Gong Yuan Ma La Tang 宫源麻辣烫 @ Suntec City - 3 Temasek Blvd

Kitchen staff was SEVERELY understaffed. More than half of the restaurant were occupied with customers waiting for their food to come. Had to wait an hour after selecting the food/payment. The only saving grace was that the staff who brought us to our seats was sincere. Was a fan of this store, not anymore.

Food was ok (3 stars) but service garnered 4 stars. They were supposed to cook our 1kg ingredients into 2 bowls, soup and dry, but made a mistake and only gave us the soup version. Staff immediately apologised and offered to recook with fresh chosen ingredients to my liking. No drama or squabbles. Good impression of their service recovery effort.

Counts by overall weight. Whole bowl of broccoli, spinach, lotus root, noodles, 2 slices of fish and 3 slices of meat and already $19. We ordered tomato soup, pork bone soup and sesame sauce respectively. These soups and their sesame sauce are so strong and have so much MSG, it tastes okay at first then you get really sick of it. Usually, I finish all the soup in this kind of place. So, the fact that I left around half the food behind and can't eat further shows that here really cannot make it.

Soup was meh. Ingredient selection is meh. A few food containers were empty. Dumplings were super pathetic, came with one big hole in the middle like someone poked it with their finger lol (see the pic). Kitchen is super slow, gotta wait 30 min after you're seated to get your food. I guess the only redeeming quality is that the soup smells nice so it attracts u as u walk past. Yang Guo Fu is 100x better if you're looking for ma la tang, gong yuan is like the inferior version but similarly priced

Decided to try because of the long queue + smells very good every-time I walk pass. Got the pork bone soup, very nice and savoury !! Feels super shiok. Items are quite expensive $29/kg. 2 pax easily 30+++ Go during weekday afternoon to avoid crowd

Overpriced instant food. Would have been spot on if this was served at a convenience store like 7-eleven. But for a sit down place, the lack of culinary effort is atrocious. Might be something you can put together in 15 minutes using a microwave, and that's including the 10 minutes you take to grab and process the ingredients from the Giant supermarket just across the Gong Yuan Ma La Tang stall at Suntec City. Even McDonald's puts in more effort in preparing your food that costs half as much. Expensive for what is essentially Yong Tau Hu with a wider choice of pre-made soup; not more enjoyable than a mediocre laksa Yong Tau Hu either. Tried the mala soup base that tasted mostly of generic overly salty soup stock with some mala oil as flavouring. Selection of ingredients were a mix of processed and canned food, instant noodles, frozen seafood and sliced frozen meat and a thankfully generous variety of fresh vegetables. This place looked good from far but was far from good. The edible food wasn't terrible and the place was hygienic so it gets a 2*. Your tastebuds might vary, but if you enjoy 50 cents cup noodles and think they are the best this world have to offer, you would fall in love with this place.

Food was delicious, just slightly pricey. Count by weight not items , suspect they count in the weight of the bowl too. I took black fungus, 1/2 beancurd, 1 sausage, 2 crab stick , some chicken , beancurd skin, mushroom and 1 pack of Maggie. May have longer waiting times during peak hours.

Tried their new vegetarian soup base - not as herbal as their previous mushroom soup option so it's more palatable. Soup base is pretty hearty and thick enough. I like that they have a good variety of vegetables for vegetarians. Table management can be improved, those groups whose members are not all there yet should not be hogging the tables as due to SDM it can take quite long to clear the queue.