a christmas buffet.

Oscar's Café & Terrace
Conrad Centennial Singapore
2 Temasek Boulevard
Tel: 6432 7481

D always shakes his head when I tell him that I'm going for a buffet but what I like about it is the choice of having a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Definitely good for indecisive people like me who takes ages to decide what to eat. Surely I can go for a 10 course degustation meal where I don't have to make any decisions and just sit and eat but somehow, I like the occassional buffet where you'd have to walk around, put different stuff on your plate, eat then start again.

After reading YX's entry on Oscar's buffet and sussing the different festive buffets around in town, Oscar's became the choice for my post-Christmas buffet dinner with a couple of close friends.














There was quite a good range of fresh seafood; crabs, crayfish, mussels, oysters, prawns. Quality wasn't too bad too. Then there was also sashimi which frankly, didn't look very appealing maybe cos it wasn't laid out too nicely that night. Very unlike the sashimi I had at the Ritz Carlton buffet. It was fresher at the latter too.










This was my favourite for the night. I've always been a big fan of caesar salads despite the "fatness" that it's loaded with (I'm sure D is shaking his head as he reads this). Oscar's version was really good in my opinion. What's interesting for me was that the salad was tossed in a whole barrel of cheese so as the chef was tossing the vegetables and the sauce together, he was basically scrapping the sides of the barrel thus incorporating the cheese into the salad. Ingenious!! So the whole salad came out nice and cheesy. Then there were all these condiments of egg whites and yolk, tomatores, croutons, mushrooms and my absolute favourite, anchovies laid out on the table. I love the saltiness that comes from anchovies. Reminds me of the anchovies pizza I had when I was in Perth a couple of years back with another anchovy lover friend.









When I'm at buffets, I usually ignore most of the mains and concentrate on the appetiser and dessert sections. Reason being I've never been impressed with the mains offering at the buffets I've been too. This was no exception as well. From what I tried, the pork ravioli with prunes was dry, the chicken looked dry, the beef was overcooked. When friends told me to not try this and that, I basically just gave up and ignored the whole section thereafter. I was hoping to see the duck confit, salmon and potato patties and pork leg mentioned in YX's blog! They looked so good there...














Oscar's has a wide dessert spread that looks so good you'd want to start them off as your appetiser. I was disciplined however cos I started from the front but when you do that, you won't really get to enjoy the full dessert spread cos by then, you'd probably be stuffed.

Oscar's got a waffle counter, an ice cream section and lots of little kuehs and desserts placed into little glasses. I have a penchant for stuff that goes into a little cup whether it's in the dessert or appetiser section. It's weird I know but I'd want to try almost everything that comes in a cup. I did that and frankly, the desserts didn't taste as good as they looked. Maybe mixing them all up and trying a little of everything wasn't such a good idea. It was just a whole bunch of weird flavours for me; apples, bananas and all the works. It was just too complicated. In my own opinion, I think the simple tiramisu or bread and butter pudding would have done just fine.

What I did like though, was the passionfruit ice cream and the waffles. The batter for the waffles was light and since it was freshly made, it was served crispy. The passionfruit was quite sour but did a nice touch to the end of my dinner.

All in all, I would say that Oscar's fell a little short of my expectations. Especially when I was treated to a sumptious lunch buffet at Ritz Carlton's Greenhouse the following day. For me, Ritz Carlton won this hands down. I did enjoy the night there though cos of the honest and interesting conversations that flowed during the dinner. Well, I guess when you ain't got the best food, you got to have the bestest company.