How often do you find a dining place that caters activities to everyone in the family?
FIVE SQUARE did just that! Not only did we have sumptuous mid-range price food, we had fun after that as well, all in the same place. So, you can eat slowly while other members of the family can move on to activities, and I am talking about electric car rides, playground, bouncy castle, pool table, art and craft and beer for the hub.
FIVE Square, the new flagship outlet of the FIVE Bar Group, had recently took over the old home-grown restaurant Hans in Great Eastern Centre. The concept of FIVE Square is rather unique with 4 different dining / chill out places within the same 13,000 square feet space. Add in a few play areas and the Artisan market (think of Uni / Poly days bazaar) within the same “food court” at The Bazaar, you have a family friendly dining area to go.
Let me take you through the play areas and the 4 interesting corners on FIVE Square.
PLAY AREA – For the toddler and younger children
The play area for the younger kiddos is sufficient to keep my toddler occupied for 2 hours that we were there. Best of all, they are all free, including the electric car rides!
ARTISAN MARKET – For the crafty kids and adults
The Artisan Market is only available on Saturdays and has up to 30 stalls selling hand-made accessories, arts & crafts, fashion apparels, decor, home-ware items and more. Missy 10 and I were so engrossed in all the cutie stuff and beautifully hand-made crafts that we spent more than an hour at one stall called Scottiecraft, learning from the freelance self-taught artisan who was selfless in teaching us how to make these beautiful spoon flowers, cupcakes and more!
Look at these roses! Can you believe they are made of plastic spoons?
Missy 10 made this cupcake. We paid a $10 and all materials are included. We also attended a precious lesson on DIY craft from the selfless owner! And we find out that you can engage Ms Scottie (ok, I forgot her name) for your child’s birthday party and she will bring her materials along and the kids will get to do art and craft with her! Her rate? $10 for one child! Isn’t that super affordable? This was some brief information I had gotten from her, for more information, email her at scottiecrafts@gmail.com or visit her blog at http://scottiecrafts.blogspot.sg/ to see her awesome creations!
POOL GAME – For the Adults and Teens and Tweens (like my Master 8)
You just need to pay only $2 for a pool game here. Don’t you think it is very affordable?
The Bazaar (Dining place)
There are 5 stalls in this gourmet food hall where it caters to busy executives in CBD during lunch and dinner for after work dining, and caters to families on Saturdays. The food variety ranges from Western, Italian, Spanish to Japanese and Korean cuisine. The closest to Chinese food is probably the GRUB noodles which serves very tasty beef noodles. There is a fully automated self-ordering and payment kiosk which is integrated to a SMS system which sends you a message once your food is ready for collection. Hence, this frees up the time for you to purchase other items like drinks or look around for a seat.
We were treated to a sumptuous spread that day and here are what we ate from each stall.
Cinqo Tapas
This is a spin-off from the popular Five Tapas Bar at Cuppage Terrace which serves local inspired tapas. The hot-selling items are the garlic cockles ($6), bacon mushrooms ($6) and whole pork knuckle ($28).
Food tasting verdict:
Seafood Paella – $9.50
Seafood Pizza – $15
The pizza is a little spicy and perhaps, after all the tour and photo-taking and dragging the kids from the play area to the dining table, the food did not taste as good as it got cold when I ate it.
Teppei Syokudo
Teppei Syokudo should be very familiar with many CBD executives. I heard that it has a long history from his shop at Tanjong Pagar. His latest store offers the same goodies that have made him famous – the Katsu Don ($15.80), Chicken Nanban Bento ($13.80), and the ever popular Kaisendon ($16.80). There is also a wide selection of Izakaya-style snacks specially created to cater to the drinking crowd.
Food tasting verdict:
Kaisendon – $16
Pork Katsu with Egg – $15.80
The food is decent although I would prefer the sashimi in thinner slices. Some may like it in thick chunks. Price-wise is a little too steep for me for a quick lunch.
