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Melt the World Cafe @ Mandarin Oriental Hotel

A much anticipated night after seeing all the reviews and hearing the hoo-has about this buffet place. Very unfortunately and much to our dismay, we probably arrived with such high expectations that we left with even greater disappointment and even felt the money spent was so not worth it at all.
Spending $16 on still water (a coke was $8) was absolutely crazy and a hard lesson learnt so please, ask for just normal ice water next time. That’s free.
The whole restaurant was crowded with guests and was very noisy like a market place. Definitely not an ideal place to celebrate a private occasion like a anniversary or for a date.
The restaurant redeemed itself for a moment though when the service staff presented a slice of chocolate fudge cake with a lighted candle at the end of our dinner to celebrate our anniversary which I thought was a really nice gesture.
Anyway, I am after all a food critic so I’d still talk about its food.

 

A bed of cold seafood that consisted of Boston lobsters, big prawns, oysters, mussels, scallops and crab claws with all the usual condiments of tabasco sauce, lemon wedges, soy sauce, etc. The prawns were rather fresh and crunchy. The lobsters (some had roe in them) were so-so. Better than Kuishin-Bo’s but certainly not the best I had. The crab claws were sweet and easy to eat as one bite will pull off its entire flesh out of the claw shell. The oysters were fresh but a tad too salty. The mussels and scallops (too small in size) were just normal. Salmon sashimi was fresh and I had loads of that. I was very excited to see parma ham and melon as this wasn’t a common dish at buffets. I took a load of the ham but I was ultra disappointed that it didn’t taste good. It wasn’t good quality parma at all and worse of all, the melons weren’t sweet enough.
The BBQ station located outdoor wasn’t too bad. Just place your order with the service staff and they’d do live BBQ for you on the spot. We ordered beef steak, chicken & lamb satay, cajun chicken, mushrooms, slipper lobsters and corn cobs. The mushrooms were very nice, so were the corn that were really sweet. The slipper lobsters tasted much much better with a nice smoky taste as compared with the cold bland Boston lobsters. We tried the suckling pig too. The meat was tender but the skin lacked the crackling bit.
The rest of the hot foods included a tray of not so nice looking pate but it was soooooooooo good. Probably the best dish of the entire meal! But the bread was not crispy enough though! The next best dish would be the laksa. I actually finished a bowl of it! The gravy was creamy with the right amount of curry spices and coconut milk. So yummy. The Indian station wasn’t great even though the variety was good with plenty of chicken tikka, lamb chops, different flavoured naans. There was a live meat station too that served ham, roast beef, rack of lamb, stuffings for Christmas but we were too full for more meat. There were much more like bittergourd soup, pumpkin soup & garlic bread, various chinese dishes like marmite pork ribs, antipasti, Italian pasta, various kinds of stir fry veggies, rice dishes, etc but we couldn’t fit more.
Desserts were aplenty but none was good enough to leave a deep impression in us. The freshly made waffle with ice cream wasn’t too bad. The ice kachang was good but the ice was not fine enough. The rest – I have my comments reserved.
It was a very full meal. But we probably ate to get our money’s worth ($88.00++ per pax for dinner, excluding drinks), not because we truly enjoyed the food. What a disappointment indeed.
Melt the World Cafe
Mandarin Oriental Hotel
5 Raffles Avenue, Marina Square
Tel: 6885 3082
Opens: 12.00pm to 2.30pm for lunch, 6.30pm to 10.00pm for dinner, 12.00pm to 3.00pm for Sunday Champagne Brunch

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