Marriott Cafe is conveniently located right beside Orchard MRT, on the ground floor of Tang Plaza Hotel. Mum and I got to enjoy the Marriott Cafe 1 for 1 promotion through CIMB credit card - we went for a weekday dinner buffet price for $70++ for 2.
Restaurant interior was grand and comfortable. Of course the dinner buffet comes with freshly shucked oysters with hot sauce and lime, and sashimi. The supply was continuous. I never had to wait for it to come in batches like some other buffet places.
Other than salmon, the Sashimi and Japanese Sushi served include Yellow Fin Tuna, Salmon Sashimi
Futo Maki, California Roll, Nigiri
Wasabi, Pickled Ginger.
Seafood Selections include Boston Lobster (Friday & Saturday dinner, Sunday lunch), Freshly Shucked Oysters, Snow Crab Legs (dinner), Poached Prawn
Crayfish
Gong-Gong (lunch).
For starters / appettizers - under Charcuterie and Cheese, you get a selection of freshly sliced Smoked, Cured and Air Dried Meats
Mustards, Pickles, Chutney
Selection of Imported European Farmhouse Cheeses
Dried Fruit, Nut Confit, Truffle Honey, Crackers, Grissini, Lavosh.
There is also a Salad and Olive Bar with Freshly Chopped Condiments with Assorted Mixed Lettuces
Dressings, Flavored Oils and Vinegars, Fine Imported Olives
Grains, Seed and Nuts. Accomplished unlocked for me includes - eating 6 different type of olives in one meal. Conclusion - still don't like them.
Besides sashimi, salmon lovers can also hit the Salmon Station for Norwegian Smoked Salmon
Gravlax Salmon
Sour Cream, Lemon, Dill Mustard Dressing, Capers, Cocktail Onion, Horseradish. Personally, raw salmon trumps smoked salmon, so this station didn't leave much impression for me.
On to mains - Beech Oven Roasted Australian Prime Ribs, Roast Leg of Lamb, Pork Saddle Stuffed With Prunes and Pancetta Baked, Whole Fish of the Day and Vegetable Gratin. The crispy pork saddle is my absolute favourite - its like a mix between Chinese roasted pork mixed with German pork knuckles.
The whole baked fish was one of the highlights as well. Potato gratin was nice and cheesy, but an evil buffet dish to fill your stomach up with carbs.
The roast beef, on the other hand, is so-so compared to the rest of the meat galore.
To compliment the western roast selection, there is the Chinese Barbecue Meats: Wan Hao Special Crispy Chicken and Chicken Rice, Crispy pork belly, Roasted duck,
Char Siu Pork
Other cooked mains includes - Hot Western: Braised Chicken in Lemon & Thyme Sauce, Fish of the Day, Sautéed Lamb, Pork Cheek with Dry Fruits, Braised Beef, Short Ribs, Veal Tongue, Fricassee Vegetarian Option.
Asian Cuisine: Spicy Beef with Capsicum
Kailan with Oyster Sauce, Singapore Chilli Crab, Sliced Pork with Snow Peas, Steamed Fish with Black Beans and Braised Ee Foo Noodles. Although the menu didn't write it, we also had drunken prawn noodle soup and it is a must try - prawn and Chinese herbal soup with a light trace of alcohol.
You can also make you own noodles at the Live Noodles Station: Hong Kong Egg Noodles, Chicken Broth, Vegetable Broth, Szechuan Broth
Fresh Daily Market Condiments; you get to choose your own ingredients for the noodles!
Besides DIY chinese noodles, there is also a Live Pasta Station - I had great fun choosing my own ingredients - i.e. extra cheese, sausages, bacon and salami slices in cream sauce.
And I chose squid ink spaghetti. All ingredients are mixed and stirred friend on the spot for you. It's honestly the best pasta I've ever eaten.
Vegetarian Sides include Truffle Soft Polenta, Pearl Barley Risotto, Nutmeg Creamed Spinach and Spicy Lentils. Can't really taste the truffle, none worth mentioning.
No buffet is complete without the Desserts: Selection of House Made Cakes, Puddings, Crèmes, Curds handcrafted by the pastry team. For my meal, there were the red velvet cupcakes, choco tart, flourless cake, prune lapis, nyonya kueh. All worthy of the mention because they tasted awesome even on a full stomach.
The mint chocolate pudding mousse was just as awesome and refreshing.
And we end off with a tempting display of Ice Cream Gelato - vanilla, strawberry, choco, mango, cookies and cream and toppings, you name it. Perfect ending to the meal. Make sure you catch the next 1-for-1 offer, I know I will!
