Breakfast Buffet @ KSL City Resort

I never did like the name of the hotel. Pretentious and overbearing, it pretends to give you the feeling that you are checking into some beachside resort when the hotel is located smack in a residential area of Johor Bahru. Thankfully, the same can't be said about the breakfast buffet.

Malaysian hotels have in many ways suffered from poor service quality, and this hotel is no different. So I stumbled onto the breakfast spread, expecting the worst and was mildly surprised at the packed dining area and the rush of activity. Welcome to the Infusion Cafe, the one stop restaurant for all your buffet needs in the hotel.

Having eaten here several times, I wasn't impressed with the dinner spread even though they have a special dine in offer for senior citizens at 50% off as long as you are above 60. Nor was I thrilled at the Lunch buffet. Both of these weigh in at roughly US$20 including tax.

Breakfast on the other hand offers far more value for money.

Digging into the food, we have a wide variety of both western and asian (sans Japanese or Korean) and that should be about right. The local spread is pretty good, catering to both Indian, Chinese and Malay cooking. There was the Lamb Rendang and Nasi Lemak, then Roti Prata, and steamed buns and a small selection of dim sum. The western spread offers a little more. Cold meat cuts, three types of Cheese that included Camembert, a selection of danish style pastries, boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, cocktail sausages, omelets, smoked beef slices, grilled tomatoes with rosemary and a fresh garden salad table. The bread and cereal selection was average, with white or wholemeal toast and the fruit bowl had everything you'd find in season in the tropics. All this is for a price of about US$10++. The garden salad was good while the curry and roti prata was of above average quality. The western breakfast selection is probably the best deal as you can load up on the many options you see on the spread. The scrambled eggs didn't exactly meet my approval but then again, I have a choice of omeletes as an option. The taste is of course important, but I didn't find any particular issues on taste that I would be concerned about.

Such a spread offers far better value for money than that you find in other similar hotels within the city. This is probably the best surprise for those who love to have a hearty breakfast in the morning with a wide variety of foods to indulge your palette.

Coffee, tea and juices are free flow but are of a disappointing quality. Coffee came in the form of Nescafe while the juices are not freshly pressed but of the commercial variety which you can buy off supermarkets.

Service is poor, as the Cafe is understaffed in the mornings. Coffee and tea is not served and the used cutlery and plates  takes forever to be cleaned out.

For me at least, I believe you should of course do your bit for the environment by reusing you plates after having eaten from them but it is not the case for everyone here who believes they should have a fresh plate to start with on everything they select. This causes huge problems for the understaffed kitchen as they struggle to clean out tables at each sitting.

Overall, the pros and cons of this place is simple. If you are not expecting good service but just want to indulge your stomach, this breakfast buffet offers the best value for money in town.

Breakfast Buffet @ KSL City Resort Hotel

Grand Buffet @ Grand Lisboa Macau

In the tradition of consumption of mass quantities, the original Macau buffet was not thought of much until the likes of the Grand Lisboa opening its doors to foodies.

Since then, many have been trying to attract foodies by offering a buffet spread grander and greater than the Grand Buffet at the new casino hotel. The only bargaining point is really the price, which has of course increased substantially.

To beat the weekend crowd, you really need to book a place. You can call them up or if you are in the vicinity, drop by the restaurant and make a booking. You'd be given a card with the booking time and by doing so, avoid the walk-in queue.

Booking is free of coure unless you are booking during a public holiday or for a festive buffet—which will cost more.

Back in the old days, the price was only MOP188, but now, it has since gone up to MOP288. That's quite a jump really as it is sans service taxes. However like all foods, it's all in the eating that determines the good value of any food. You are only allowed two hours to wolf down your food, and you can choose a booking time starting at 6pm or 8.30pm. This restaurant doesn't offer ala-cart items so you can forget about eating here if buffet is not your thing.

The Grand Buffet is special as it has the longest buffet line in Asia and packs a mean punch when it comes to food selection. I won't argue with the Chinese spread, where you have fresh prawns, dim sum, roast meats etc, but the killer dish they had at one time was the Alaskan King Crab, this has since changed (from 2012) and has been replaced with steamed baby abalone.

I'm not a fan of abalone but that doesn't seem to be with the case with most Chinese who pile their plates up high once the queue opens.

The Japanese sashimi is nice, with a generous selection though no where near the likes of what you find in traditional Japanese restaurants. The North Indian food is nothing short of superb, you have a resident Indian chef who supervises the cooking of authentic Indian cuisine. Then you have the western meats, which is either leg of ham or roast beef, both of which I find excellent.The Tom Yam Gong is excellent too, prepared with the best ingredients so you know you're getting the real stuff and not from a commercial paste.

The pastries and bread are really good, and so is the desserts, which you have south east asian favorites as well as good Portuguese Serradura. Now the real value is in the price. At MOP288, it is a lot more than before. Even though it offers far more better value for money than ANY buffet you find in Singapore, it still represents a hefty jump. I would recommend you try this once in your life but if you are looking for other buffets in Macau, you can find many that starts at only MOP188.

Grand Buffet @ Grand Lisboa

Todai Restaurant: Buffet of Crabs

In Asia, buffets have gotten a bad rap for being places where people waste food. And in Singapore in particular, this is probably true judging from the strict limited time you are allowed to eat even in fancy Casino Hotels.

Todai Singapore is different. This seafood buffet restaurant offers you lots to eat with no time limit. As an international food chain, Todai has to protect its reputation for offering great eats worldwide.

Since opening in the Marina Bay Sands Casino Resort, they have stole much of the thunder form MBS in terms of Las Vegas Style Buffet offering.
They open early and close late for patrons and that's a good thing.

Now here is the bad news, just coz you get to eat lots of stuff, that doesn't really mean you're getting good stuff.

First, let's get into the Alaskan crab buffet. There are three varieties on offer, the Red Crab from Japan, and the King and Snow crabs from Alaska. Great eats no doubt. But shame about the taste.

The reason for this is quite obvious. Crabs are thawed and offered as is. No attempt to convert them into tasty dishes. Just eat all you want crab meat and they taste pretty bland.

The best tasting crabs are always fresh but you can't ship fresh crabs to Asia without those creatures dying on you. So what's your best shot? Freeze them for export.
Once you have cooked them and freeze them for export, you gotta expect some quality problems. The sweetness of the meat has been leeched out during the cooking process and it could be placed in freezers for months before being thawed out again. So it's no fault of the restaurant for the crab to taste that way, instead, they should have come out with a sampling of dishes made with those crabs.

The buffet itself is wide, with roast meats, salads, pizza, sushi and sashimi all thrown in. Nice. I found the pizza to be best but the roast meats, that sort of disappointed me.

Even the roasted beef tasted bland. Now that's bad. I know it's not a signature dish but it can't taste this bad when you have a spread that is that good. Fortunately, I found something to eat everywhere I went so it was not a bad thing.

Drinks were free flow, dessert was good but not great. The staff was attentive and I could forgive them for the oversight on the crab dishes. What I find hard to swallow is the price. At $80 per person with tax, that roughly translates to nearly US$55 per pop.

For that, its fucking expensive. I know they have priced in the cost of the Singaporean glutton and that makes it very unlikely for then to be aiming for the casual diner. I'd be hard pressed to go back unless I suffered from some crab deficient syndrome that required me to load up on copious amounts of crab meat.

But having said that, it is the only place I know that has a crab festival in sunny Singapore. So this must be in someway cheap since you can't get it anywhere else.

For me, having tried similar experiences in Macau, I think I would rather go back there, take the two hour dining limit and load up on the buffet tables. It's money well spent there compared to Singapore.

Todai Singapore