Tingkat food
During my confinement month, I had a confinement lady who would prepare all my meals and take care of the baby. However, when she left, we had to make some adjustments and arrangements especially with regards to my lunch. We were not worried about dinner since the Ry would be able to buy back after dinner or we could meet outside, however, lunch was a bigger issue.
We had some options. It was either I cooked, buy from the nearby coffeeshop or order catered food, otherwise known as tingkat. I can cook but being new to caring for a baby, I wasn't sure I was up to it. Plus, the waking up every two hours was already taxing enough. I would rather sleep than cook. Buying was possible but that means lugging the baby out everyday, which can be tiring. So, the last alternative, ordering catered food seemed to be the best option.
There are several tingkat companies around i.e. Neo Garden, Select, Empire, etc... a Google search would show various catering companies. I would have tried some of these but there were limitations. Some do not cater lunch, others only deliver to selected places in Singapore, which left me with very little choice. Chu Wei San Tong was the one I went with since it could cater a 1 pax meal and deliver to my area. In addition, I could choose either 3 dishes and 1 soup or 4 dishes. I'm going to list some of the pros and cons with ordering catered meals.
Pros
First, as it is catered, it is convenient! It is delivered right to my door step. All I needed to do was to hang a S hook on my grille and the delivery guy would hang the bag on it.
This company allows a choice of either using the traditional tiffin can or microwaveable containers. I chose the containers since I can easily heat up the food in the microwave when I wanted to eat it. If I remember correctly, there's no extra charge for the containers. Another plus is that I can easily dump all the used containers once I'm done with it. Yes, its very easy but not environmentally friendly. But of course, you can always wash and reuse them.
The food arrives between 1030am to 11am everyday which is good for me. If the little one is still sleeping, I can quickly gobble my lunch (more like breakfast) once it arrives. Otherwise, I will wait till later in the afternoon when I can get to eat.
Service wise, its not too bad. Since there is an option of choosing 3 dishes and 1 soup or 4 dishes, I trialled the 3 dishes and 1 soup for 10 days before deciding to continue with the 20-day package. Also, just a couple of days before the trial expired, they gave me a call and asked if I wanted to continue. I didn't give a firm answer and in my busyness, I forgot to call them back. One of their service staff texted to remind me and that it was so easy to reply.
Cons
You don't have a choice of what you want to eat. Whatever is cooked and served for that day is what you will get. Which brings me to the point about taste. The soup was most of the time tasteless that i felt it was like plain water with some ingredients. The other dishes tasted alright. There were times when the dishes were food that I don't eat or it's not to my palate. So, I keep some snacks around the house so that I won't be too hungry.
The food arrives cold. You will need a microwave to heat the food. However, I guess with NEA guidelines, there's an indication of the time the food needs to be consumed, which is good.
So after the trial was over, I continued with them but I changed the soup to another dish. Like I mentioned, if I could I would have tried out another company but so far, so good.
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