“Life is like a box of Chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get!”
Sounds familiar? It's one of the most famous quotes from the movie, Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks. This engrossing 1994 film has inspired the existence of Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, a worldwide chain of seafood restaurants with 28 locations around the globe. Lucky for us, a Bubba Gump restaurant has just been opened for business in the Curve!

Personally, I've never heard of this restaurant until I saw it on the top floor of the Curve. I was with my family on a Saturday night, looking for a restaurant that might help satisfy our grumbling stomachs. When we saw many happy people busy forking in fat french fries into their mouths, and slurping huge glasses of juices, we were tempted to give the new restaurant a try.

Once you step inside Bubba Gump, you would feel as though you left the modern city life and entered a whole new civilisation, a fishermen's resort. Unlike other Western restaurants such as Chilis and T.G.I.F, Bubba Gump has a unique style of decor and urbanity. The floor and walls of the restaurant are tiled with solid planks of wood. Fishnets are hung on the ceiling, providing the perfect perception of being in a fishermen village. What differentiates this restaurant from others, namely Chilis and T.G.I.F., is that each table has its own character. For example, the theme of the table that we dined was sports.

Evidently, there were ancient tennis rackets, portraits of famous footballers and other sporting equipment hanging on the wooden walls next to our table. The table beside was a fruit market instead, with fruit baskets and plastic fruits neatly positioned on the shelves.

Soon enough, our waiter for the night brought our menus and explained to us about the restaurant.

“See that license plate on your table? The red plate says Stop Forrest Stop and the green plate says Run Forrest Run. Want to know why? It is our paging system that uses these two plates to signal that a table needs service or that all is well. So if you flip to the red plate that says Stop Forrest Stop, a waiter will come to your service and it works for the opposite for the green plate.” This means you would not need to lift your hands up tirelessly for the waiter, instead just flip the license plate! How cool is that?

While waiting for our food, I walked around the restaurant and the more footsteps I planted on the ground, the more amazed I was with the beautiful decorations and colourful, eye-catching posters. Even the little menu on our table was creatively designed on a ping pong bat.

The menu consists mostly of shrimp dishes, but also other seafood, as well as Southern and Cajun cuisine. The CEO of Bubba Gump Shrimp Company quoted (from the movie), that, "Shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, pan fried, deep fried, stir fried, there's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich.
Th-that's about it." Take a look inside the menu yourself when you visit this restaurant next time.

Our dinner came within the next half hour and boy, were we hungry. However, our waiter did not want to serve our food unless we answered all of his questions correctly.

The first question went something like this, “In the movie Forrest Gump, what three sports were played by Forrest?” My father got the question right therefore he had his dish served.

A few more questions flew at us before we could savour our dinner. The waiter was very entertaining and I really liked their style of serving our dishes.

Our food was served on a metal plate and plasticky newspaper, which made the dish look very humble. One bite of Bubba Gump’s fish and chips made my tummy scream for more. The quality of food in this restaurant is in a whole new level of richness and texture. The salad I shared with my sister, Run Chicken Run, has an intricate tang, probably from the gorgonzolla cheese in the salad. The food portions are also just nice, and not huge American sizes. I thoroughly enjoyed my scrumptious dinner, although I wished I had saved enough space for dessert.

Now that dinner was over, we paid the bill and walked out of the restaurant, feeling a tonne heavier. As we exited the restaurant, there is a little shop next to the restaurant selling Bubba Gump merchandise. There are colourful T-shirts, mugs, ping pong bats and even the license plates! One of the shirts that caught my eye said, “My Momma Says I’m Special”.

The food was delicious, the environment was pleasant and full of surprises and the waiters were friendly. The only drawback was that the pricing of the food is wee bit expensive and also the restaurant is very packed by 8 in the evening, especially during weekends. I would personally rate Bubba Gump a solid 9 out of 10 for quality food and a memorable dining experience. To top it all off, the restaurant screens the movie Forrest Gump 24/7! (although one has to watch it without audio). So, if you want to try something different, I highly recommend you to dine at Bubba Gump's. You will not regret the experience of eating at such a fantastic restaurant!

Rating: ★★★★★ -- Excellent