Chatterbox Dinner on Boxing Day

I finally got to use my Eat@Meritus card after carrying it for so long. It was a Saturday night (Boxing Day) and there was a long line everywhere for food. We got to Chatterbox at Meritus Mandarin around 815pm and waited close to half an hour before we got a table for 3.

The servers were all busy and the head server (or whatever you call them) did not do the usual thing of asking everyone in line the number of people in the party. Instead she only focused on the 1st in line, so obviously when the first few in lines had big groups, those behind with just 2-3 diners in the party had a longer time to wait, even when there were smaller tables available. Bad system.

I ordered the Hokkien Prawn Noodles which took a very long time to arrive (when compared to the rest of the dishes being served). Fortunately it was very tasty with a fragrant prawn stock absorbed into the noodles. The prawns were plump and succulent and the squids were not rubbery. Very nice!
The "famous" chicken rice ($25 or $26 now). Somehow I felt this was quite average. I had better chicken rice at $3 or so in coffee shops, especially in the Purvis/Liang Seah/Bugis area. The chili was good though.
The beef hor fun was equally good. Thick starchy sauce over fried kway teow and filled with tender beef slices. I liked it!

Seriously, would you really pay an average of $25++ for a local hawker dish? I can't even say you are paying for the service as it is pretty much nondescript. So it is for the good food and ambience (if noisy setting is to your taste). All I have to say, lucky I have the Eat@Meritus card to reduce the price by a fair bit and make it more palatable to the wallet.

Even the local hawker dishes at Kopi Tiam and Empire Cafe (in Raffles Hotel and Swissotel The Stamford) cost less than $20. With the Feed@Raffles card, it can make it almost the same as paying for such dishes in the food court like Food Opera.