went for my morning bukit timah hill walk with mum and headed home to catch dad just in time for brunch. we didnt make reservations, reached at 11.30am and was told that the buffet brunch cost $42++ though the foodies said that their dinner costs $38 on a weekend. hmm... rise in price for year 2009?
food selection aplenty. depending on how high your standard is and how much you can eat.
they have the usual cold dishes of scallops, crabs (as in not flower crabs, but those zi char crabs with thick pincers), mussels, prawns, salmon sashimi and maguro. maybe my standard is high, but hmm.. i think i am average and am reasonable in my taste for food. all the cold dishes failed by my standard.
scallops - bland even though they came with roe
crabs - bland even though they looked pretty big and juicy
prawns - so so, not consistent. some sweet, some bland
mussels - uber bland and slightly stinko. i spit it out. it pretty much sucks.
salmon sashimi - normal, fatty and reasonable
maguro - yucky, powdery taste, slight fishy stench even when with soy sauce and wasabi
chefs' cooked dishes
laksa
i still prefer the one at parkway basement food court. it's got the oomph of dried pounded shrimp with every scoop. the one served during the buffet wasn't oomph enough. slightly diluted and pretty much forgettable. though my dad and bro liked it.
prawn mee soup
i didnt try but the soup looked darn wicked.
rack of steak
average and a little tough. sauce is nice though but not mind blowing. youngest bro commented that he preferred the meat on the outer part with the marinate and spices. tastier i gather.
steamed fish
they have this huge steamed fish on display and looked tantalising. unfortunately, all steamed fish comes with a limited display span in that, they can only be steamed and cooked for that long. any further steaming or cooking results in tough meat which doesn't melt in the mouth. Well, that's what happened to the fish. kudos for F@E to come out with a huge steamed fish, but they should prolly think of another method to make the fish last longer.
omelette with sharks fin
this dish is good. stir fried in front of your eyes, it's got a good mix of shredded carrot, spring onions, bean sprouts, sliced ham, mushroom and a good amount of sharks fin. it's very tasty and a good texture of crunch, crisp and softness. but no matter, it tasted like zi char foo yong dan.
warm dishes
roast chicken
not bad. like the taste and the the chicken's pretty tender. i tasted only 1 coz i wanted room for other stuff.
fish stir fried with straw mushroom
good. soft but not melt in your mouth and without fishy smell. savory.
pork with fruit salad
unique, but the pork's a tad too tough
lamb steak
the texture of the lamb was good. soft and almost melt in your mouth. unfortunately, it's too bland. the flavours of the marinate did not penetrate the meat. it was quite a waste.
stir fry spicy prawns
err.. forgetable.
stewed beef
soft and melt in your mouth. good to a certain extend
lasagne
erm worst i have ever eaten. it has a strong overpowering beefy smell and when eaten, it has a stoney taste. yucky!!
salad
my fave. their presentation of the leafy greens were quite cute. they used those pots which were used during olden days to contain the leaves, beans, cherry tomatoes and alfafa sprouts. it was wonderful! though the leaves didnt look to be uber fresh, the cherry tomatoes were super sweet.
they had pine nuts, walnuts, raisins, pistachios, bacon, croutons, dried prunes and apricots to add on to your salad. it was really good! we loaded on the expensive pine nuts. hehe.
dessert
they had quite a bit of selection. there's fondue for all sorts of imaginable fruits like grapes, watermelon, strawberries, melon, papaya and two types of marshmellow. they also have longan almond tofu, the wicked and heavenly tasty durian paste, bread pudding, the brown rice dessert (issit buloh hitam or something?) durian cake, tiramisu, coffee cake, mini fruit tarts, 4 types of chocolate balls, mini muffins, brownie, ice kachang, ice cream (4 flavours) and also retro snacks like lemon sweets, xian char, kah nar, sugar coated chewy sweets, ginger sweet and some preserved fruit in red colour can't remember which fruit it was.
i call it 'gold rush' because it's a thin layer of choc covering potent liquor!! once you bite the 'crust' the shot of liquor oozes out! can get high on it man, we smuggled it out from the buffet! haha :p
in short, i prolly wont go back again if the price remains as what i have paid. service was excellent in that they cleared our plates promptly and brought us the utensils when we didnt have for certain dishes. i don't know if it's bec there werent many people as such the service was so prompt or that it's their usual standard. they even gave us Sunday Times to read when we asked for it. i must say the experience was pretty good. what's best is to have the whole family spending time together and hearing what each other has to say. that is priceless :D
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