Buffet Lunch at Colony @Ritz Carlton

Met up with sistas for birthday celebration at the newly revamped Colony restaurant at the glitzy Ritz Carlton hotel. The new space had been transformed from its former greenhouse theme into contemporary British-colonial theme. It looks nothing short of fabulous.

The new buffet spread is designed around a Seven 'Live' Conservatory Kitchens theme.

1. The Ice Bar
2. The Grill & Rotisserie
3. The Steam Basket
4. The Wok
5. The Tandoor
6. The Fruit Stall
7. The Patisserie

Before we start digging in, a walkabout to check out the spread is a must. Let's take a look at what the 'seven kitchens' are about.

The Ice Bar
The freshest crustaceans on ice, salads, cold cuts and cheeses. It's an absolute feast for the eyes.

The Grill & Rotisserie
A selection of Western and Asian grilled delicacies. HK style roast meats, local Hainanese chicken rice & satay, western roasts carving station and grilled vegetables.

The Steam Basket
Asian noodles Live station, soups and assorted steamed dim sum delights. Check out their signature Laksa with homemade lobster balls.

The Wok
A myriad of local wok-fried dishes. Seafood, meats, veggies and carbo dishes to make the diner's job of decision making so much harder than it already is.

The Tandoor
Indian style meats, seafood and breads cooked in a traditional tandoor oven. All served in glistening traditional Indian copper ware.

The Fruit Stall
An assortment of whole fruits and fresh pressed fruit juices. The staffs here will help diners customize their own made-to-order juices.

The Patisserie

A decadent selection of sweet treats and a Live pancake station. Cakes, kuehs, custards/mousse, chocolates, ice cream and plenty of candies to spoil the diners.

My food choices, some are sharing portions for us all. 

I loved the super fresh seafood, sushi & sashimi, dim sum, HK roasts, noodle soup, nonya kuehs, pancakes and the ice cream. The cooked food from 'The Wok' station was kinda disappointing with over-seasoned salty dishes and also overcooked ones. My other gripe would be some of the overly sweet desserts (cakes & custard/mousse), they looked gorgeous but taste otherwise...

Lastly, we have a complimentary cake for the birthday girl. We took a lot of photos with it but eventually failed to finish it, of course.

It has been a while since I come across a buffet spread this good, excellent variety, generous use of premium ingredients, well executed and great tasting dishes. Despite some shortcomings with 'The Wok' and a couple of below expectation desserts, we were definitely impressed with the lunch buffet spread. The price was a reasonable $58++ per pax for all the good stuffs mentioned here, quite worthy of an occasional splurge.

Colony @The Ritz-Carlton

7 Raffles Avenue 

Singapore 039799

Tel: +(65) 64345288

HOURS

Breakfast

Daily

6:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. 

(last order at 10:15 a.m.) 

Lunch

Monday to Saturday

12 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. 

Afternoon Tea

Monday to Saturday

3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. 

(last order at 5:15 p.m.) 

Dinner

Daily

6:30 p.m. - 10:30 p.m. 

(last order at 10:15 p.m.)

Vintage Champagne Brunch

Sundays

12 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. 

(Last order at 3:15 p.m.) 

Golden Mile Thien Kee Steamboat Restaurant 黄金端记餐室

The evil sistas met up for CNY Louhei and Steamboat dinner. We decided to have it at a traditional Hainanese steamboat and chicken rice restaurant, Thien Kee Steamboat, located at basement of Golden Mile Tower (Tower, not Complex hor).

Thien Kee has been around for many years and is one of the rare Hainanese restaurants still run by Hainanese, and serving authentic Hainan delicacies in this millennium. As you can see, they are hugely popular with Singaporeans, almost full house before the clock strikes 7 in the evening (Friday).

First things first, lets order something to drink while we decide on our food orders. The usual coffee shop beverages are served here with a choice of homemade lime juice for the undecided. The Lime juice was too sweet for my liking.

Dinner kick started with the CNY Louhei platter, served with thinly sliced canned abalone. The yusheng tasted a tad too sweet but passable.

Next up, we had the steamboat with chicken broth. The steamboats are sold in different sizes, raw ingredients are fixed, you may omit certain items like beef etc. when placing orders. Some standard ingredients are seafood, pork meat, fishballs, pig liver, cockles, fish maw, sea cucumbers, eggs, with plenty of greens.

The chicken soup started off bland but gradually became flavorful when all the ingredient were cooked. We couldn't tell this apart from our usual homemade steamboat though, as none of the ingredients are uniquely Hainanese.