Address:
Singapore Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel
320 Orchard Road
Singapore 238865
Prices:
$42++ to $80++
Opening Hours:
Breakfast
6.00AM to 11.00AM
Lunch
12.00PM to 2.30PM
High Tea
3.00PM to 5.30PM
Dinner
6.30PM to 10.00PM
Hungry Heroes restaurant is a rather new Superhero theme restaurant along Tessensohn Road, about 5 minutes walk from Farrer Park/Little India MRT station. The restaurant is know for its interior setting - pop art retro comic walls with superhero figurine displays - and a meaty menu. Perfect for a boys night out/ large group gatherings/ family meal with kids after watching the latest Marvel movie.
To suit the geeky theme, I wore my favorite ironic neon pink Darth Vader shirt. but turns out the heroes and villains theme sticks strictly sticks to Marvel characters like the avengers, superman, batman, spiderman (btw why aren't they invited to the avengers? why didn't these 3 come help out when the world was going to be destroyed by aliens?)
The place is all about it's collectible decos - the waiter specifically told us to roam around the place and view the collections while waiting for our food to come.
If you get bored, you can just look up and see how many figurines you can name from the light fixture.
Anyway our food came pretty quickly. Firstly there's the Heroes Fries - $6. Basically is cheese fries with chili minced beef. Manly menu choice made by Kelvin. Can't go wrong with this option, but it's nothing special - 7/10
I ordered the Truffle Mash Potato - $6. It's mash potato mixed in with truffle oil, truffle always taste awesome. A bit lacking in presentation, but I guess it's a geeky restaurant afterall. - 8/10
As I wasn't that hungry, we shared the Meat Fury's Signature Pork Ribs - $18 (Half Rack).The pork ribs is decently honey-glazed and meat was still juicy. Side dishes provides quite a healthy balance of fiber and vitamins to the meal - heroes also need to meet their daily nutrition requirement. - 8/10
If we come again, we'll definitely try their signature meat platter menu - Nice to Meat You - $59 (an unbeatable combo of half rack pork ribs, 200 grams sirloin stead, de-boned chicken leg and pulled pork) and the Friend Fries - $3 (fried luncheon meat fries).
Hungry Heroes
Headquarters/Address: 33 Tessensohn Rd, 217656
Hotline: 6295 5401
Opening Hours: Mon–Fri: 4pm-11pm | Sat, Sun & PH: 12pm-11pm
Dazzling Cafe 蜜糖吐司專賣店 is a cafe/dessert restaurant from Taiwan, and opened it's first stall in Singapore Capitol Piazza (Clarke Quay / City Hall MRT) this year. It's popular for its 'instagrammable' honey toasts - "Serving Traditional Honey Toast with a modern twist". Basically it's ice cream stacked on top of golden toasted bread with generous portion of cream poured over. It is commonly frequented by celebrities and socialites in Taiwan and has been crowned as "A Celebrity Hotspot."
Back in June when we went there at 11:45am and a long queue has already formed up for it opening hour at 12pm. Waited for about 45mins to be seated - it was hard to tell if the food only tasted good because we were so hungry after the long wait. The place is elegantly decorated in soft pastel colours, suitable for birthday celebration (entire 2nd floor available for booking) or an all-girls high tea gathering.
Prices at average about $20++ each for both desserts and main courses (risotto and spaghetti), so we ordered one each to try.
We started off with Truffle Fries (250g per serve) - $10.90. Although lacking in presentation, the fries are really covered with truffle flakes and oil. Decent for truffle lovers - 7/10
Truffle Mushroom Risotto with Freshly Shaved Truffles - $24.90 (320g per serve) is simply awesome~ You can see the truffles slices, and the thickness of the risotto, complimented with a dash of sour cream. Each mouthful is bursting with truffle taste. I would even say this is better than their famous honey toasts. Just blogging about it makes me wanna eat it again - 10/10 (must try!)
The truffles taste is so flavourful, it actually made the truffle fries taste like normal fries. So if you u are ordering this, probably give the other appetizers (buffalo wings or sauteed mushroom or dazzling platter) in the menu a try.
If you are more of a noodles person, do try their chef recommended dishes - Mentaiko Spaghetti in Cream Sauce or Black Truffle and Wild Mushroom Spaghetti next time.
Finally, the Matcha with Azuki Beans Honey Toast - $19.90. It comes with red beans, ice cream, matcha cream, cream, toasts, topped off with a matcha macaroon.Beautiful presentation, not sure where to start? It's ok, the waiter / waitress with come over to gracefully dissect this ice cream from the honey toasts after you're done with the photo taking.
Taking off the ice cream will reveal that there are little cubes of honey toasts inside for you to dip into the ice cream. Overheard the waiter telling the table beside us that the cubes are of different shapes for each kind of toasts - to make things more interesting each time you open up a toast.
