Marriot Cafe

Hello! =) I'm taking a short break from work now so I'm going to post about my extremely indulgent back-to-school buffet meal at Marriot Cafe! =) Jeffrey and I didn't get to spend March hols together because I was away so we decided to catch up over a long and filling lunch at Marriot Cafe! Truth be told, I didn't think much of this place and I only remember it as 'the place which serves good bread & butter pudding' but since we didn't really have a preference for restaurants the day before Term 2 started, we parked ourselves at Marriot Cafe for the $80/ pax non-champagne Sunday brunch. For those who, like me, haven't been to Marriot Cafe for quite a while, you would be pleasantly surprised to find out that they've changed their buffet system! They've decided to place all warm food items on a list where you can tick off and order (there is no limit to the number of orders because it's a buffet) instead of placing them on display so that the warm dishes can be prepared upon ordering and they will reach your table tops piping hot and fresh off the stove! While waiting for our 'hot' items to be cooked, we helped ourselves to the wide variety of cold dishes and appetizers. There's a wide range of raw vegetables for salad lovers, sweetened apples and other fruits for people who prefer to have something sweet, a whole range of pre-mixed salads like the scallops and baby corn salad mix at the top left hand corner of this photo and not to mention, two types of smoked salmon to choose from! Yum =) There is also a Japanese section where you can get petite warm dishes like this cup of chawanmushi as well as cold dishes like sushi! Oh and if you're observant, you'll notice two siewmais sitting amongst the sushis on this plate! There is a few types of dimsum to choose from but personally I didn't think much of the dimsum so I didn't eat a lot of it. Because I don't usually follow the conventional dining order, I hopped from appetizer to dessert within the first half an hour of our meal! I helped myself to a generous serving of bread and butter pudding with vanilla sauce and was looking forward to letting my palette experience a mush of goodness but the bread and butter pudding didn't live up to my expectations this time round =( Maybe it wasn't a good batch of bread and butter pudding but I was really quite crushed when I ate the ordinary-tasting bread and butter pudding. Nevertheless, I let my prejudice pave my way to a couple more bowls of this during the later part of the meal. Seafood lovers are in for a treat because there is the standard range of shell fish/ seafood up for grabs! =) Their cold lobsters weren't particularly big so there was not much meat in each shell but you can always go back for more! Finally, our warm dishes started to make their appearance on our table! Just a small note: the dishes come in VERY small portions so please take the liberty to order two or more portions if you like a particular dish. Champagne Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon and Asparagus. The eggs definitely tasted different from the usual scrambled eggs but the taste is not as distinct or exquisite as the scrambled eggs that I'd at Au Jardin. I liked the combination of the three types of food on this plate. Atlantic Salmon "Sous vide" with Spinach Emulsion. The spinach emulsion was the key ingredient that made this dish less ordinary. I didn't think that the spinach emulsion blended particularly well with the salmon though but I suspect it may be a personal preference to have salmon on its own. Fire-roasted Vegetables with Mediterranean Butter. This was probably the least enjoyable dish out of all that we've ordered so I think you can give this a miss. Tempura Prawns & Vegetables with Dipping Sauce. This was pretty standard tempura - the batter wasn't light nor was it too oily though I must say that people who dislike having too thick a layer of flour around their prawns/ vegetables may not like this that much. 8 Treasures Fried Rice. With such a name, how could we not be tempted to try it? It tasted like a dry version of claypot rice to me and it wasn't as fragrant as I expected it to be but it was generally okay. Steamed Garoupa Fillet with Ginger and Spring Onion. The fish fillet wasn't particularly tender and unless you conscientiously dip each portion of the fillet with sauce before you eat it, it actually tastes quite bland. Crispy Roasted Pork Belly with Hokkien Mee. This is one dish that we would highly recommend because Marriot Cafe's version of Hokkien Mee is pretty unique and we both liked it a lot! Eggs Benedict with Shaved Leg Ham and Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon for Jeffrey & myself respectively! The eggs benedict here is slightly above average and I would strongly encourage you to order this especially if you're in a brunchy mood. By now you should be able to tell that Jeffrey and I are lobster lovers! Here's a photo of Lobster Thermidore, which is lobster with melted cheese over it. It's extremely sinful but also delectably delicious! Try it! Time for some real dessert! Apart from my bowls of bread & buttter pudding, I also had (in clockwise direction from left), chocolate truffle, matcha cheesecake (yum), macaroon, banana crumble with vanilla sauce, mango cake... More chocolate balls, extremely rich chocolate cake and another macaroon. The dessert section is actually quite well-stocked and there are definitely more choices that those that I have shown here. I suspect I didn't get to try the other desserts because I ate way too much bread & butter pudding and so I didn't have much space left for the rest =S Finally, I ended my meal off with a thick (and rather oily) piece of pancake with maple syrup! Intially I wanted to have waffles and crepes but the guy at the crepe counter was taking way too long to make the crepes so I decided to help myself to a pancake instead. In short, it was the perfect meal to mark the end of March hols and also a good start to welcome a new term! =) Would definitely go back to Marriot Cafe again in the near future! Alright that's all for today. Have a great week ahead everyone! (: