Marriott Cafe - Mediocre Buffet Lunch

Food at Marriott Cafe on the 21st of June, Thursday, was rather disappointing. The oysters didn't taste fresh, the crayfish tasted old and didn't have much sweetness, the hot food was meh. 

I think Marriott's saving grace is really their service though. The waiting staff and receptionist give extremely good service - they're really polite and hospitable. Really nice smiles from some of them too ahha. 

All right some of their cold food was actually quite okay, such as their salmon and tuna sashimi. Fresh slices that were of just enough thickness. Their prawns were also huge and yummy. 

I was frankly very disappointed with the freshness of the oysters though. I was actually excited that there were actually gonna be oysters until I started trying to scrape the oysters off their shells. They stuck to the shell like no one's business and some even tasted and smelled strange. :( 

Cold food

Their hot food was not great. Carving station's beef doneness was medium but it was quite tough still, not very juicy and had unpalatable fat chunks at the sides. They had quite a good selection of sauces although the mushroom sauce was probably left to set for some time and looked awful. I liked their apple sauce and teriyaki.

It was quite a joke that I had to keep waiting for the roasted pork. "Could you wait for ten minutes?" And it became "could you come back five minutes later?" when I went back fifteen minutes after. Haha I kind of gave up on it after that. Kind of embarrassing to keep going back to beg for pork yknow. My sis said some parts of the meat was tough but some other parts were delectable. Crispy skin. Good taste. 

They had other food like.. Beef lasagne, costachino with barley (omg this was so gamey and salty), chicken, dumplings (my sis said the skin was so thick and tough and the meat was bland), otah and stuff didn't taste very good. Didn't try their laksa, chicken rice, mee goreng or pastas because I don't believe in eating much staple food during buffets heh. 

Oh well. Dessert was another disappointment. Maybe all except this passionfruit thing and the mango ice cream. There was chocolate fondue which I had with meringue and honeydew. 

Desserts

More desserts

My ice cream scooped on a cone with a cute gummy bear sitting against hahaha. 

My father, sis and I at the start of our meal.

Well I've once had better food here during their buffet dinner years ago. It's either their standard of food quality has dipped or they serve better food during their dinners? No idea, but I won't be going back for a while. 

Rating: 2.5/5 

Marriott Cafe

Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel

320 Orchard Rd, Singapore 238865

Opens 6AM

Kogane Yama - Delightful Meal

Went to Kogane Yama on the 20th of June, Wednesday, at around 6.30pm for dinner with my sis! Was taking advantage of their $11++ for all their dons as their first birthday special promotion. 

Located at Bugis Junction on the second floor, it's just adjacent to Chir Chir Fusion Chicken Factory. Not sure how busy their weekday dinner crowd is usually like, but when we were there it was pretty packed though we didn't have to queue to get in. A short queue was slowly forming when we were exiting though! 

Tables were decently spaced out, not cramped at all; my sis and I were quite comfortable at a table for two.  There weren't many tables - seems like quite a small restaurant but it was a little noisy. Could see neighbouring tables with half-eaten tendons and chirashi dons on them, which are what we ordered! 

We quickly made our order - it took a while to get the waitress' attention though! Kept waving my arm about to no avail and had to eventually wait until someone was serving food to another table before I could place my order with her. 

My sis and I were absolutely famished and were left with our tummies rumbling on for maybe 20 minutes before my chirashi don finally arrived. My sister's tendon arrived maybe 8 minutes after? 

Do admire photos of the food below! The chirashi don had nice cut chunks of tamago, salmon, tuna and (I think) hamachi sashimi, with a generous amount of shredded seaweed at the side. I found the serving portion a bit small actually. Bit too small to fill my big tummy heh. But the quality of the sashimi was not bad. Just that the unknown whitish coloured sashimi was a tad tough. 

My sister's mixed tendon was good! Ebi, crabstick and some veg fried to perfection and the drizzled sauce delivered just enough sweetness to make the dish a delightful one. But again the rice portion was small. Bigger eaters may want to add on various sides or consider getting dessert to get satiated! 

Tendon

Chirashi Don

Me before gorging on the chirashi don

My sis and I after the meal! <3

Overall a pleasant experience eating here. Do hurry down to get their yummy dons at the special rate! It'll be at the price of $11++ until 30 June 2018! 

Rated 4/5 by yours truly :)

Kogane Yama 

Bugis Junction 

200 Victoria Street #02-50, Singapore 188021

Opens Daily 11AM-11PM

Bliss House at The Central, Clarke Quay

Was brought to Blisshouse at the Central by my boyfriend for a late Valentine's Day dinner, and boy, I was impressed right from the entrance. It was so beautifully decorated! The owners certainly dedicated a lot of effort (and money I'm sure) to furnish their restaurant really prettily. 

