Five Guys Burger

These recent years have finally seen a number of famous premium burger joints coming to our shore. You have Shake Shack, Burgers and Lobsters and Five Guys. Here is the list of burger joints I have tried. I wanted to try all but just wasn’t too keen to queue up during the hype. However, i think now is the perfect time so I went to the Five Guys at Plaza Singapura.

Five guys was surprising very quiet. Not sure sure if we went there a wee bit early but even after our meal, it was still quiet and not filled. It made me wonder if they are not that doing well.

The venue

One peculiar thing i noticed is the frequent shouting for orders that was ready. It is rather very distracting and seem oddly out of place in this modern era. I wondered why don’t they just have a queue system with a display just like any other places. Even small bubble tea outlets have that. Of course unless they wanted to create some kind of busy vibe. The counter crew first will shout out the number and then the staffs attending to the tables will repeat it. To me it just plain silly as the outlet is so empty and the staffs easily outnumbered the customers. I just felt a strange disharmony with the periodic loud shouting which was at odds with the quiet environment.

The close-up

I ordered their most popular bacon cheeseburger, a large fries and a salted caramel milkshake. For the burger, you can choose what type of toppings you want. They have mushrooms, onions, garlic, Jalapeno peppers and many more. I chose everything in and it tasted pretty good surprisingly even with the pickles (i hate pickles!). The two beef patties were really juicy and delicious. You could really taste the beef and the quality of the meat just like Shake Shack. I think in terms of taste it pretty much is up there with Shake Shack.

The one problem was the messiness. The sauce will flow out of the aluminum wrapping onto your hands and on the tables. What made it worst is that they do not even have a basin in the outlet. What? Even cheaper MacDonald or KFC has it. Not even wet wipes! I wasn’t looking for the fanciful hi-tech basin like Shake Shake but just a frigging place to clean my hands. For the washroom, you need to get out of the restaurant (Yep, the outlet is right outside the mall) and back into the mall, not forgetting to do the safe entry on your phone with your sticky fingers. What a messy dinning and such inconvenience!

I ordered a large fries for two fully grown man to share. I think they must have used high quality potatoes for the fries but I think i still prefer the humble MacDonald’s fries. With the huge burger, milkshake and large fries, we had to sacrifice the fries. We could not finish it as our face were so stuffed with food that we gave up.

So what’s the verdict?

The burger is good without a doubt though a bit too expensive though i know it is premium burger. A meal for two cost me about SGD55. That is quite an expensive dinning for fast food. The overall experience disappoint me though, from the shouting to the lack of basic cleaning facilities. For the price you pay, i think they surely can do better. I was definitely not impressed and left feeling slightly annoyed. I just felt that they did not put in much thought into the whole dining experience. I don’t think i will go back again unless i craved for premium quality burger and this is the only fast food outlet left in Singapore. Well, as long as the MacDonald’s Signature Angus Burger is still there, i am safe.