Aiwo – Love Me

It was only a matter of time. Only a matter of time before someone came up with a new conveyor belt restaurant concept. Five or six years ago, at the height of the conveyor belt sushi craze in Singapore, I kept mentioning to friends, or anyone who would listen to me, that doing a dim sum conveyor belt restaurant would be an interesting business proposition. My idea was shot down as unworkable. Well, a couple of years back, the first dim sum conveyor belt restaurant rolled onto the Singapore eating scene. And now, in 2004, “health food” is being wheeled out on a conveyor belt.

Aiwo – the anglicized spelling of the Mandarin phrase “love me” or “love oneself” – is the 2½ months old new kid on the block offering this novel food concept. In place of sushi or dim sum, it is little morsels of healthy food that go round and round on the conveyor belt. Apparently, each serving of food promises to have no more than 50 calories. The dishes are also supposed to be low fat, free of cholesterol, and as the restaurant puts it on their promotional flyer, have “only low and medium density carbohydrates”. So, clearly, for anyone who is on a carb-restricted diet or just want to watch their waistline this would seem the perfect place to dine. Even if one eats 10 of the dishes, it will only come to a mere 500 calories. It is an interesting marketing strategy.

Now, I’m always curious about new concepts and ideas, so we just had to go check this place out…

The décor is simple – another version of the ever-popular sparse, clean, pared-down modern look. Lots of exposed concrete, wooden flooring, metal/steel furniture; and the must-have glass show-case kitchen from where the chefs dish out the small plates of food. Several large plasma screens, flashing information about the menu items, complete the modern appeal. However, for a touch of the natural and in keeping with the “health” theme, a water wall runs down the right side of the restaurant.

The owners have quite obviously taken pains to improve and innovate on existing conveyor belt restaurant concepts, practices, technology and design. I particularly like their glass-topped, steel tables. Each one has two small drawers (one on either side), in which the forks, knives, spoons, chopsticks, napkins and the a la carte menu are kept. Not only is it a very nice practical (and clever) touch, it also looks really good. Another thing I really like is the attention to detail in choosing the cutlery and glasses. These are classy, good quality cutlery and elegant water glasses; probably even better than some of the high-brow establishments! And none of those small plastic plates, thank you very much. Here, white china plates are used to dish up the food. In a business where first impressions do count; this is a big brownie point.

The heated conveyor belt is of improved technology. Unlike the dim sum version, this one is fully heated, rather than just having “hot spots” at regular intervals along the length of the belt. And yet it is cool to the touch, quiet and smooth moving. Nice.

It is interesting that the restaurant has decided to do away with the standard counter seating that is common to all conveyor belt restaurants. Instead, only table seating is provided. The curious thing is that it appears only groups of four and below are catered for. One wonders what happens if you have a fifth friend who wants to come along. Nevertheless, I really like the leather-looking chairs – very plush and highly comfortable.

The food concept is simple. The meals are apparently all based on the Zone diet (a popular American diet plan) that espouses a daily intake of 40% low-density carbohydrates, 30% low-fat proteins and 30% mono-saturated fats. According to the restaurant, they hired a team of food technologists and nutritionists who spent five years studying and researching the diet and the menu.

Each day, there are 14 items on the belt, of which 10 are vegetarian options. The menu changes daily, and the chefs are said to have a repertoire of 400 Chinese, Indian and Mediterranean dishes. So, theoretically, you can eat at the restaurant everyday for nearly a month before the dishes are repeated.

The restaurant charges a fixed price for the meal – S$12.60+++ (US$7.40) for lunch and S$14.60+++ for dinner. For this amount you may eat as much as you want from the conveyor belt. The price also includes a starter of soup and a side of soya unleavened bread. There are four further options on the a la carte menu that can be ordered separately and range in price from about S$6 to S$11 per serving. Desserts are also extras.

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We visited the restaurant on a Sunday evening. It was quiet – largely due to its location in the financial district which is always deserted during the weekends. There were only 3 other couples dining there throughout the time we were there; the staff far outnumbered the patrons.

