Our Village or just village?

The Oakham Curry Club (OCC) is a well-respected Institution with multiple international franchises. This review of ‘Our Village; Boat Quay’ being the latest by our Singapore branch.

The OCC takes pride in searching out the finest Indian restaurants and providing impartial reviews of Curry Houses all over the world. 

Members vote anonymously without being influenced by other members (we call this “no swaying”) on 5 categories, and an average score out of a maximum 10 is given to each restaurant we review.

On Friday 22nd February 2019 – The OCC visited Our Village; Boat Quay.

For full transparency, see below scores (out of 10). The voting is based on the votes from OCC members. Restaurants must score an average of 7/10 or above to receive the OCC sticker of recommendation. All OCC members have been through a rigorous selection process to gain entry into the Club. In short, we all know our curries.

Quality: 7.34

Customer care: 5.83

Value: 5.41

Service: 7.44

Atmosphere: 8

Overall: 6.8

Our Village IS NOT awarded the much-coveted OCC sticker of recommendation as it did not meet the required 7/10 average

Our Village is an Indian / Sri Lankan restaurant situated on the 4th and 5th floors of a shop house right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Boat Quay. A major USP of this venue is that the 5th floor is actually the roof which has fantastic views of the Singapore skyline

Atmosphere scored highest overall with a very solid 8/10. This was partly due to the location, right in the center of Boat Quay. The restaurant was pretty full. Primarily office workers hungry for spice after a few Friday beers but also a fair few tourists who having stumbled across Our Village during a look around were briskly hurried up the stairs by the staff at the front entrance. That said, the main reason for such a high score was the roof top setting. The views from the OCC table were fantastic, great views of the river, especially at night with the whole skyline illuminated.

The service throughout the evening was very good. As a fairly large group of thirsty beer enthusiasts (and one Wino) the OCC can be a demanding bunch when it comes to ordering drinks. We were seated and welcomed quickly and the first round of Kingfisher arrived promptly. Although the restaurant was filling up quite quickly we felt well looked after throughout by the attentive wait staff.

Before we move onto the quality of the food, in the name of full disclosure, several OCC members had been to Our Village numerous times prior to the meet as civilians to enjoy a curry with friends. Extreme care was taken not to sway the opinions of the group but reading between the lines we all had high hopes for what we were about to receive. The menu is very large so we munched on poppadoms with some very tasty mint sauce and spiced onions while we waited for Pojack, our latest trialists to order the starters. We ordered A LOT of food, too much to list here but most noteworthy were the samosas.

In terms of mains, Our Village offers a varied selection of charcoal kebabs which are served on top of a kind of BBQ at your table. This is quite fun and was met with several ‘Ooh’s and Aaagh’s’ by the group. We ordered the chicken skewers and the lamb skewers. The lamb were enjoyed by pretty much everyone but the chicken split the group fairly evenly down the middle as some enjoyed them but others felt they were a little tasteless. One member remarked they looked like they had been poached rather than BBQ’d. But still worth ordering if not for the theatre alone. Pojack went to town on the rest of the order too. We sampled Chicken Tikka Masala, a Rogan Josh, some Gobi Aloo and Daal as well as a lamb vindaloo and my personal favorite of the evening a chicken vindaloo. Naan breads were served nice and hot and were a great accompaniment to the main dishes. Although the quality score of 7.34 is respectable it is worth noting that the members who had visited previously had mentioned that the food was not as good as on previous visits.

Because of the location, it is perhaps fair to expect a slightly higher price tag for Our Village. But taking that into account and offsetting against the quality of the food we ordered the members in attendance have all scored value quite low. The bill is also quite confusing as at the end of the meal we were presented with 2 separate bills. This was far from ideal for a large group paying with a mixture of cards and cash and not a great way to end a meal.

Whilst the wait staff looked after us very well, we have scored customer care very low as we were denied our traditional end of meal photo with the chefs and staff. It was explained to us that this is the owner’s policy but it left a sour taste in our mouths that even the sweetest mango lassi could not remove.

In summary, the location of Our Village is great and we would highly recommend sitting on the roof if you are going. The food is pretty good although the signature kebabs did not blow us away. The service is very good but expect to pay a premium. We paid about S$90 per person, an amount we have paid before but in this instance we didn’t feel this was particularly good value for the overall experience. So if you want a decent curry with a great atmosphere in the CBD and don’t mind paying a little extra for it you may want to give Our Village a try…But you won’t see an ‘OCC approved’ sticker in the window this year.

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