The Dining Room

One of the factors that attracts me to a particular dining place is ambience and surroundings. Personally, I like going to restaurants that are not extremely crowded or noisy so that I can have a decent conversation with my dining companion(s) without having to raise my voice to make myself heard or to strain my ears to hear what is being said. Although I prefer quieter surroundings, I don't feel very comfortable being in top-end, relatively quieter restaurants where the atmosphere is loaded with poshness.

Last weekend, Jeffrey and I went to The Dining Room at Sheraton Towers for their weekend high tea buffet and I was pretty impressed with the dining environment that the restaurant offers.

The Dining Room sits on a squarish-plot of land on the ground floor of Sheraton Towers and it is flanked by waterfalls and ponds on two sides of the restaurant. I really liked the 'natural' surrounding and it helped me get into the weekend mood. The sizeable high tea crowd at The Dining Room also helped to keep the atmosphere lively and happy.

We could have opted to have a la carte dishes but decided to go for the buffet instead since we've been waiting rather patiently to try it! It seems to us that this particular buffet is pretty popular because we were told that the restaurant was fully booked during the past few times that we called to make a reservation.

Complimentary tea.

Mini peking duck crepe roll which was pretty good.

Mango paste sushi, salmon sashimi and tamago slice. The mango paste sushi was interesting because I've never tasted such a sweet sushi before. Frankly, I didn't quite like it because I felt that mango and Japanese rice don't go well together. Other than that, the salmon sashimi slices were fresh and juicy! The tamago was nice as well.

Thai fried tofu with chilli sauce, Chinese popiah, tamago slice and more salmon sashimi. The thai fried tofu was superb! (: The chinese popiah was a tad disappointing because it was cold and it wasn't as flavourful as it could have been.

A variety of sushis and egg-and-ham sandwich. Their sushi weren't the best that we've tasted and their sandwiches were just.. bad. The bread was hard and the fillings were very bland =(

Clockwise direction from back: egg sandwich, shrimp dumpling, Chinese popiah, Vietnamese fried spring roll, fried flour fritter (with some filling which I forgot). The Vietnamese spring roll and the fried flour fritter were the best tasting dishes on this plate so I'd suggest you go for these two items before sampling the rest if you don't wish to waste your stomach space on less-than-desirable dishes.

Clockwise from left: fried fritter, Chinese popiah, Vietnamese popiah, shrimp dumplings, Singaporean style fried rice, black pepper chicken. Their fried rice has got to be the WORST that we've ever tasted in our lives. Not only was it bland and tasteless, it had this sour taste (which I attribute to the addition of diced tomatoes into their fried rice) which repelled the both of us from the dish. Their black pepper chicken tasted much better in comparison.

Clockwise from left: egg and cheese sandwich, black pepper chicken, fried rice, shrimp dumpling, Chinese popiah.

There was a laksa counter but since neither of us was in the mood for laksa, we didn't try it. Instead, I made a beeline for the dessert counter! I was pretty relieved when I saw what they'd to offer for desserts because honestly, I was disappointed with their non-dessert dishes. Thankfully, the quality of their desserts was much better than expected so this buffet experience was somewhat 'saved'.

Walnut cheesecake, chocolate brownie, chocolate mousse with crunchy base cake. Jeffrey and I adore the chocolate cake with crunchy base! The chocolate mousse and the crunchy base are a match made in heaven, intoxicatingly delicious!

Durian pengyat. As most of you know, I'm pretty fond of durians and duriany stuff so I consumed two (or is it three?) bowls of durian pengyat! The durian flavour was very strong and the paste was thick enough for my liking. Yumyum.

Chocolate & banana bread & butter pudding with vanilla sauce. This was THE highlight of my entire meal at The Dining Room! Initially, I was a bit skeptical as to how this would taste because my previous encounter with a chocolate bread and butter pudding wasn't very friendly but this was PERFECT! (: I loved it so much that I had two big bowls of bread and butter pudding! You MUST try this or you'll be missing out on good stuff!

More chocolate mousse with crunchy base cake and mango cream puff! Initially, I didn't want to try the mango cream puff because it looks suspiciously dangerous but in the end I decided to give into my curiosity and took one back to the table! It actually tasted pretty good but I felt that the mango filling was slightly too artificial for my liking.

Chocolate lava cake and vanilla icecream. You've to place a special order for this from the lady at the counter because it's not displayed prominently. The chocolate lava was pretty thin and the vanilla icecream tasted odd. It was definitely not the best that we've had but it still makes a relatively decent dessert.

For a restaurant that gave us the impression that it serves wonderful food because it was fully booked whenever we attempted to make reservations, I think The Dining Room falls way below my expectations. Their dishes contained a mixture of hits and misses but I feel that there were more misses than hits (considering most of the hits came from the dessert section). Moreover, the range of food served is not very extensive. For about $33/ pax (after 15% credit card discount), I think we could have gotten better food at other restaurants but I'm still glad I visited The Dining Room for a taste of what they've to offer.