The verdict - I really liked it! Kelvin was not a fan though, he thought the bread tasted like normal bread. But I thought it went really well with the cream. Maybe it's just against his manly ego to admit that he liked it haha. Anyway the toast is really filling, so it can actually be taken as a main course. We were glad that we only ordered 1 toast, the matcha flavour was quite refreshing and not too sweet so we managed to finish it. Those with a sweet tooth can try the dark chocolate or hazelnut chocolate honey toast - 9/10 (worth a shot)
Tsukada Nojo 塚田農場 is most famous for their Nabe Bijin (Beauty Pot / 美人锅) at $25 per pax. It's called the beauty pot because of the collagen based hot pot soup that is both healthy and delicious.
Since Tsukada Nojo opened their 1st outlet in Plaza Singapure, the queue for their specialty hotpot has always been long. I thought the craze would die down after a while but Tsukada Nojo is able to get the crowd returning for it's truly awesome Nabe Bijin. Nabe Bijin is only sold for dinner, starting at 5pm. The queue starts forming at 4:30pm on weekends, we arrived at 5pm and waited for 1 hour for our turn.
It's my second time here and I must say, the Beauty Pot is well worth the wait.
Th collagen-rich soup, called the Golden JIDORI Soup, is made from made from organic chicken broth that was boiled for more than 8 hours and then cooled to because a super rich collagen pudding.
As the pot heats up, the golden pudding melts into thick chicken broth. For first timers, a waiter/waitress will be at your table to explain to you the steps to eating. When the pudding melts fully, the first thing to do is to take a sip of the pure golden goodness in a cup. And have some tender chicken meat that was hidden inside the pudding and have miraculously appeared in the soup.
In the meantime, the hotpot ingredients are served. This is a 3 people serving portion. I love how the vegetable are presented in such a appetizing and colourful display. Each person is given 1 lady finger, 1 slide of water melon radish, 1 yellow cucumber, 1 baby corn, 1 deep fried tofu, a handful of sunflower sprout, lettuce, enokitake mushroom, fresh black fungus, baby sweet potato leaves, 2 whole shrimp and tori tsokune (minced chicken meat).
For first timers, the waiter/waitress will help you set the ingredients into the pot nicely and explain each ingredient to you as she does so. She will also help you make little chicken meat balls from the tori tsokune.
This is how the chicken ball looks like when it's cooked. It's really nice as there's fatty chicken meat mixed in the juice up the ball.
The waiteress/waiter will make sure that everything is nicely arranged into the pot - everything is always so well presented.
There are also 4 types of spices - Chili Shoyu / Negi ginger Oil / Yuzu Peper / Red Chile Oil. Honestly the soup was so good, everything tasted nice on it's own. I think the sauces are just extra to make you excited about all the choices.
We were also give a seaweed sauce in a heart shape. This is my favourite sauce as it tasted like very concentrated seaweed - it goes well with anything.
Last but not least, we have the ramen - 3 types to choose from - Thin Egg Noodle, Thick Mochi-mochi Noodle and Rice Noodle. We choice the thick mochi-mochi noodles which is the most ramen-like noodle if you asked me. The noodle is pre-cooked so you just have to heat it up in the soup.
Eventually, we cooked the fresh prawn / shrimp. The whole meal was really filling because the soup is very thick. I think drinking the soup alone is enough to make you full.
Basically, Tsukada Nojo's house special Bijin Nabe - $25 per person, really lives up to it's hype and is true to the menu's illustrations. $25 quite a reasonable price for a hot pot meal that originated all the way from Japan.
Feeling greedy, we ordered some sides as well. There's lot's of pictures in the menu, making it easier to choose.
Fresh Salmon Spring Roll Dipped in Thai Sweet and Spicy Sauce- $7 is a mix of Japanese Sashimi and Vietnamese Spring Roll and Thai Dressing. However, it sounds better than it tasted - the veggies' taste overpowered the salmon's.
We moved on to the Nikumaki Onigiri - Bite-sized rice ball wrapped in pork (bacon), baked with a special soy sauce.
Nikumaki Onigiri Cheese -$3.80 is actually quite good. I was apprehensive about eating a rice ball but the rice turned out to be very tasty from the bacon and soy sauce.
We got a complimentary side choose from Japanese Green Peas and Sweet Potato Fries with Ketchup and Kaya Sauce. And we were promoted to Managers!
5 more visits till our next promotion! (This customer loyalty system so doesn't make sense but it's so cute. They really presented us with a name card with the "manager" written on it.)
Lastly, we ended with jelly desserts (chrysanthemum tea and green tea flavor) with a kawaii plate art.
Here are some of their other promotions. I came at Christmas time, so all the staff were wearing reindeer hats. The dining area is quite small, hence the long queue for the food.