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Carousel @ Royal Plaza on Scotts

Carousel was awarded the Best Buffet Restaurant in People’s Choice Awards 2009 and is one of the few good halal hotel buffets in Singapore. I used to be a big fan of weekend hi teas but had never found a place where I would consider returning again. Finally, my search is over now.

Situated at ground level of the Royal Plaza on Scotts on Orchard Road, the restaurant was beautifully decorated with fantasy creatures to celebrate the festive season. We made a hi tea reservation couple of weeks back as they were fully booked for lunch and dinner on New Year Eve. We expected the menu to be less exciting as it was only hi tea but we were wrong.

Food items were neatly placed on plates and chaffers. It was quite enjoyable to go round the buffet tables – we simply just picked, ate, walked & digested and then picked, ate, walked & digested again. Free flow of coffee/tea is included in the hi tea package at $38++ per pax. There were cold apple and lychee flavoured teas off the buffet line too. I really enjoyed the apple tea – had many glasses of that as it wasn’t overly sweet.

We began with the cold starters of fresh & succulent boiled prawns, poached green mussels, poached clams & salmon sashimi. The prawns were really crunchy and made excellent accompaniments to the mee siam and laksa to follow. The mussels, clams & salmon were pretty normal. Would be good if the mussels and clams were bigger in size and were sweeter.

The hi tea buffet was mainly made up of local delicacies like kueh pie tees which you can make yourself. I’m sure I had at least 4 pieces of that! The pie shells were nicely fried and weren’t too oily which was good. Add in the turnip with dried shrimps (hae bee), mashed eggs, prawns and top with chinese parsley. It was a wholesome treasure bowl! Crunchy on the outside and juicy on the inside. Simply delicious!

There was an assortment of fried stuffs like breaded prawn balls, assorted ngoh hiang, pumpkin rolls, carrot cake but I wasn’t so much into them as they were quite oily.

One thing I would like to recommend is the muah chee which was warm, soft and slightly chewy and well coated with peanut powder that was not overly sweetened. If not for its high carbo content which would fill me up quickly, I could have eaten loads of that!

Next, we moved on to the nasi lemak (the sambal chilli and otak are damn good!), DIY mee siam (that’s where you can peel the boiled prawns from earlier and put them into your mee siam with quail eggs and chives), DIY rojak, laksa yong tau foo (live station) and middle eastern chicken kebab that’s served with shredded lettuce, onions, tomatoes in pita bread. Of all, the nasi lemak with otak was the best.
Finally, dessert time. It was a galore of fresh tropical fruits, bread & butter pudding with vanilla sauce, apricot crumble, bo bo cha cha, assorted nonya kueh, lemon tart, choc fudge cake, choc mousse, blueberry cheese, ice cream and chocolate fountain station with strawberry, pineapple, grapes, honeydews and marshmallows! The mousse and choc cake were the best! The quality of the chocolate fountain was not too bad too 🙂

I would like to pay special tribute to this simple yet addictive enough for me to go for a second bowl of Ice Kachang where you could scoop loads of attap chees (nipah palm), red & green rubies (best condiment ever!), coloured jellies, grass jelly, sweet corn, red bean, lotus seed and so much more. They had a good ice shaving machine so the ice came out smooth and fine. Must eat!

Though I just dined at Carousel for New Year Eve, I’ve also booked a table for CNY Reunion Dinner (or rather Hi Tea again). Can’t wait to return to try all the other items which I didn’t have space for earlier. Shall blog Part II after CNY!

Carousel, Royal Plaza on Scotts
25 Scotts Road
Tel: 6589 7799
Email: Carousel@royalplaza.com.sg (for menu, pricing & reservations)
Opens: 12.00pm to 2.00pm for lunch, 3.30pm to 5.30pm for hi tea, 6.30pm to 10.30pm for dinner daily

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