It was like stepping into a magical place, really. What with the dim lighting, the big tree in the middle with strings of white christmas lights streaming down, the white tables each topped with a tealight in a little lamp, fencing dividers lined with green vines and the floor carpeted with synthetic grass. Just look at the pictures I took! 

You can't miss this very pretty swing that could be seen from the entrance. Despite it being very squeaky and how it seemed like it would collapse with my weight, gosh it was soo pretty! 

Hm, guess I shouldn't keep raving about the fantastic ambience -oh which btw I think I forgot to mention that it was kinda cool to be able to look out through the full-length glass windows to see..frankly nothing impressive, but it was still kinda nice. And so it's time to talk about their menu! 

Their classy, thick menu started with lots of - for lack of a better word- nonsense about how their themed restaurant started out. Pages that I tried to read but stopped prematurely from boredom. Anyways, they serve western food - things like pastas, pizzas, fish, meat, risotto and a number of starters and soups, complete with desserts and drinks. The prices of their mains were in the range of $15-$28, excluding three of their most expensive dishes - Tomato Pesto Chilean Cod Fish ($45), Tomato Taco Braised Lamb Shank ($32) and Pan-seared US 365-day Grain Fed Ribeye ($45). You can look at their full menu on their website here.

I was kinda spoilt for choice. Normally I'd get Jerome to choose what I should eat, but that day I decided to try a dish that I'd enjoyed a lot previously at Saveur - so far there are only two: Duck Confit and Chicken Roulade. I picked the latter, in part cuz their Duck Confit here is served with Orange Sauce ($28) -the orange sauce is sth I've had a bad experience with in a cafe in Vietnam with my sisters lol (once bitten twice shy- wasn't game on trying it again so soon.), and somehow I just felt like I had to try Chicken Roulade again somewhere else. Heh. You know, that's the thing with classy menus. They just have NO pictures! Hahah then I've to reference each dish with my memories of it served elsewhere. Or rely on online reviews... 

So my Chicken Roulade ($20), pictured above, came with potato wedges and salad with balsamic dressing. The chicken leg was stuffed with wild mushroom puree and was drenched in some sauce that enhanced its taste. The slightly crispy outside wasn't uniformly tasty, some parts better seasoned for some reason. The mushroom stuffing tasted healthy (aka quite bland) but as a whole it was all right. Wedges were served warm and salty enough. 

Jerome on the other hand, ordered Pork Belly Confit with Latte Tagliatelle ($20). The pork belly confit was so good! At least the parts that he sliced for me to try. Crispy, succulent and yummy. And the pasta was set in a saccharine sweet cream sauce that tasted different and delicious from the start, but towards the end he kinda got a bit sick of it. Haha. I think I would have appreciated his dish more. 

I wasn't very hungry that day, so we didn't order dessert, but I think their Melting Heart Chocolate Lava Cake ($15) would have completed our meal very delightfully.

Almost forgot to mention about their service. When we walked into the restaurant, we had to wait a while to be seated even though it wasn't a particularly busy night. It was quite quiet, except for some infrequent excited cheers coming from their private function room, (the entrance is where the downlights are focused on towards the side of the picture) where I think at that point a bunch of people were celebrating someone's engagement or something.

Our orders were taken by a female waitress with a Philippino accent, and food came within 15 minutes. I think service was okay, nothing special, but when we were seen as struggling to take selfies at their other pretty swing, one of their staff offered to take a photograph for us. That was nice.

The swing is so pretty right?? Haha I really love how they designed the place. And I think I'll be back another day to try their other dishes, but more of to immerse myself in the beautiful atmosphere of their Blisshouse Restaurant. =)

Would highly recommend this place for guys to bring their girlfriends to. Will make a very nice first date experience too. They currently have this tempting weekday set lunch at $9.90++ promotion. Don't know how it looks like in the daytime, but I'm sure it'll look pretty too! Yupyup.

Virgin post on this blog!

Expect nothing great from this blog, but this shall be where I review anything and everything that comes to my mind! =) of course all that I type here will be just thoughts of mine and really, nothing here is meant to be of malicious intent. To the unknowing you, I am just another human being on this planet and I wish that my posts may be of benefit to you! If not, please feel free to click the cross button on the top of this tab.

A little about myself with regards to blogging- I've actually started many blogs before, most of them kept as outlets for ranting my frustrations, for wallowing in self-pity and melancholy, and for attempts at making my thoughts and feelings take shape as words. I'm not an expressive person and I would come across as quiet and introverted to most. As much as I'd like to better myself and be able to express myself freely, verbally to anyone, I think I'll take my time on that, and engage in what I've always preferred to do- typing.

I wanna become a more positive person, and I will strive to make my following posts be as lively and as happy as I can. I may be very critical though, so please pardon me if I fail to make my blog a happy one. Heh this is so crappy! After all, I named this blog cheesy-reviews for a reason.

Okay, awkward end to my first post, but ya hope you like my blog lol!