The Star Vista

A shopping mall which has a different layout from the others. My first impression of this mall: A high class mall comprises of mostly high quality restaurants and is often crowded especially during lunch hours on weekdays. There are some interesting shops on the ground level and yes, definitely worth a visit.
Conveniently located near Buona Vista MRT. It’s one of the better malls in the west and free wifi (Capitalmall) is available.

Interesting outdoor concept but likely to be an excuse to save on costs. Many different interesting food places, would like to slowly try each and every one of them. On weeknights, it somehow gets extremely crowded during 7−8pm, with every single restaurant full house and people spewing out into queues — not a very pleasant sight. Miraculously, after 8, every outlet is practically empty. It would be a good time to go then. Otherwise, star Vista provides a welcome place for westerners to hang out.

Star Visa has an interesting indoor and outdoor concept where most of the shopping mall is «outdoors», or rather, not enclosed, while individual shops are enclosed. As a result, you find yourself sometimes feeling a little warm walking around, but then extremely chilly when you walk into individual shops. Also, since individual shops are enclosed with AC, they have glass doors which I’ve often absentmindedly knocked my face into since I’m not used to shops with doors in a mall. I know, so fail :(Also, not that great for those wearing specs since they tend to fog when you walk in and out of shops. Lol.
Anyhow, theres a great array of restaurants here as well as grocery chain and pharmacy. Ramen, dim sum, black ball dessert, awfully chocolate, shabu shabu, nandos. noms.
I’d avoid Star Vista on weekends, since it gets extremely crowded, especially with the church going crowd. Otherwise, it is a decent place to chill, especially if you live or work around the area!

Man, this place has a lot of haters! I know I had a small complaint about this mall when I first went to the Star Theatre, as I said there were not enough eateries to cater to a potential crowd of 5000 people who would attend a performance there. But after experiencing the mall under conditions where I wasn’t «hangry», the results were a lot more positive!
I found some interesting stores here. There’s Swee Lee, which sells sweet electric guitars. I gave a glowing Unilocal review for Cream Records, a CD store. They have a Japanese grocery store called J-​Mart which had both green tea AND strawberry kit kats in abundance! And there were some nice, affordable home décor shops too.
It may not be air conditioned everywhere, but on days when it feels like Singapore is a public sauna, all you gotta do is go inside any store to fix that problem. The architecture itself is pretty cool. It’s a short walk to the Buona Vista MRT and walking distance to the fancy eateries at Rochester Park. This is definitely a better destination for retail therapy than Rochester Mall!

TURN ON THE BLARDI AIR CON.
OK I know some smart ass ang moh hippie environmentalist designed this place. «Singapore is a tropical paradise! Why not we design a shopping mall that is not enclosed! That would be so environmentally friendly!»
Cool story, bro. You know what would be most environmentally friendly of all? NOT build any shopping centre at all and continue letting the weeds that were formerly here to grow!
But it is totally moronic to have a shopping centre in SINGAPORE that has no air con. When I finally get into the restaurant thinking that I can get to cool down, the restaurant inside is just as blardi hot, while I’m trying to eat steaming hot ramen!!! Ask the waiter to turn up the air con they say no sorry cannot, it’s centrally controlled.
I am not coming back here till I hear that it is not blardi CB hot here all the time.

It is nice to walk around here on a cool day as it is not an enclosed air conditioned shopping mall. Thus the shops’ doors are closed to keep the air conditioning working in optimum level, similar to a strip mall in the States but with a smaller space.
Most of the tenants are food and beverages with a small Cold Storage and pharmacies (Guardian and Watsons) to cater to those living in the area. There is also a Courts for your electronic/​household goods.
I guess it is a decent basic mall but not much of a draw to those not living in the area. There are several church services on Sunday, so I would guess that would be the busiest times for the shops. Food court is on the upper level.

The new mall looks great. Love the Eco friendliness.