Usually when I dine at a restaurant or any eating outlet for that matter, I try to see the positive elements of the food, service and ambience (and almost always there will be some). But where necessary to also offer some constructive feedback on areas where I feel (in my own personal opinion) perhaps more improvements can be made. I do not doubt for one second that the restaurant business is a very difficult one. It is a people business. It is dependent on people for revenue, and dependent on people to provide the food and services. And human beings are imperfect – innately so. Therefore, it is not for us as imperfect customers to demand absolute inviolable perfection from fellow humans who serve us or cook for us as part of their jobs.

However, there are times when, try as I might, I am totally hard pressed to be positive, much less get excited about the food and service of a particular restaurant. And sad to say, Aiwo falls into this category.

We all know that when we choose to dine at a conveyor belt restaurant, we cannot expect food quality beyond a certain level, regardless whether it is sushi, dim sum or any other type of food that is being served. By its very nature, the conveyor belt concept does not allow for a level of quality that normal restaurant operations can provide when it comes to freshly cooked, immediately served dishes. The conveyor belt restaurant is also a niche business idea based on economy, value and speed. Thus, its food cannot fairly be compared with a full-fledged restaurant. Nevertheless, one still expects the food to be reasonably tasty and appetizing.

These were the dishes on the menu the evening we were there.

The food tasted healthy – very healthy in fact. So much so it was all rather one dimensional.

I remember reading in one of the newspaper reviews of the restaurant, the reviewer complained that salt had been completely left out, and the dishes were bland. The management had obviously read the review. They now salted everything; and in many of the dishes, they oversalted, such as the soup and several of the other items. In fact, saltiness was the one overriding taste note that was apparent in almost all the dishes (although some of the items remained fairly bland – thankfully so, for the sake of our taste-buds and kidneys).

On the “advice” of another newspaper review, they seemed to have toned down the spices, and made everything “middle of the road”. In my personal opinion, food, or at least good food, cannot be “middle of the road” – that is but a recipe for mediocrity. Sure, you can have delicately flavored dishes and you can have food that is boldly put together taste-wise. But you just can’t have “neither here nor there” food. And so, the dishes did not really taste very much different one from the other. It probably wouldn’t have mattered whether you had the broccoli or the vegetable stew… they all looked and tasted pretty much the same. There was a woeful lack of interesting flavors or complex aromas and textures to tempt and tantalize the taste-buds. There just wasn’t anything to get excited about at all, I’m sad to say.

It also didn’t help that all the dishes were either cold or barely lukewarm. They had all been evidently cooked way ahead of time, most probably at lunchtime. Some of the dishes had also quite obviously been reheated to death.

This was the complimentary side serving of soya-based unleaven bread. What can I say? It was dry, tough, chewy, almost stale tasting. Almost inedible. We left it untouched.

Item 1 – Steamed Fish with Szechuan Vegetables. I don’t know about you, but this did not look steamed to me. The fish had a layer of batter, and was thus most likely deep fried (which couldn’t be classified as a healthy cooking method by any standard) before perhaps being braised. The batter was soggy, the fish cold. The Szechuan-style sauce did not have any noticeable notes of tangy sweetness or indeed any “spiciness”. Yet, this was one of the better dishes of the evening that I felt I could almost “enjoy”. At least the fish was not overcooked but was tender and moist.

Item 2 – Chicken Supremes Cooked in Chettinad Spices. Dry, reheated chicken. No evident spice notes. ‘Nuff said.

Item 3 – Grilled Salmon Marinated with Herbs & Mustard. You know, I’ve always felt it was difficult to find truly dry, coarse as tree bark, cooked-to-death fish in Singapore. Most restaurants did either a competent enough job or an outstanding job. Rarely was it dismal. Here it was. That piece of salmon was the hardest, driest piece of salmon I had ever eaten in my life! And I have eaten a lot of salmon, one of my favorite fish!

