Is the 1-for-1 high tea buffet deal at Marriott Hotel Singapore worth it?
Recently I’ve been receiving many notifications from the Bank about credit card promotions for dining. A lot of the dining promotions are offered by many hotels in Singapore and it somehow revolves around 1-for-1 dining deals for either lunch, high-tea or dinner buffer. The question that always pops into my mind everytime I’m considering buffet is whether the deal’s gonna be worth it. But since a friend’s birthday came up and my not-creative-grey-matter did not really have any idea on what to give, I gave her the yummilicious gift ever, high-tea treat from me at Marriott Café, the restaurant belongs to Marriott Hotel at Orchard.
The first thing you need to do when planning for any hotel buffet in Singapore is definitely picking up the phone and call them up to book slot. A lot of people in Singapore loves to go for weekend buffet so it’s always advisable to book beforehand. High-tea buffet usually starts at 3PM and it lasts until 5PM/ 5.30PM. The restaurant staff will start clearing up the dishes from 5.30PM because they have to prepare for dinner buffer.
High tea buffet at Marriott Café offers both savory and sweet dishes. Let’s start from the savory, Marriott Café provides cold station which is divided into smoked salmon, some sushi, salad bar, sandwich bar and prawn and oyster bar. I prefer sashimi to smoked salmon so I did not really touch the cold section of the high tea. For the hot station, Marriott Café high-tea buffet provides local Singapore dishes such as carrot cake, chili crab mantou, chicken satay, spring rolls and chicken rice. One thing that interested me the most was the laksa bar because you have to pick your own ingredients for the laksa (except the eggs which are already cooked) and then, pass them to the staff stationed behind the laksa bar for some cooking. The staff will then pour the laksa soup to the cooked ingredients and give you back the bowl. The laksa was pretty good and I think every table got at least one bowl of laksa. Pizza is also available at the side, one is non-vegetarian while the other one is vegetarian version.
If you are scones lover, you will find some scones located near to the pizza station. However, I think the variety of the scones served at Marriott Café is not much. They only have three flavours such as blueberry, plain and nutty scones. You may want to go for high tea at Goodwood Park Hotel instead if you love to have many choices of scones.
How about desserts? Marriott Café offers so many traditional desserts and durian-based desserts. This was kinda depressing for me because I don’t really eat these two kind of desserts. How many kueh lapis and angku kueh can one person eat? As for durian, oh well, I was not born with the love for the fruit so that’s the end of my relationship with this uhh, unique fruit. Thankfully, ice cream is available and nothing makes me happier than ice cream, so yeah I guess I’m not that disappointed (although the ice cream is average at best).
The 1-for-1 deal made the total bill comes at 55 SGD. I would think it’s considered a good deal especially if you can eat a lot in buffet. One main in normal restaurant can cost you 20+ SGD already in this current economy that we are living. Plus it's durian season now so go for it if you love durian so much.
