Foodie Paradise

Rose Veranda
Shangri-La Hotel

Orange Grove Road,
Singapore 258350

Operation Hours:
12pm to 6pm on Monday to Friday
12pm to 3pm and 3pm to 6pm on Saturday, Sunday and Public Holiday

Cost: About $40 per person

www.shangri-la.com

Ratings: 4.0/5.0

The place that I was at before I went for the blogger.sg after-party.

To be frank, I was torn between giving it a 3.5 star rating and a 4.0 star rating. The main reason is because I’m usually pretty sceptical about the quality of food served in buffet. Just like the saying “the jack of all trades is good at none”, this can also be applied to food. With such a huge variety of food served, it’s inevitable that there’ll bound to be some dishes on the buffet table that doesn’t taste good. However, the food at the buffet was surprisingly nice, in comparison to some other buffets that I’d gone to, and I love the atmosphere of the place. Thus, I gave it a 4.0 star in the end.

The lovely atmosphere for the place is not a surprise. It’s ultimately one of the best hotels in Singapore. The sofas are nice and comfy, and you’re being served with exquisite tableware and cutlery. Nice palm trees greet you when you look out of the glass panels. The glass panels allows ample afternoon sunshine to shine in, and with the sofas, it’s the perfect place in the afternoon to just kick back and relax, enjoy a cup of tea and some pastries, and have a engaging conversation with friends.

Basically, all I can say is that this place spells out the perfect lifestyle for the tai-tais.

However, I’m not a tai-tai and I definitely can’t afford to be one. Thus I definitely didn’t just have a cup of tea and some pastries while I was there. To be honest, I only had breakfast that day, and had combined my lunch and dinner into one meal for this buffet.

Shortly after I was seated, I was given a menu by the pretty waitress there. I was amazed by the huge selection of beverages there, which is mainly made up of tea (I’m a bit duh here..it’s high tea after all). Basically, the beverage there is free flow. Being totally a coffee person and totally not a tea person, I have no idea what are the best teas to order. I randomly ordered a pot of Nana Morcca mint, a herbal infusion tea. In the end, the tea tasted like toothpaste, so I didn’t finish my pot of tea. But I guess I was the unlucky one, or probably because the tea didn’t suit my palate. I tried the other teas that the others ordered, and they tasted great.

The buffet is supposed to be a local cum English high tea. The main local food they served when I was there was mainly the Indian cuisine. I was actually very sceptical when I first saw the variety of curry there (I think there were about 5 different curries). Somehow I can’t equate Indian cuisine with Shangri-la.

However, the first taste of the curry changed my entire view. It’s delicious. No doubt it’s not the best curry you can taste in Singapore, but it’s pretty good for buffet standards. My only qualms about it was that the curry wasn’t spicy enough, but I supposed it’s because of the crowd that they’re serving, or it may be also because my threshold for chilli has reached a state that can cause discomfort to many.

The salads there were really nice too. I know basically, no one can go really wrong with salads, but to have a salad that makes you feel like taking a second-helping of it is another matter, because that’s what I did in the end.

I also had my first taste of goose liver there. It’s the greyish brown gooey-liked food next to the smoke salmon. I’ll say goose liver tastes pretty ok for me, but a few small bites will be sufficiently enough for me personally, because I don’t think the entire taste will bode well for me if I finish the whole thing.

There’s also mee rebus there, which you have to prepare by yourself. It’s also ok, except I found it too sweet for a mee rebus.

The place also has a pretty decent selection of pastries. The pastries tasted fine, though not exceptional. However, do try the chocolates there. I love them lots! There’s also a strawberry dipped in white chocolate being served when I was there and it tasted marvellous. Two favourite foods of mine combined into one! Probably the next thing I should try should be a chocolate buffet.

After eating, we sat there for a long time chatting, despite the fact that the restaurant was already closed (6pm). The nice thing about the place is that they don’t start chasing you or hanging around you hoping that you’ll get the hint to start leaving.

Sidetrack: Haha, for the Blogger.sg party that I went after my high tea, Agagooga was asking me if I wanted to rate it 0/5.0. I’m not that cruel. DXO actually has a lovely setting and environment, and a centralised location. What’s missing I supposed, is people. A hype and happening crowd I supposed that wasn’t there (nope I’m not referring to the bloggers there. I suppose the bloggers are the only hype and happening people around there!).

~Sanz