After more than 2 years, the restrictions were relaxed to allow patrons to walk around and get their food from food counters so many of us can’t wait to zip to a buffet line immediately. As shared from my experience at the full-service buffet at Basilico in another post, I personally like to be able to walk around and look at the food myself. When this high tea promo popped up, I immediately called and made reservations to bring my mum
Peach Garden is known for decent quality dim sum so when their Thomson outlet offered a high tea dim sum buffet paired with free-flow Peking duck, prawns and other cooked food, you could expect a crowd but boy was I not prepared to see a snaking queue when I reached the restaurant 30 mins beforehand. Turns out that everyone in the queue had already called and made reservations but there was not enough staff to deal with the influx of customers
Very soon people began to hustle and raise voices at the staff as this system was obviously not working and people were allowed to cut in from the side since there was no systematic queue. It was a good 15 mins before we got to our table. The entire restaurant is not too big with approximately 50 tables
The self-service buffet line was set on the right side of the restaurant serving wrapped Peking duck in egg wraps, fried salted egg yolk prawns, Chee Cheong Fun ( steamed rice rolls), sweet and sour pork ribs, black bean fried fish, fried bee hoon, spicy chicken feet, pork congee and desserts. I only managed to take a picture of the buffet line after the crowd dispersed as it was almost a war zone. During the initial 20 mins, there were staff stationed at the buffet line to hand out the dishes to customers. As the manager told me later on, this is to prevent a mad rush at the beginning. Once all the customers have settled, the buffet line is self service
Overall for the cooked food, the congee was quite nice with light flavours and smooth texture, the Peking duck tasted more like generic roast duck and there was not much skin given and the meat was quite dry, the prawns was fresh and had nice salty egg flavour but was cold. The rest of the items were sort of mediocre and not worth the calories or stomach space
One of the reasons why I was interested in this high tea buffet was because the dim sum was served in these traditional push carts. Feelings of nostalgia sweep through me as the pushcart aunties go around asking every table which dim sum they would like to be served
For steamed dim sum, there were only 5 varieties, Siew Mai, black bean pork ribs, spicy vinaigrette dumpling, crystal vegetable dumpling and seafood beancurd skin roll. The quality of the dim sum is pretty decent as the taste was balanced and the ingredients tasted fresh
One dish which stood out amongst the steamed items is the spicy vinaigrette dumpling which has a bearable spicy level even for kids with just enough kick to match the sour flavours of the vinaigrette. The dumpling itself was big and juicy with tender pork mixed with crunchy prawns. We had at least 5 servings of this dish
Other than steamed dim sum, they also had fried items served in a glass push cart. Some fried items included mini egg tarts, fried prawn dumplings, fried beancurd roll and fried sesame ball with pandan filling. Overall, the fried items were quite delicious as they were freshly fried and very crispy when placed on our table
Overall, my experience at the Thomson outlet wasn’t the best but it also wasn’t the worst. Most importantly, I can see how hard the staff is working especially the aunties who are pushing the carts or trying to sit the customers. I think it could be a problem with the reservation system or just an issue of customers being too eager to grab the food after not having buffets for 2 years. In terms of food taste, the food is mediocrely matching the friendly price tag with a large variety of food. Personally, I will still visit Peach Garden for dim sum but maybe just not at this outlet as this mad rush to grab food is really not something I fancy
Address: 301 Upper Thomson Rd, #01-88 Thomson Plaza, Singapore 574408
Operating hours: 10.30 pm to 5 pm , 5.30 pm to 10 pm
High Tea Buffet on Sat and Sun only from 3 pm to 5pm at SGD 28.80 ( adults) and SGD 19.90 ( Child) before tax. Current promotion: 1 adult free with 3 paying adults
Bear Travels . Bear Eats . Bear Cooks 