Food: Buffet Town

Food: Buffet Town

Was looking for a review to do today and manged to find out that I have slated to review before but didn't have a chance. Thankfully I ate at this place not more then 2 months ago so I can still remember the associated points to review about! So this place is none other then buffet town!

Its a pretty crowded and popular place that has been around for a while under raffles city (NOT AT RAFFLES PLACE MRT). The nearest MRT station for this place is City Hall station and you always see a queue outside of it especially before it begins its buffet sessions which are afternoon lunch and dinner only. It's an international buffet and I have some pictures that I took below that you can refer to!

So all in all how did the whole experience feel for me? Read on to find out!


So these are the pictures of the food we ate

Has soup, rendeng meat, sushi, snippets from every cuisine

 So like any international buffet this place has the obligatory cream of mushroom soup and on the japanese side they have all the sashimi from salmon as well as the tuna flavors

Some potato some fish and carrot cake plus ham

 Really many various types of food here, all these are already pre cooked and you just have to collect them up from the warmers

Of course international buffet has the thin crust pizzas, 3 types here

 3 types of pizzas being the seafood, meat type and the margherita which is like some vegetarian pizza

Cooked chicken

 There was actually also a station whereby they will directly cook some of the food choices provided there, they provided seafood which i believe is squid, then chicken and some veggies, so you can get the guy to freshly cook some meat from you

Adding the asian flavor to the mix

 Has also the satay cooking area right beside the cooked chicken area but for this you had to wait awhile because it was always empty. The moment the satay is done its quickly wiped off by other hungry customers

Some of our own cuisine

 The laksa that they cook relatively fresh for you! obviously the soup is already pre made! Pretty milky taste but overall its not the spicy type

Finally some spaghetti

To top it off there is also spaghetti from the Italian side of the world although pizza should be from there too!

Besides this, there were some other items not pictured here which are cold seafood choices Chilled Prawns, Mussels, Big and Juicy Freshly Shucked Oysters, Scallops, White Clams and Slipper Lobsters which is also advertised on the website. It didn't seem supremely enticing to me but if seafood is your thing this might be what brings u here.

There is also desert and drinks provided from cute little cakes down to crepes and ice cream which is about 4 varieties and fruits all that. Drink choices included soya bean, coffee and tea as well as a lot of ice teas peach green lemon and the rest of the soft drinks

Overall, the taste of the food however to put it bluntly is pretty ordinary. Nothing particularly stood out from its outside counter parts. Satay tastes better outside, laksa better outside etc. Probably not a surprise for a place that tries to cover everything. Sadder part was the foods that were already cooked like the potatos and rendang meats were not particularly hot either which doesn't feel as tasty. 

Probably, the only thing that has going for it is its variety. Its variety is pretty vast with at least 15 choices for even the most picky of eaters such as myself and I think there are about 25 to 30 choices of food out there. Nonetheless, you won't be very impressed with the taste of the food no matter what you eat. Just to clarify again, I didn't eat the seafood so especially if you don't eat seafood like me, your rating would probably be similar.

Food 3/5

Atmosphere 3/5

Sitting place wise the whole area is pretty well spaced but being buffet style there will be people walking past your area especially if you sit in the center section. The other areas are all at the sides which means you will be pretty far away from at least one station of the food.

There is little interaction with the waiting staff and some of the cooks tend to be doing their own things sometimes which means its hard to ask them about what you are supposed to do with the food at this station such as the teppanyaki cooking station whereby they just leave the food there without telling you explicitly that you need to pick the food and pass it to the staff. The staff also don't tell you when the next batch of satay is ready neither is there a visible queue. So these will make it slightly more disorganized then usual.

There is a lot that can be done to improve the customer service and overall feeling but its still passable as it is not unpleasant.

Price 2/5

Prices range from $26.80++ on a weekday lunch to $41.80++ for a weekend dinner. 

This for the quality of food and service atmosphere, is pretty crazy especially for the weekend dinner section. Put simply, there is probably no way the food you eat will feel worth the $41.80 dollars excluding the plus plus. 

Only plus point is that drinks and dessert are all provided in house at no extra charge but worth it? I don't really feel so.

Accessibility 3/5

Perhaps the only obviously positive point of this place is that it is near. However, this place has strange popularity that means that you might need to try to reserve a seat during peak periods or you need to queue up or reach there earlier just to secure your seat.

It didn't fail in this category due to its ease of getting there but there is little ease to getting in. Also they follow the end time strictly which means once you cross the 3 pm mark for lunch and 10 pm mark for dinner, there is nothing left for you as they pack up. So if you don't get in at 1 pm for lunch or at 7 pm for dinner, you probably should just come back another day.

Overall

Food: 3 (Variety is "vast" but food taste is nothing impressive at all)

Atmosphere: 3 (No clear instructions on what to do, confusing, not too attentive staff)

Price: 2 (Extremely overpriced for the standard of food honestly)

Accessibility: 3 (Near MRT, doesn't mean you will get in though)

Overall: 2.75 (A barely passable score. I'll put it bluntly, I have no reason to go back there to eat ever again and even if my friends were to suggest it I probably would tell them that there are other places to eat compared to this place. Nonetheless it is still ok to eat on a weekday lunch if you really have no where else to go. I have absolutely zero reasons to eat a weekend dinner there though. Keep your expectations low if you are going there and maybe just try to convince yourself that you are there for variety)

Been there before and don't agree with the score? Post your comments below!

Here is its website if you want to check it out!

Disclaimer: Since this is a neutral or slightly negative review, I would like to say that all this is just words of opinion based on the dishes we had. Its not a professional review but the first impressions of a layman as per blog objective. So please don't be offended if you are a staff from there!

Food: Peperoni Pizzeria

 Food: Peperoni Pizzeria

Went to a place to try out pizza after paying a visit to the Alive Museum down at suntec city! The thing that struck out to me that invited me in was the nice wood furnace that they use to cook the pizza and the fact that the pizza was huge. As in the XL sized one. Nonetheless after looking at the menu we decided to pay this place a visit. Did the food turn out as good as expected? Read on to find out.

Food 3.5/5

You can get a two faced pizza here!

 This place sells quite the usual variety of food and not just pizza, but we got the pizza for the dinner there. There was also spaghetti and the usual italian cuisine. They had probably about 10-12 varieties of pizza and even have the super veggie type of pizza where its just greens all over the top of the veggie.

We however ordered a portion of supreme on one side and the other side was salmon. The names on the menu is a bit more cool sounding. The first is suprema! See its so professional sounding. I can't remember the salmon side name.. probably was salmone or something.. definitely wasn't called salmonella so no worries there!

Anyway as you can see from the picture, the supreme has pretty good amount of content on top of it and it did taste a bit better then the usual you eat at the standard places like pizza hut. The salmon on the other side is a bit less meatier, but i would say still a fair amount of meat. Overall, the taste was good and it was nicely cooked. This pizza we got however was just the large one which is 12". The extra large comes at 50 dollars but its a whopping 21" in size.

The only unfortunate outcome however, was that this pizza was not filling enough. Pretty sad but true. With its thin crust and sharing between two people, it was not filling enough for my bottomless belly. I would say that you probably can have 2 large pizza for 3 eaters and it should be nicely filling.

All in all, it was a pretty good pizza, nothing extremely stunning though but the taste was there as well as the amount of ingredients put in.

Atmosphere 3.5/5

The seats are actually very very well spaced apart although there is the metal type of chairs around that might be a bit cold and uncomfortable to the butt. Didn't sit on that one though but rather we got the sofa type of seat. It is pretty easy to walk around inside the premises as the onslaught of customers are kept outside which makes the experience more comfortable

Water is served for free and the waiters are pretty quick to fill up your cup as long as you get to them, but during my time there, at least I did not have to wave to excessively to get the attention of the waiters.

Price 3.5/5

I know we just ordered little...

For both of us, we had water and a large pizza and it was at a pretty good price of $24. This is cheaper then the skinny pizza and you can see that there is no service charge and GST is already factored in. This is what makes this place cheaper then the rest. But of course it is not entirely filling but for a bit more above this price there are a few pizza places that sell those pizzas with thicker crust that might do a better job of filling you up. The spaghetti and other choices price ranges from about 12 to about 22 so I guess you could probably be filled for about 20 per pax but if you are really not hungry, you can just go for the single large pizza. 

Accessibility 3.5/5

When we left the place at about 7 plus, there was already a queue building up. However when we entered at 5.40 there was almost no queue but the place already had some people inside. This was for a Saturday crowd also. Places like Astons would be super packed at this point of time.

Being at Suntec which is quite a central location, there should be no problems driving or taking the train there so it scores some good points there.


Overall

Food: 3.5 (Tastes pretty good [hard to go wrong with pizza], has good amount of ingredients on top and doesn't taste cheap. Just not that filling only)
Atmosphere: 3.5 (Spacey, they could actually fit quite a bit more tables but risk feeling crowded)
Price: 3.5 (Good price, dumped the GST and Service charge and also don't charge for water)
Accessibility: 3.5 (Has a queue during peak periods but it is pretty accessible by train)

Overall: 3.5 (A pretty fair reflection that indicates this could be a place for you and your friends to meet up if you want a pizza feast and are willing to go a bit earlier to book your seats or wait for a bit. Its relatively cheaper price also allows for revisits and is probably good for students looking for a place to chill and not get charged too much. You could come back and eat again and I won't see its price kicking up too much of a fuss.)

