ok liao haha

 

[ryanon123]

xiaoli,

that's quite unprofessional. it's like telling you if you don't like it, then pay for a better one.

 

[jaslyn888]

I'm holding my wedding at Novotel on the 17th Jan. I got some qns as well:

I see that the screen is not very big. Can all my guest in the room see clearly what's casting there? I'm expecting around 35 tables

Also, will they be giving those "pops" on the side tables for our guest to pop for our march in?

Lastly, how's the first dish presentation like? Impressive?

 

[busygal]

hi can i ask b4 they serve the dessert, will they actually clear all the things on the table? coz i m thinkin for those unoccupied seats, there wil be wedding favours not taken rite. I m thinkin when is the right time for the helpers to go round collectin all the untaken weddin favours. wanted to keep for those frens who did not attend the weddin.

 

[ryanon123]

hi michelle,

everything went smoothly on saturday?

 

[ryanon123]

happygal,

i think the guests on the same table would had taken it. If you want to keep it, i supposed you would had to do it much earlier. Hee

The waittress will not clear wedding flavors...

 

[busygal]

hi ryan, ok then i guess won't hav much left over on tables then.

 

[jiahui]

Hi all
Just came back from honeymoon.
So i pop in to drop some remark.
Read that you all had been discussing about the food.
I had my wedding on 5 Oct.
I didn't know that the empty confirmed tables, actually can go back other day to consume.
Tot only can package.
That night, 2 confirmed table empty coz attendance fall short.
They packed the 2 TABLES of food to our room.
Can imagine, how we finish them all.
Generally, most of it gone to waste.

From the feedback of my parents, relatives and xiongdis, they all commented that the fishes were too cold.
Some under cook but still edible. But Got fishy smell.
And we topped up for Red Grouper.
We even upgrade the vegetable to braised sea cucumber.
Most guest felt some pieces of sea cucumber abit hard.
During the food tasting, the prawn size were quite ideal.
But on actual day, they prawns turn out to be smaller.
Most guests said that it is no different from hawker centres' standard.
I was quite disappointed after hearing it.
I can understand that in mass production, standard do varies. But not so 'jialet'.
We had paid so much and yet we got this standard.
My parents and sisters told me this after I came back from honeymoon.
Coz they don't want to dampen our mood.
After the dinner, normally they will give a survey form.
I haven't filled in yet. And I'm going to feedback and comment it in the form soon.
I hope they really can improve the standard.

Put aside the food quality, overall, i find the banquet manger, Liz, service is good.
The first dish presentation did impressed the guests. And the ballroom ambient is nice.


Hi Michelle
Hope that everything went smoothly on ur Big Day.