From the (not so) quiet compounds of the food court of the university campus lies a few choices. This is one of them. Over the past number of months, this has been a stop-off for me, mostly because of location at work; this is a review based on the accumulation of those visits, and not a recent one - this is retrospective more or less. Let's just say I was in the local area, and leave it at that. The choice from the food court is not great, and most of it is either chain restaurants or typical low-grade options for non-discriminating taste buds. From many adaptations and changes over the years, mine have become more particular. This is as good as it gets for the food court; keep in mind it is made for poorer students, and not active foodies. Venture here if you do wish, your choice, open mind and all that. Some aspects of it might even surprise you.
Service is pretty quick, though with a big line up the waiting time might vary a fair bit. Take a ticket, and be called out - they are generally not too bad people, friendlier than most around here. It is all food court, so all the decorations, interior and service aspects are fairly minimal - though that latter aspect does not prevent them from being really hard working. One of the best aspects of this place is that right at the window, the hot grill is situated and the chefs can be viewed cooking all the items really quick and with flair.
Teppanyaki Time's menu is pan-Asian. The biggest part of the menu is like that local cruddy "Chinese" takeaway that is really a selection of standard flavours from several Asian countries, then bastardised for the Western pallet. Choose a Japanese, Chinese, Thai or Malay sauce followed up by the choice of meat then it is either put onto rice or choice of noodles. The suggestion is to stay away from this one, as beyond it are a number of better choices - some of which are quite good. Often there are specials they display, and more substantial dishes based off Malay classics. Those I have found to be constantly reliable - and they are no exception right here. All kinds of vegetables, meats, sauces and sides et al are able to be upsized and/or added to the meal to substantiate it further. If that is too much for you to decide, and/or there is a bit of a rush, they also have a hotbox. When getting this, there is another position for a line.
What definitely ought to be ordered at least once each is their pad Thai, and char kway teow. Oh, and don't forget to get them as combination. Both times, these had big bits of chicken, whole prawns and even barbecue pork mixed through. They were both really generous in their size, probably not the most authentic version that is around but with the amount used, the abundance of meats and vegetables it is satisfying.
It's not like me to be constantly requesting the same items over and over, but there are always going to be exceptions. Like so here, one item that I have ordered numerous times is the sweet and sour pork. Through this moment, I might have been going through even more of a deep fried stage - particularly when it came to chicken. Getting the lot from here was satiating for the needed calorie top-up. The sweet and sour pork was quite good, and the large got a generous amount with fried rice on the side. It did not have too much batter on it, at no point was there ever a grungy bit from memory - that is a good track record, since I have lost the number of times I ordered this.
Close to every time that I went here, it was hard for me to go past getting at least one or two of their chicken wings. For only a dollar each alongside getting a meal, this was a deal that could not be passed up. What also helped was that every time they were delicious; the meat was always tender and juicy, plus it was something to do with the crumbed coating. One cool gesture from the first time I was here, when getting an extra chicken wing on the side there were only two left in the hot box and I got the second one for free. At one or two times, I also had the fried dumplings. These were okay, but nothing that can compare to the chicken wings.
Also one of the specialties they had was salt and pepper squid - a sign on the front counter was advertising it well. Seafood is always one that is good to test for such places, and they did well here. They were fairly generous with the number of pieces they gave out, and the meat was tender, and sweet. As with the coating, it had a small bit of bite from the pepper on it. Salt and pepper squid still holds up as one of the best snack commodities in my mind.
When it came to the last dish that I am discussing, the chicken katsu with rice and tonkatsu sauce, I think I am going to stick to having it with curry and getting that sort of thing from specialty. They didn't give an awful lot of sauce over the chicken, which itself felt and tasted more like some attempt at a schnitzel rather than chicken katsu and it felt a bit out of proportion. You can't win them all, and this was a dud. Like I said with the main part of the menu, go for something else.
Therefore, this place is a'ight. Looking at it from the perspective of a hungry university student (which I still am technically, as of writing), this is one of the lifesavers. Just look at it from this perspective, and it seems to be delivering from that angle as good as they can do.
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