Shocking violence and danger of The Pelican. By Jessica Tan The Fullerton Area, steeped in local history is synonymous as a tourist attraction to view our marina and to sample some rather lovely cuisine.
That image was abruptly interrupted yesterday after an incident involving a crazed assistant manager of the otherwise pleasant Pelican restaurant, Mr. Herwandi Junmari. The facts really are shocking and rather un Singaporean. An English entrepreneur of some seventeen years of residence in Singapore attended, The Pelican restaurant late yesterday afternoon with his local wife. Both whom are well known and friendly regulars, so too are the staff of the company they own. The visit was a prearranged business meeting. The company that the couple own had decided to trust The Pelican restaurant with the responsibility of entertaining their most important clients from China. However, the restaurant had failed to arrange the business-to- business invoicing agreement in time and the clients being on their way to the restaurant put the couple in a spot for what to do, and in a real show of trust the couple decided to leave their company credit card with the restaurant. They of course, had asked for a simple receipt for the card of which Mr. Herwandi Jumari agreed. The couple were asked to wait. Sat patiently it seemed that more than half an hour had passed and Mr. Jumari had not bothered to return. After finishing refreshments and growing impatient the staff were politely asked to attempt to locate Mr. Jumari. After a further period of time, Mr. Jumari arrived, asked the couple to sign a pay authorisation order for himself and turned his back on the couple and walked away. Surprised the couple called after Mr. Jumari and reminded him they had spent a considerable time waiting for him to issue them a receipt so he could safely retain the card. What happened next was a travesty of behavior from an assistant manager to a loyal and trusting regular customers. Mr. Jumari was witnessed to suddenly start shouting at the poor English gentleman. Pointing aggressively at the shocked visitors face reports his wife. “I didn’t know what happened. I was so scared. The other staff here are so nice. We had patiently sat for Mr. Jumari whom obviously wasn’t in the slightest bit bothered about leaving us waiting. I was desperate to get home after a long day and get the dinner started for our two children. My husband had simply expressed his surprise at being left for so long and then when this manager got what he wanted he simply walked away not caring about us. Then I heard this man screaming at my husband.
Why would any person in a position of responsibility represent a business in such a crude manner to its guests? We are regulars and so are our staff. At one point when this crazed man had to be restrained by a number of staff and pushed back by them in order to stop him attacking my husband. I was genuinely scared for my safety”. Mr. Jumari’s reaction was such that the Police were called by the victimized couple. Not satisfied with insulting and threatening the couple, Mr. Jumari still not under control of himself by the time the coiple were leaving, had managed to side step the staff standing and lurching forward toward the couple further shouting, “get out and don’t come back”! Quite obviously, people otherwise enjoying the venue were seen to be leaving in a hurry.
Your Voice Asia would like to ask Mr. Herwandi Jumari, does he feel this level of behavior be appropriate for loyal regulars just attempting to make advance payments for its restaurants service? And in a hot spot tourist location, can we as Singaporeans tolerate such treatment at public venues? At time of going to press the couple, still upset had asked temporarily for their names not to be published while they consider their options. But they promised to come back to us here and we will follow this case closely of course update you the public. In the meantime, Your Voice Asia will be contacting the shareholders and the directors registered on ACRA to get their view of how one particular staff member behaves while managing their establishment?
If you’ve had any experience of this venue please don’t hesitate to email me: investigation@yourvoice.asia
Why is stuff so overpriced here?
I knew I should’ve stuck to my guns and used the Entertainer app for a 1:1 deal. But noooooo, I had to listen to my stupid stomach and order the seafood platter instead.
It certainly looked good, but you soon discover that the mussels were microscopic, and so were the clams, and the prawns weren’t quite as large or fresh as you’d expect. Think: cooked prawns you buy from Woolworths.
Lobster and crab were good, as were the oysters. (NB: $8 each for oysters?? It’s almost cheaper to buy a plane ticket to NYC to eat the oysters there!)
We decided that the platter wasn’t enough for us, and being Asian, needed carbs. So we ordered the ‘signature’ linguine with clams. It came out well presented with plenty of clams. But totally lacked any flavour. Couldn’t taste the wine, couldn’t taste the clams, could certainly taste the overly generous garlic. Could’ve also done with an extra pinch or two of salt.
Service was not great (mostly) and friendly, and it’s a very pretty place to eat and impress a girl on a date. $200 for 2 (no drinks) is a little steep for what came out though.
The service was lacklustre and the waitress who was serving us was clearly not very well trained. She didn’t know what was on the daily catch. Also had to keep asking for the prices. We had to ask for our bill twice as well. Trying to spilt the check was too much an hassle that we didn’t bother with it.
Food-wise the pie ran out and we were told until we attempted to order it. The burger my friend order was medium-rare despite her asking for medium. The king crab lobster pasta was over garlicky and thus any flavour from the seafood was fairly masked.
Gave an extra star cos the location let us caught a little fireworks.
For the price I paid? I was severely disappointed and will never step in ever again. Such abysmal service is a huge deterrence.
This bar is very well located, with excellent views. But that is all there is to it. Service is not good, drinks are not well prepared and prices are outrageous (Singapore is already expensive, but if at least here drinks and service were good…). In my opinion there are a lot of better places in Singapore and just for the views it is better to go somewhere else.
The service was incredibly rude and surley – certainly suprising for Singapore. There are better places for a drink in this same area, which is what we came for initially. We would have had more drinks and good but the waitstaff was so nasty they scared us off. Weird.
After a disappointing first visit decided to give Pelican another chance. Last time the service was appalling, this time so was the food…
The fish pie had sauce that was so runny it was like water, with two tiny pieces of fish.
My friends burger was stone cold. She sent it back. Only half of it was returned (it had been cut in half and only half was returned) – outrageous! And it had been warmed up in a microwave. Is that really what you should expect when paying $35 for a burger?!?
She sent it back again and they cooked a fresh one. Unfortunately the other 4 of us had finished eating and she felt really uncomfortable.
Avoid!