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| Halal Buffet Singapore : Aquamarine |
It was hubby's birthday waaaay in January and I decided to treat him to a nice dinner since dinner is the only present that I was going to give him haha.. I thought I saw something like a Barbecue Seafood Buffet at Aquamarine the other day that we had an event at Marina Mandarin Hotel and that would be nice. However, upon calling up (and it was such a chore trying to get through the number that in the end I called up front desk and asked them to connect me to restaurant reservation and still my name wasn't on the reservation list when I arrived) the girl over the phone said that they don't have barbecue seafood and whatever cooked seafood that they have will be under "chef's specials" that evening. Oookay.. "Is there a surau/ prayer area at Marina Mandarin then I enquired?" and she answered "Yes, but it's on another level at Marina Mandarin Hotel".
Upon arriving for dinner, and discovering our name wasn't on the list -humph- we were taken to one of the back seating areas of Aquamarine "well the place wasn't really brimming anyway" but the sounds of dishes being cleared near our table was quite upsetting for me.
Walking round and round the buffet table, I have no idea what to take since I am not really a big fan of cold seafood and the selection of cooked food was uninspiring. While going around, I also saw a Eurasian lady looking quite confused at the Pie Tie counter, it's DIY with all the condiments laid out BUT with no help / instructions whatsoever for those of us who has never seen one before, even I can't remember the sequence correctly having eaten pie tie only once more than 5 years back when my "nyonya" ex-colleague ordered some during one of our company's lunch.
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| Halal Buffet Singapore : Pie Tie @ Aquamarine |
Chef's specials that evening was "Chicken Sukiyaki" it looks quite pale that I only decided to try one skewer.(I like my food to have flavours that blast in your mouth and brightly colored) it tasted so-so.
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| Halal Buffet Singapore : Chicken Sukiyaki @ Aquamarine |
We settled for the ordinary fried rice with a blah blah chilli crab that even a local hawker stall can do better and tough beef slices. I stopped the mains after that, it's just not worth the calories.
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| Halal Buffet Singapore @ Aquamarine |
Hubby said to get your money's worth so he headed to the cold seafood section to give it a shot even though it's not his favorite. His verdict? average.. but of course who are we to judge since we don't like cold seafood!
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| Halal Buffet Singapore @ Aquamarine |
I went around for desserts and picked up a few cakes and sweets. I guess the desserts selection was quite varied and tasted quite ok though not mind blowing and definitely not super sinful enough that it's worth going jogging the next day for.
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| Halal Buffet Singapore @ Aquamarine; Marina Mandarin |
Sheesh.. if the objective of Marina Mandarin making Aquamarine halal is just to draw Muslim tourists to stay at Marina Mandarin so that they can have halal buffet breakfast and halal room service, then yeah maybe they can attract first-timers or those that doesn't have much choice. But, if Marina Mandarin wants Aquamarine to attract local halal patrons, they definitely need to revamp the menu and upped the food quality offered cos at the moment they are better lower class restaurants serving nicer halal food at much cheaper price out there (my personal opinion that is).
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