Carousel @ Royal Plaza on Scotts

The last time I was here at Carousel at the Royal Plaza on Scotts, it was for high tea. While it was quite good, it wasn't mind-blowing either. Dinner however, was another thing altogether and I must say I was pretty impressed by the array of food set out for the evening. Admittedly I didn't go around snapping away at all the different buffet stations, and instead I settled with taking pictures of the various plates and bowls of food on the table. I'm quite sure this wouldn't be as enticing as it actually is, but take my word that it's definitely one of the better buffets in Singapore, and certainly the best Halal-certified one here as well.


The cold seafood section is probably where you would spend the longest time at if you're really looking to make your dinner well worth the money you are forking out. Other than the sashimi at the Japanese corner, here you get a good variety of (expensive) seafood delicacies on free flow - poached maine lobsters, spanner crabs, snow crabs, scallops, tiger prawns etc etc. The high turnover rate also means that they are fresh, which is always good to hear.


If you are into Asian soups, there's things like tom yum soup as well and you get a free rein of the ingredients you want to scoop out. Don't ask me why there's so many mussels in this bowl of soup, I'm amused as well.


My sister liked the oyster noodles quite a bit, but pity they use the ordinary thin vermicelli instead of slightly thicker mee suah. The soup base here was quite good and not too diluted. If you want something non-Asian, there's a small range of pastas and ingredients that you can put together for the chef to prepare for you.


The roasted meats section definitely satisfied the red-blooded carnivore in me. The roasted beef ribs for one were quite well done and turned out pretty tasty. The roasted chicken meanwhile was tender but a tad dry, but at least the kebab chicken was much better with that bit of marinate, herbs and spices.


On the "Western" side of the hot food section, simple pleasures like grilled salmon and pan fried spring chicken are clear favourites, especially for the young ones. I wasn't too thrilled with the beef "bourguignon" though, because it was nothing close to that of a French stew.


A few steps away would be the "Asian" part of things, with a selection of popular dishes like chicken curry, stewed beef, deep-fried seabass, Thai-style crab, nasi kunyit and even Chinese herbal braised mutton. This was probably the most average part of the buffet, and I'm quite sure it's because I've already been too Hyatt's Straits Kitchen (just across the road) and that has a far better Asian-themed buffet.


One thing I was quite fond of, more than I expected to be, was the chicken rice! It's not just because of the adorable (some may say, gimmicky) balls of rice but more of how good the roasted duck, "char siew" chicken and steamed chicken tasted. If you can spy at the back of the picture there's also a couple of dim sum items like siew mai and har gow, but these aren't exactly worth your calories. Deep-fried food like the squid you char kway fritters however are worth a bite or two because they're quite a delight to munch on.


A trip to Carousel would never be complete if you don't load up on their sweet desserts. I fancied the little saucers of creme brûlée and also helped myself to multiple servings of deliciously light bread and butter pudding.


The mini-cakes meanwhile were a favourite amongst the little ones, as they went to and fro grabbing the little pieces sneakily with their tiny fingers. I didn't get all the names of all of them but at least here you can see the chocolate almond daquiose and New York cheesecake near the front.


The dessert shooters were a bit more interesting, and I must admit that I really really liked the chocolate mousse shooter because it had both tiny crushed peanuts and hazelnut feuilletine buried deep in the middle. It's like striking gold. The strawberry and caipirinha verrine shooters on the other hand paled in comparison.


Finally, there's always ice-cream, and I'm more than happy to announce that Carousel has stopped serving terribly boring and plain chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice-creams and instead have come up with flavours like "vanilla cashew", "pecan almond" and "chocolate obsession". They were all really good and I was glad to end it all on a sugar high.

Service
Excellent.

Price
About $80 per person after taxes.

Place
Royal Plaza on Scotts Hotel, Scotts Road.

Pictures taken with the Canon EOS 500D.