Food Capital Buffet

As a traditional Cantonese family, meals on the 2nd day of the Lunar New Year signify the abundance of food for the rest of the year. Usually, we will either cook at home or eat out at a Chinese restaurant with their CNY set menus, but this was the first year we decided to try a buffet lunch since the variety will be more sumptuous than a 10-course lunch

I was searching online for a suitable hotel buffet opened during the 2nd day of CNY and offered items suitable for the old folks in my family and came across Food Capital at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. Located on the ground floor of the hotel, the restaurant was decked out in red festive decorations and was very spacious to accommodate many diners

The buffet includes the usual cold seafood on ice, like prawns, clams and mussels as well as sushi and sashimi with only a selection of salmon and tuna fish. There was also a make-your-own-salad section with fresh vegetables and dressing to make your preferred salad

For hot selections, there was an area dedicated to Western dishes like roast beef and ham, grilled potatoes and vegetables and a live pasta cooking station. There were other popular dishes like the prawn and vegetable tempura which is always snapped up when the chef finished cooking a fresh batch. You can also find other local favourites like laksa noodles, chicken soup and curry chicken. Especially for Chinese new year, they had dishes like braised duck with yam, braised mushroom with vegetables, spring rolls and steamed fish which were popular with the older patrons

The dessert station was full of variety from the chocolate fondue fountain to fresh fruits and nuts and dried fruits to local desserts like steamed buns with sweet fillings and red bean soup. There was also a chiller which served cakes, nonya kuehs and chocolates. The dessert which attracted the most people was the make-your-own shaved ice dessert

In terms of the taste of the food, most of the dishes are pretty general. The prawns are generally fresh and quite big in size but the speed of refilling the ice bowl was on the slow side. The sashimi grade was also general and the salmon was definitely better tasting compared to the tuna. What surprised and impressed me instead was the variety of dips and sauces available for the cold seafood. Other than the usual thousand island sauces and Tabasco sauces, they had local flavours like sambal chilli, chilli with chinchalok and a special chilli which was my favourite as it was both savoury with a kick of spice which did not burn my tongue

The next dish that stood out for me was the laksa as the gravy was thick and had strong umami flavours from the dried shrimp and chilli. The amount of coconut milk also gave it sufficient creaminess but was not overly overpowering. The next popular item was the vegetable and shrimp tempura which was perfectly fried as the Chef fries them fresh once the basket is empty. The shrimp is mid-size and the batter is not too thick and the meat is still soft and juicy. The more popular vegetable was the enoki mushrooms as they were fried till extremely crispy and lighted salted so it was very addictive

They also had a limited serving of Koi Nian Gao which is loosely translated as a sweet cake which is widely eaten during Chinese New Year. It is basically a kind of glutinous rice cake made with sugar or malt sugar and can be shaped into any mould. The key highlight for dessert was the make-your-own shaved iced dessert; we had mango ice cream on top of thinly shaved ice with passionfruit toppings and syrup and condensed milk which tied the whole dessert together

Overall, the quality of the food was not top notch but the ingredients were fresh and the servers clearing the plates were efficient and attentive. The variety may not be huge but if you have a serving of every single dish, it is enough to make your stomach burst. The flavours of some of the dishes are quite on point and you can tell by the popularity of the station. For the price of SGD 48 approximately, it was quite a value-for-money buffet

Address: 392 Havelock Rd, Singapore 169663

Operating hours: 6.30 am to 10.30 am, 12 pm to 2.30 pm and 6 pm to 10 pm