Now, what's pretty near homelike but not at home? Chalet? Close enough.
So I decided on a staycation. My friend searched for one and we decided Grand Mercure Roxy Hotel for its halal kitchen.
I realise that I'm a terrible travel photographer, in the sense that I get so astounded by my surroundings that I just don't snap enough photos, so here is an official photo from the hotel's website.
You can see more images at the hotel's official website. Link below.
The hotel is located somewhat in the middle of Katong area, right opposite Parkway Parade, an old favourite of Singaporeans. Nearby are three other shopping malls - the attached Roxy Square, Katong Shopping Centre and I12 Katong. A few bus stops away are the Marine Parade Library & Community Centre, Geylang and Penny University cafe.
The area itself is pretty sleepy-like on weekday mornings, but would probably be quite happening at night seeing it's smack in the middle of many eateries. (On a side note, it was a long-weekend holiday...The construction works began the day after the public holiday, so ask for a room not on the poolside)
So back to the hotel. The lobby is linked to Roxy Square, a quiet shopping centre that had probably seen better days. There is a cafe, seating area and 2 Macs for guests to use.
We decided to try our luck and arrived at 12.30pm, and we were informed that the rooms were not ready and that we could come back at 1.30. To kill time, we went up to the 4th floor where one of the restaurants breez bistro.bar (it's really called this) is located. This is the only place in the hotel with which every food item on the menu is supplied from the halal kitchen. Be warned that they do serve alcoholic drinks here, so if you're uncomfortable with that, you should probably head out to Parkway Parade, I12 Katong or various other eateries outside to eat. Feast@east, a Peranakan-themed restaurant on the 3rd floor serves food from the halal kitchen from their ala-carte menu, but everything else is not, and they do serve pork in their buffet. Breakfast is also served here, and according to counter staff, there's pork there too.
Back to breez bistro.bar, we wanted to try the lunch set, but sadly it was not available on public holiday. So we had to settle for ala carte menu.
This was their lunch set. You can view the higher resolution at the restaurant's webpage here.
If I remember correctly, all the ala carte items came with a choice of coffee and tea.
This is a $30 burger. Portion was big though, if you're familiar with Swensen's burger, it's around there.
French toast with cheese and ham, around $22. The bread used is the thick sort, and dipped in egg before fried. Ham, cheese and mayo are stuffed inside. I don't think the fries came with it though, probably extras from the burger dish.
All in all, this actually cost slightly cheaper than a lunch out at Beanstro, and with a more generous serving.
After we were done, we walked around the fourth floor where the gym and the pool are located.
The gym is open 24 hours with shower facilities and is accessible only by room cardkey. I'm afraid I can't really deliberate much on this since I didn't take a good look at it.
Edit: my friend tried out the gym and these are some of the equipments:
- free weights dumbbell and barbell
- Multi-use machine for lat pull downs, rows, chest press, leg curls, leg press
- Elliptical
- Smith machine
- Threadmill
- Cable row
The pool is open from 8am to 10pm. Its a slanted type pool with the deepest at 1.4m and shallowest at 1m. The pool has no lifeguards, so do keep an eye on your toddlers. There are baskets with clean towels and baskets where you can toss used towels in by the pool. If you need to shower after using the pool, you would have to use the gym showers. (*the rooms do not seem to have bath robes)
We checked in at around 1.45pm.
The room we got was poolside superior room. We got it for around SG$160/night without breakfast from a booking website.
Consolidated information by the hotel can be found here.
The amenities they did not mention are:
- sewing kit
- toothbrush (I find this very important. I prefer not to carry around my toothbrush in luggage. It will smell funny wrapped in plastic)
- shoe shine cloth
- body lotion (rather surprised, hardly see this)
We were roomed on the 14th floor, and we had a pretty good view of the area, except for the darned haze enveloping the horizon. As with the leaf arts along the corridor, we had a couple of similar themed pictures accenting the brown of the room.
The room itself was pretty standard hotel room, nothing to crow about. Air-conditioning was pretty cold, despite raising it to 25 degree celcius, and might be a tad too noisy.
The tv reception was astoundingly mediocre, seeing that even the broadcast from local tv was not clear. It plays a limited number of channels from cable and local radio stations.
Generally, the stay was ok, the staff especially from breez bistro.bar are pretty pleasant.
Hotel: Grand Mercure Roxy
Location: 50 East Coast Road, Roxy Square (Opposite Parkway Parade Shopping Centre) Singapore 428769
Website: http://grandmercureroxy.com.sg/
