Jack's Place @ CWP

The Restaurant Itself

The arrangement of the tables and chairs were a little too squeezy for the fatter-than-average Singaporean. It also meant a lot less privacy since the tables were placed less than half a metre apart. This implies that it is absolutely not handicap-friendly. A wheelchair won't be able to go past. Neither is it children-friendly (imagine a 3-year-old dashing straight into one of the furniture, high possibility of that happening).

And the tables were rather small, considering the fact that they had promotional brochures, bottles of chili and tomato sauces, pepper and salt, including a metal holder with sachets of sugar and cream. Was I being too sensitive or did the table seem disorganised? There won't be much of a space left if a hungry person orders more than one dish for him/herself! It was rather thoughtful of them to have placed the individual serviettes and utensils on a plate for each user, but the plates were rather redundant when the table is on the small side!

Decoration of the place was on the minimal side, typical of the Jack's Places in Singapore. The (much commercialised) festive season is here but there weren't any mistletoe or pine trees or wreaths and neither were there any cheesy Christmas carols playing in the background to uplift one's spirits. Which is fine with me :) Guess it's Jack's style of having the customers concentrate on the taste buds and not anywhere else.

Service can be improved.

Call that what's-her-name auntie to remove that gloomy face of hers, at least get her to smile and greet the customers.
And for the other waitress who nicely ushered us to our table, it's not very professional to be looking up and down and up and down with a quietly-amazed look at your customers when they happen to wear clothes sexier than your uniform.
Really. But it's real nice to know that you get the "Thanks for coming!" when you settle the bill and leave the place. At least they know that you're vacating your seat, and that they appreciate it.

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The Cheesecake(s): Cheesecake #1: the American Cheesecake

The Appearance

Passable.

Well it does look like cheesecake.
But there wasn't any visual appeal to it.
The icing sugar on top didn't help much.
Took them around 2 minutes to serve since it's just opening to refrigerator, getting a slice out, serve it on a plate and place it on my table. Problem was, the person serving seemed to have parallex error - the slice of cake was placed at the edge of the plate as if the person was trying to be artistic!

Take note that I wasn't given a dessert fork to eat with my cheesecake.
Why? I don't know. Never had the chance to ask them either. Never bothered to.

Taste & Texture

So far so good. Tastes like cheesecake.
It was thick. As in real thick! And firm. So "firm" that we had to exert extra strength into poking our forks into the cake! Maybe it's because it had been refrigerated for QUITE some time, or MAYBE they were real generous in the ingredients!

What about the cheese-y factor? Well, the taste of cheese was rather subtle. Not bland, just that it was not as strong as cheese itself.

One important factor: the base. Even though it can be seen with the naked eye, apparently I couldn't really taste/feel it when it entered my mouth! I was eating mouthfuls after mouthfuls but still, there wasn't a differentiation between base and cake! Did you guys notice from the pictures on how thin it was??

















Price

$3.50 for a thick slice?

It's even cheaper than one at McCafe (a small slice would come up to $4.95)! But after including the necessary charges, it came up to an exact $4.1195....................which seems fair enough. Since our nation is experiencing inflation, from when I last checked.

Conclusion for the American Cheesecake

CHEESECAKE

I'll only come back for this cheesecake when I am really keen to just have a cheesecake for the sake of HAVING a cheesecake.

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Cheesecake #2: Marble Cheesecake in a Chocolate Cup
















Appearance

Nice presentation. The chocolate cup is really made of chocolate! Can be eaten but not really it's not the type to melt in your mouth and make you crave more of it.

But I totally understand - it was to forsake the "taste" in order to have the "shape". I totally liked the concept of cheesecake served in a cup. An edible one, I should say. I applaud the person who thought of this idea.

But my friend tried posing for a picture of himself holding up the cup and pretending to "drink" from it, and the handle gave way in a split second. Made quite a mess. Had a good laugh. At him. Hawhaw.

So one thing to take note of, don't ever try holding up a chocolate cup.
















Taste

Again the taste of cheese was subtle. Literally not there. Maybe because I was really enjoying the sweetness of the chocolate, the hint of peppermint as well as the thick and smooth texture of the dessert.

And I was confused. Should I dip the fruits into the chocolate and strawberry (yeah the red liquid is strawberry sauce) sauces, or eat them with the cake itself?

And so I did both.

The strawberry worked out alright with the cake! The sourness of the fruit waltzed around my tastebuds with the sweetness of the chocolate and it felt perfect. Well, strawberry always work well with chocolate in the first place. ALWAYS.

As for the kiwi, it tasted weird. The sourness of the fruit overpowered the sweetness of the cheesecake.

Then, the mango. Seems like the mango wasn't ripe enough. Tasted like it has been left in the fridge for a considerable amount of time, it has that cut-and-left-in-the-fridge-for-at-least-a-day kind of blandness. But it tasted good with the strawberry sauce!
















Price

Menu stated: $5.80
After charges: $6.8266
Guess we're paying for the novelty of the concept, rather than the cake itself. As for me, I'll only order it once, go Wow Wee Wah and move on.

Menu Item #95: MARBLE CHEESECAKE IN A CHOCOLATE CUP (Served with fresh fruits & chocolate sauce) - That's what the menu said.

Conclusion for the MCCC

CHEESECAKE

I like the cheesecake for the idea. Took them an extra 5-7min to serve this cheesecake after the American Cheesecake. The extra time needed was probably to chop the fruits and dribble the sauces. I like the cheesecake for itself too, and the serving of it was Just Nice for the girls, not for the guys. Definitely will recommend it to my family and friends :)

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Do you guys know that:

1. Cream cheese are used for the cheesecakes consumed in modern United States,
2. Cheesecakes use ricotta in Italy,
3. While Germany and Poland use quark cheese!

All these quick-bite information are courtesy of our very own Wikipedia.com :)