Omnivore
Don’t be tricked by the name! It has a variety for everyone. In fact, this is a healthy concept from the folks behind Soup Spoon. It serves hearty salads for Herbivores ($6.80), grilled meat platters for the Carnivores ($16.80) and a combination of both for the Omnivores ($12.80).
Food tasting verdict:
Carnivore Sample Platter – $24.80
Omnivore Chicken Thigh with Herbibowl Half Salad – $8.80
I like the Herbivore spread as the Carnivore platter were a little too much meat for me. Meaty stuff is usually a man’s thing anyway.
Gogibox
Gogibox is the first quick-serve Korean food concept in Singapore and serves tasty, wholesome Korean meal. The signature is Gogi Plate ($8.50). It comes with 1 choice of Korean fried rice, 1 choice of bulgogi (fire meat), fried egg and a side of salad.
Food tasting verdict:
Gogiplate – $8.5
Gogidog Beef – $6.8
The Gogiplate is my personal favourite. I love the tasty rice and it is suited to the kids’ liking too. The portion is not too big and it has salad to complement the meal. I was told that Gogiplate is most popular with female executives for lunch.
Grub Noodle Bar
GRUB Noodle Bar is a famous outlet from Rangoon Road. The noodle soup is made of beef bones and vegetables with no MSG or artificial flavours. It also serves pork noodles ($7.90-$12.90) and egg noodles if beef is not your thing.
Food tasting verdict:
This is another favourite of mine too. The GRUB Noodles have tangy texture and soup base is delicious. The Mentaiko fries was a hit with the kids, needless to say. Indeed they were crispy and good!
Beef Sirloin Noodles Dry with Soup – $13.90
Mentaiko Fries – $9
After eating at the dining Bazaar, let’s take a walk on where are the chill out places after work, all within the same FIVE Square.
The Bar
If you are familiar with its first outlet at Collyer Quay, this is it. It is famous for its $5 food and drink special offered all day and everyday. Add in big screening of sports and local performance of live bands every night, this is an affordable place for chillax after work.
This is me learning how to make a draft.
The Wine Cellar
If you prefer wine, you and your friends can gather at The Wine Cellar to choose from more than a hundred labels of wine to sip, chat and watch the world go by at this corner of FIVE Square.
The Recess
The Recess is a hide-out high class exclusive drinking place away from the masses. It serves a wide variety of premium and rare whiskies in an elegant setting without exorbitant prices. To book a table here requires a spending of $500. This will be a good place to serve high net-worth clientèle. Certainly, not a place for mummies like me.
HOSTING BIRTHDAY PARTIES WITH FREE VENUE AND FREE ACTIVITIES!!
If you are thinking of hosting a birthday bash for your little one, you may consider The Bazaar. The folks here told me that they have hosted for baby showers and birthday parties. All you need to do is just turn up early to book your seats for a few tables at zero cost. No outside food, but you can order the party food from the 5 stalls and drink stall. The bouncy castle, play area and car rides are all free to everyone. Plus the artisan market art and craft stalls can act as activities for the guests too. Basically, you just need to bring your own cake, decorations and all the activities and food are ready to serve to you and your guests! Good idea yeah?! However, take note that the parties can only be hosted on Saturdays when all the free activities and the Artisan market are available.
More information on FIVE Square:
When: Everyday except Sunday for food and chill out areas. Artisan Market and kids play area – Every Saturday starting 10 October 2015.
Where: FIVE Square @ Pickering Street
1 Pickering Street #01-03, Singapore 048659
Great Eastern Building
A 5-minute walk from NEL Chinatown & Clarke Quay MRT Stations
Parking available @ Great Eastern Building at the rate of $1.65 per hour
Website: Log onto http://www.artisanmarket.sg/ or http://fivebar.sg/ for more information.
Disclaimer: We were invited to tour FIVE Square and food tasting.
Certainly a lot of activity for dinner 🙂
Yes!! Singapore is getting more and more kids friendly and many businesses are riding on the wave of family friendly themes!