[ Café Food Review — slow, small portions + lacklustre service ] I’m just going to open off by saying I don’t get the hype with Kara Café & Dessert Bar. Some background: C^2 and I have been wanting night café food in BKT for a while, and since the reviews for Kara looked fine, why not try it?

First visit: This was more a supper since we ate prior. Our goal was to try their Okonomiyaki Tater Tots after @lausybren recommended it (thank you!!), so we checked that it was available, ordered, and got a seat. After we paid and were mid-drink, we were told the tater tots were sold out. Mind you, no one else ordered it nor did we see it served. After the refund, we were stuck with drinks when we could’ve gone home instead. Great.

Next visit: This time, C^2 and I decided to pop by during dinner time instead. She placed the order for it first to be safe before we looked for mains. Many of their mains were sold out, so we got their Pork Belly Miso (apparently a signature) + Tempura Fish Kimchi. Alas, 15-20 mins later we were informed again that the tempura was sold out. Cue needing to pick another bowl and pay $2 more for something I didn’t particularly want (their katsu).

Here’s the only silver lining of the night: The tater tots were great!! /chef kiss/ (Did have to wait 30mins for it tho.) Despite being covered in sauce and mayo, the potato bites were still crispy, and the spring onions and furikake garnishing made the dish a lot more and staved away impending saturation.

The rest of our mains, not so much. My goodness, the portion sizes were dismal. While we did get a slab of pork belly, it was fattier than I’d expected, lying next to a strange inclusion of fried instant noodle bits, and flanked by a sad mess of onions and some edamame. At least the mix wasn’t bad.

If I thought the belly was bad, wait until you see their katsu. Not only did we have to wait nearly an hour for it (they told us 20mins more 30mins in), when it arrived, we were given h a l f a piece of katsu that I could’ve eaten in a bite or two. An hour. For that. Better yet, the entire dish was dull, plain and bland. Took a few bites, and we were done with it.

Nope, never visiting again.