That's it for the review today! Been thinking of trying to up my game by taking videos instead of pictures and to possibly even do this videolog style instead of just blog since I have a Mic and everything like that. Who knows! Thanks for the support nonetheless and look out for my next review on the ALIVE Museum in Singapore

Here is its website if you wanna find out more

Food: Da Paolo Pizza Bar

Food: Da Paolo Pizza Bar

Hi all, have been working pretty hard these days and with exams coming up its rare for me to get chances to catch movies... however, there is always time to eat and sometimes its good to pamper yourself on food since its a necessity anyway! Like you probably have experienced, there are times when you don't know or cannot decide what to eat, so if you need some inspiration, here is a place that you can consider!

Nested in a nice place down at Holland village, you can go there and eat with a bit of the expat feeling as this Pizza bar is not in Holland village main area itself, but along a private road lined with many other places like this.

Forgot to take a picture of their menu, but this place has its fair share of pizza and salads with pretty ok prices that I will elaborate on further down.Note that their food names are all those italian or some other language sounding like one.. so you probably should read the food description to know what appears in your food. For us, this was what we got!

Portofino which is actually supposed to be crayfish!

The crayfish is the most expensive pizza there probably due to the meat choice, but the content of meat is not entirely plentiful to be honest.

Mari e Monti which is Salmon and stuff!

We got 2 pizzas for 3 people which is pretty much in reality, you could probably feed four people easily as the pizza are all 12 inches. Of course unlike pizza hut, these pizza have thinner crusts so you wont be too filled up by the flour. The cheese also tastes pretty nice and it is all cooked fresh.

Overall, this is the type of pizza that focuses on the quality of the ingredients and they are pretty good tasting. I personally ate 8 slices by myself which was actually one whole pizza and I did not get bored of the taste unlike some other pizza that I have eaten else where.

All in all, in terms of food taste, I would give this a

Food 3.5/5

Atmosphere 4/5

This place has the advantage of the atmosphere. Being located further from the more crowded Holland village, the whole place is open air but we hardly felt hot thanks to the design of the place and how far away the tables are spaced. You could even sit on the outside of the shop which is similarly nicely shaded and the sitting tables and chairs are comfortable looking. It is really a quiet place and you could consider using the place if you just want to have a chit chat session with a bit of drinks here and there.

They also have a very comfortable toilet which does honestly add to the atmosphere for a very clean and orderly place

The staff is also pretty friendly and positive looking which makes the experience more pleasant. Not entirely the type to wait on you constantly but at least they response fast, and you don't need to put in too much effort to get their attention. The food also comes pretty quickly.

Price 3/5

For 3 people of whom I believe all were pretty filled by the food, this meal ended up to about 20+ per pax. So its is above average on the price point. There's no need to spend on drinks as water is provided but when we where there, I believe they were having a 1 for one deal for beer, wine or spirits.

Accessibility 4/5

Interestingly, this place is actually very very easy to get to via car or public transport. For MRT takers, don't get out via the same exit for the usual Holland Village shops. Its the other exit. Once you are out of that exit, it is like maybe just a 3 - 5 mins walk away. There is also a car park at the back of the line of shops and right in front of the pizza bar itself actually. We went there during dinner time and it was hardly packed either which means you can get a seat and start your meal quickly and comfortably. Not to say it was not popular also however as it was about 3/4 filled all the time we were there during a weekday night.

Overall

Food: 3.5 (Food tastes classy and has a good variety of pizzas and salads. Not extremely unique but tastes like what you would expect)
Atmosphere: 4 (Atmosphere here is very good, cooling, quiet, peaceful and the staff are friendly)
Price: 3 (Is in the above average price range but does fill up the person sufficiently and the quality of food can somewhat justify the cost)
Accessibility: 4 (Very very easy to go even on a whim as there should be space and its near the MRT)

Overall: 3.6/5 (Like I said in the previous review, 3 would be a place you wont regret visiting once just for the experience. 3.6 would be a place that you can consider going on the off occasion of trying to find a place to meal and you happen to have a pizza craving. Only issue that it has is that pizza in general, is not difficult to do well and hence there are many similar places and similar prices all over Singapore.This is a good place especially if you want to have a area to just hang out and slowly enjoy a peaceful evening. )

Pay the place a visit and see if you agree with me :)