Pinoy in Singapore

Yesterday, after watching Beowulf, we decided to eat somewhere at Orchard road. I wanted something that was not fast food so we walked along orchard looking for somewhere to eat. To make a long story short we ended up at Family International Buffet Restaurant, #05-30, Ngee Ann City. I’ve always been curious if it was any good coz I pass by it everytime I’m on my way to Best Denki and it always makes me crave for oysters.

The verdict:

The variety of food is pretty good. They have sashimi, salads, soups, steak, dimsum, rice, different viands for the rice like chicken curry, they had vegetables, fruits,cakes, and ice cream for dessert, and the drinks is inlcuded with the buffet.

The Sashimi section however, smells of stale fish. Maybe because we were there for dinner and it certainly looks that some of the tuna sashimi had been there since the place opened in the morning because it was turning green at the edges. I wanted to tell them that they should just take it out coz no one is ever going eat it anymore and it doesn’t look appetizing. But I didn’t. Despite that, we still tried the oysters after which we thought we might get sick coz it wasn’t fresh either. No wonder they still have hope for the tuna.

Each person get’s a number that you can drop in a bowl to queue for steak, lambchops, fish, okra, and dow mian. But since there’s only 1 number per head you can only queue for one type of food at a time. The lambchops were teeny weeny and I didn’t even bother to try them. (Our lambchops at home looked so much better.) The steak isn’t exactly what you would picture a steak to be. It was tapa actually, cooked medium well which is fine with me coz I love tapa but you only get 2 pieces at a time. The gravy wasn’t bad though.

The dish I probably enjoyed the most was the chicken curry maybe because I hadn’t had chicken curry since I’ve been to Singapore. I tried the shark’s fin soup which I remember I enjoyed when I tried it at No Signboard Seafood Restaurant but this one was blah I didn’t even finish it.

The cakes were ok. They were cut into very small pieces. They had ice cream which is always a plus for me had I not seen the kid who was getting ice cream before me lick the scoop before putting it back in the bowl for others. This time I told the attendant that she should probably change the scoops since the kid just licked it. But she just said (with a smile - in fairness to her) that the water in the bowl is filtered. I would have been pacified if the water was even hot but it wasn’t.  I wanted to ask the waitress if she was aware that this is how epidemics start but I didn’t coz I didn’t want to come off as anal.  But that scene from the movie “Outbreak” where a sick person was coughing in the movie theater flashed through my mind.

Overall, I’m happy that I finally tried it. I can finally have closure and not always wonder whether it’s good or not. Now I know that I’m not going back coz it’s not worth the per head rate of S$32.80 + 10% Service charge + 7% GST. If you convert that to Peso that’s almost a buffet meal at the Shangri La Circles. Well I know I’m not supposed to convert, cost of living here is much higher. But next time I’d just buy all the sashimi I want from Carrefour like I always do.