Item 4 – Kung Pao Chicken. This is a well-known trade-mark Sichuan dish that is (or should be) spicy and intensely flavored. This version was bland, bland, bland. The meat was dry, dry, dry. It tasted more like dark soy sauce chicken than it did kung pao chicken. For a restaurant that was operating in a pre-dominantly Chinese society where people knew their kung pao chickens, this was folly.

Item 5 – Braised Tau Kwa Simmered in Mild Indian Spices. Mild was the key word. This dish was better than some of the others, but hardly close to being exciting.

Item 6 – Mixed Bean & Lentil Casserole. Undercooked, hard beans. “Middle of the road” (read bland) flavor composition.

Item 7 – Stir Fried Celery with Lotus Stem. This was passable. The dish was cold, but at least these veggies were of the type that could be comfortably eaten cold. Apart from a few pieces of celery that had not had their fibrous outer layer removed cleanly, the veggies were nicely crunchy and with clean, sweet flavors.

Item 8 – Chic Peas Cooked in Spinach Gravy. These chickpeas were hardly chic (hey, don’t look at me. I’m just quoting the menu), but there were one of the better dishes that night. So no complaints from me.

[Sorry, no picture of Item 9. I was otherwise engaged in “protecting” my plate. More on this later.]

Item 10 – Braised Three Mushrooms with Mini Kai Lan. This we actually quite liked. Flavors were full-bodied enough, and the vegetables were tender with enough crispy crunchiness. They were definitely not freshly stir-fried, but more akin to the standard buffet variety where the kai lan had been left sitting on the warmer for a long time. Still, it was one of the tastiest dishes of the evening. And probably helped in no small part by the fuller (read oilier) mouth-feel of the vegetables.

[Sorry, again no picture of Item 11. We were busy “defending” our plates.]

Item 12 – Steamed Eggplants with Chilli Soya Sauce. The eggplant, even though it looked succulent and whole on the plate, was mushy to the point of being baby food. It could not be picked up with a pair of chopsticks; it simply disintegrated into mush. The chilli part of the sauce was absent. Other than that, flavors were okay; we just weren’t thrilled with the texture at all.

Item 13 – Pan Roasted Broccoli Coated with Red Spices. The broccoli looked and tasted as if it had been re-heated quite a few times. Thankfully I’m the sort of person who quite like my broccoli tender. I don’t know… I never realized that tomatoes could be classified as “red spices”. Still, overall, I found this dish to be more palatable relative to some of the others.

Item 14 – Stir Fried Tofu with Soya Mince. I don’t actually remember much of this dish. I only remember being momentarily confused between this dish and the bean and lentil casserole. This one looked almost like the latter, only with a piece of (deep fried!) tofu and some gravy ladled over it.

None of the dishes stood out. None was exciting or scintillating. After a few dishes, my palate was crying out for textures, flavors and aromas. How about something crunchy (nuts perhaps?), something tangy, something slightly on the sweeter side, something spicy, something savory… anything… to wake up my taste-buds.

You may be thinking: but it’s health food; how can that taste good? But it can. I know it can. I cook healthy all the time at home. And I don’t think my dishes are lacking in textures or flavors.

The service staff was a young, friendly, polite, professional and highly motivated bunch, which was always nice and much appreciated. They were also quite obviously very well-trained by the management – too well-trained even. We could only deduce that they had been instructed to keep an eye on the customers and to clear the emptied plates quickly to prevent them from cluttering the tables. That is a good and basic service guideline. And I agree that it should be in any restaurant service training manual. However, there is also a need to allow (or encourage) flexibility and creativity in the staff. Train them for this if need be. Service is a fluid thing. Each customer is different, each situation is different.

We ended up with a situation where plates were whisked from under our noses the moment we had popped the last morsel of food into our mouths. The staff hovered near the table, watching, waiting for us to take the food off the plates, then *swoop*… in they came, and removed the plates. One young lady was in such a hurry to reach our table upon seeing an empty plate that she nearly tripped on the steps!

Now, my friend and I, we decided to share the food, even though all the dishes already came served up in small individual portions; we wanted to taste the food before deciding if we wanted to get another plate of the same. We also preferred to each keep one of the emptied plates in front of us to use as a “catch-all” for falling crumbs, and to rest our cutlery on in-between bites. Nothing wrong with that, surely. But there was one young male waiter who simply could not bear the sight of those two empty plates sitting in front of us. Each time, as soon as we had finished a plate of food and had barely put down our cutlery onto the plate, he came, moved our cutlery, placed them onto a napkin on the table, and cleared the empty plates. He was more concerned with making sure there were absolutely no empty plates on our table than with whether or not his arm was literally brushing our faces in his haste to reach across us to move our cutlery and clear the plates after each course. And given that this was a conveyor belt restaurant where we were constantly picking dishes off the belt, we were thus interrupted almost every 5 minutes!

It reached the point where my friend, trying his very hardest to still sound civil and polite, but with frustration bubbling dangerously close to the surface, finally said to the young waiter:

We would each like to keep one empty plate in front of us to rest our cutlery on, please.

I have given you napkins to put the cutlery on, so I can clear the empty plates.

But we prefer to put our cutlery on the plates.

I gave you napkins, sir.

Is there a rule against having empty plates on the table?

No. I need to clear the empty plates.

Why?

The plates are empty so we clear them.

But we wish to continue using two of the emptied plates. There seems to be a problem with that?

The young chap was very flustered by now. He had obviously not been trained to deal with “disobedient” customers who would not rest their cutlery on the paper napkins that had been provided, and who refused to surrender emptied plates. He stared woefully and longingly at the two plates, then simply turned heel and walked away. He never came near our table again for the rest of the time we were there. At this point, if I too had not been feeling so frustrated and irritated at having our conversation constantly interrupted by the plate clearing, I would have burst into giggles.

The restaurant management must be a very meticulous team; one that is very big on structure, order and details. In most conveyor belt restaurants, be they sushi or dim sum outlets, a whole variety of dishes are put onto the conveyor belt, and the customers are free to pick and choose whatever strikes their fancy. At Aiwo, the conveyor belt is segregated into 14 equal sections, with each section clearly marked out by a number plate (see 2nd picture of the interior of the outlet). Within each section is placed the dish that corresponds to that particular number on the menu. We presume this is to allow the customers to know what they are eating. So, if you pick a dish from the section numbered 11, you know that is the Duo of Gourd, which is listed as no. 11 on the menu, and if you take something from section 9, you know it is the vegetable stew, and so on.

Unfortunately, what this also means is that if you pick up a plate from section 10 for example, and discover you like it and want another one, you have to wait for the slow-moving conveyor belt to go round the other 13 dishes before you can take another plate of no. 10. And woe be you if you happen to be in deep conversation when no. 10 rolls around again, and you miss it. You then just have to sit patiently for many minutes more for the other 13 dishes to go by again before getting your next chance at no. 10.

This system truly boggles the mind. Surely, this restaurant, situated as it is in the heart of the financial district of Singapore, from where billions of dollars are handled and complex international deals are negotiated each and every day, can trust its targeted clientele of successful professionals to be intelligent enough to be able to tell chicken from fish, chickpeas from lentils, and broccoli from bitter gourd without having a number to tell them what they are eating!

We tasted just about every item on the conveyor belt menu – or at least I think we tasted just about every dish available. Between dealing with all the plate clearing interruptions, and the watching out for the revolving numbers, who knew what we managed to taste and not taste. As soon as we had finished eating, we were out of there. And you’ll have to pay me to go eat there again the next time. Meanwhile, for healthy and tasty food, there is always my own kitchen.

Aiwo: Food For Life
79 Robinson Road
#01-05 CPF Building

Tel: 6226 2232

Open Daily; 11am – 2.30pm; 5 – 9pm

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.