While we're enjoying the steamboat, other Hainanese dishes arrived. The must have here is the Chicken rice with steamed chicken (sorry, no roast chicken here but roast pork & char siew are available for top up).

While the steamboat didn't leave much impression, this chicken rice is rather good. The rice was super fragrant with nice firm rice grains. The steamed chicken was tender and sufficiently flavored with homemade soy sauce.

The Hainanese Pork chop, covered with generous serving of tangy tomato sauce, was a little dry and hard to chew, but saved by the delish sauce with an old school taste.

The last dish was a mixed veggie dish, stir fried with some of the steamboat ingredients. It tasted quite bland albeit everything used was fresh.

Despite some hits and misses with the food, we still enjoyed our dinner here at Thien Kee. It is a good place for large group gathering with pocket friendly prices. The aircon area is also a plus for folks who dislike hot and sweaty steamboat meals.


Golden Mile Thien Kee Steamboat Restaurant 黄金端记餐室
6001 Beach Road, #B1-20 Golden Mile Tower
Singapore 199589

Tel: 6298 5891

Hours:
Daily 11am – 9pm
Closed on certain Chinese festivals

Founder Bak Kut Teh 发起人肉骨茶餐馆 @Rangoon Road

After indulging on irresistible waffles at The Cold Pantry (yep, we ate waffles first before dinner!), we walked down the Rangoon road to Founder Bak Kut Teh 发起人肉骨茶餐馆 for a proper meal.

News alert - [ieatishootipost] Founder Bak Kut Teh has started franchising its restaurants. All except the one at Rangoon Road which is run by the daughter Chui Chui and her daughter Catherine. They will still be running it as a family business rather than a franchise. Its name will be changed soon.

Celeb's photo wall

We ordered a table full of food for sharing. The signature Bak Kut Teh, Braised pig organs and eggs, Preserved veggies and stir fried Pea sprouts. There was a choice of steam rice or soupy mee sua to go with the dishes, I chose to have the mee sua.

Food here was so so tasting mostly, my sistas commented that the Balestier outlet had better tasting food. I guess we probably won't be coming back anytime soon...

Founder Bak Kut Teh 发起人肉骨茶餐馆

154 Rangoon Road, Singapore 218431

Tel: 6292 0938

Hours: 

Sun - Tue:  9am – 11pm

Wed:  11am – 11pm

Thu - Sat:  9am – 11pm

Waffles with Unique Flavors at The Cold Pantry

I've been bugging my sistas to go try the delish looking waffles at The Cold Pantry ever since I saw photos of the waffles with towering charcoal ice cream sitting on a cookie. Finally we decided to meet up just before they start getting busy with CNY preps.

The tiny waffle & ice cream eatery is located about 5-6mins on foot from the Farrer Park MRT on NEL.

Simple menu with Waffles and Ice cream on one side and Coffee and tea on the other. Nothing fancy, but they do create their own unique flavors of waffles and homemade ice cream. All prices are NETT, no GST and service charge.

We ordered their best seller Iced Thai Milk Tea $5.00 per bottle. This drink was really nice with pretty authentic Thai milk tea flavor and yet not overly sweet. Recommended.

Our party of 3 ladies and 2 kids ordered 2 specialty waffles for adults to share, and 1 regular flavored one for the kids.

Chocolate Root Beer $12.50, chocolate waffles served with Charcoal vanilla ice cream and homemade chocolate Root beer sauce. The waffle tasted heavenly with light crisp on the exterior and airy fluffy soft center. The root beer sauce was really unique and matches perfectly with the waffle and the charcoal ice cream. We were very impressed!

Pink Velvet $14.00, rose flavored waffles served with Lychee ice cream and sprinkled with lychee bits & fruit loops. The waffle again surprises with its lovely rose fragrance and heavenly texture. The lychee flavored ice cream was also an excellent pairing to the rose waffle. Thumbs up.

Chocolate Indulgence $14.00, waffle served with Chocolate ice cream and Hershey's chocolate sauce, and topped with a variety of chocolaty confectioneries. The ice cream and sauce was very well received too.

All the ice cream towers are sitting on a chocolate chip cookie, a brilliant way to support the weight, and also to prevent the crispy and warm waffle from getting soggy and melting away the ice cream prematurely.

We really love the waffles and ice cream here and would definitely be back to try more flavors in the future!


The Cold Pantry
131 Rangoon Road, Singapore 218409

Opening hours:
4pm - 10pm (Mon, Wed-Thurs)
12pm - 10pm (Fri-Sun)
Closed on Tue