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Regent Singapore Tea Lounge
things start to wind down abit during the year-end festive season and a few of us found some leave that we needed to clear. having afternoon tea is always a luxury, and for those of us who don't have this luxury on most afternoons, we decided to have ours in one of the more raved about hotel cafes..
Tea Lounge at Regent hotel have been hugely popular for their weekend high-tea buffet. we hear that their weekday afternoon tea also serve a good variety of premium teas and quality pastries, so we braced ourselves for a leisurely tai-tai afternoon. 
service was immaculate as you'd have expected for a cafe of Regent's class. the seating made you feel like you were in the dining hall of some English dignitary. the afternoon tea comes with 2 servings of any tea of your choice, and you'd be given the whole array of tea leaves for you to appreciate their scent. a small let-down was the inexperienced coffee-boy whom they got to serve us, he sure feels like he's doing a winter vacation job.. 
the actual afternoon tea serving itself comes with a dish of sandwiches and a 3-tier carousel of pastries, scones and cakes. this carousel may be harmless-looking, but it is certainly more than enough to fill you for the afternoon. the full set is supposedly some highlights of what you could expect from the full version of the buffet that are only available on weekends, and a couple of pastries did stand out. the egg and cucumber sandwich, smoked salmon croissant and their blackforest pastry somewhat met the quality-mark. alas, the rest of the food, though intricately done, were pretty much normal. lacks abit of the colour and wow-factor that the high-tea buffet brings.. 
in fact, during this Christmas period, the key highlight in the Tea Lounge is unfortunately inedible. The Smurfs gingerbread house/village made out of icing-sugar and other pastries certainly made all of us behave like kids outside a candy shop. this is the most elaborate Christmas decor made out of pastries we've ever seen.. in all, Regent hotel's Tea Lounge is an excellent place to spend a leisurely afternoon. the service was excellent and the teas were truly aromatic. probably, we went in with some expectation after seeing pictures from the high-tea buffet version, so the carousel of pastries from the weekday version was somewhat a mild comparison. if you have a sweet tooth, we suggest you come back on weekends. 
Tea Lounge (Regent Singapore) Regent Singapore (Lobby level) 1 Cuscaden Road Singapore 249715 Opening Hours Afternoon Tea: 12 noon -5:00pm (Mon - Fri) High Tea Buffet: (Sat – Sun) 12 noon - 2:30pm (First seating); 3.00pm – 5.30pm (Second seating) Wishing all viewers Merry Christmas and a smashing New Year! Happy Holidays! Bari-Uma Ramen
it's back to talking about Ramen again. it's our pet subject, and somehow we've been eating quite abit of ramen lately. this one, i assure you is different though. they place alot of emphasis on the quality of the soup, the char-shu is flame grilled and the ramen serves as warm comfort during this cold festive season.
Bari-Uma Ramen is located in a rather outskirt location along Orchard Road, Tanglin Shopping Centre to be precise. their speciality is the extreme richness of their pork-based shoyu soup which is used for almost all of their ramen servings. The Ajitama-Uma ramen above is their signature dish served in that rich shoyu soup and thick-cut flamed char-shu. 
for the more adventurous, another of their recommended choices is the Kara-Uma ramen, which is served in a flaming hot spicy broth. this is one of those options where you either love it or find it too hot to handle (literally). i took the Nori-Uma ramen, which is essentially the original shoyu soup-base served with large seaweed. to note, we really enjoyed the soup base of these ramen, because they were thick, rich in flavour and yet not too salty. the thick-cut flamed char-shu comes with a dash of chilli sauce on it to give all their ramen dishes some mild spiciness for that extra kick. the ramen was served warm and remained warm throughout our meal; very basic and yet a rare find in most chain ramen stores here today. 
was feeling really hungry that evening and wanted to try out some of the side-dishes that they offered. the Teri-yaki Gyoza above was pretty normal, a little too dry and always makes me wonder how Keisuke Gyoza King could be different (to try next). 
Bari-Uma also boasts a variety of Yakitori dishes or barbecued skewers. we tried the pork belly yakitori which was pretty well grilled. the meat was a little tough but that didn't take away the pleasure that we'd expect from skewers. in all, Bari-Uma ramen actually turned out to be one of the better ramen i've eaten this year. What's more, no long queues for ramen served in soup with such richness, you'd slurp down to the last drop. 
Bari-Uma Ramen 19 Tanglin Road, #B1-01/02 Tanglin Shopping Centre Singapore 247909 Opening Hours Daily: 11.30am – 10pm Good stuff are often underrated.. Royal China
being a frequent traveller to Hong Kong, i often find it difficult to compare our local Dim Sum to the real McCoy, much less understand why we flock to an overpriced Hong Kong franchise (when it's so much better and cheaper in HK) or fail to realise that the standards of some old time names have dropped significantly in recent years.
there are still some restaurants that deliver a really good serving of Dim Sum locally, and Royal China restaurant at Raffles Hotel is one of them. they've got a good spread of Dim Sum options that are extremely popular for weekend/holiday lunches. the ala carte dishes are reasonably priced, which would certainly spoil patrons for choice.. 
standard Dim Sum fare are certainly available here, but there are some signatures that you may want to try if you do visit. i last tried XO Cheong Fun at a food court in Hong Kong, the version at Royal China is close, but a little too spicy and thus taking away the flavour of the XO sauce. if we were to compare this with the XO carrot cake served at Paradise Pavilion (another good Dim Sum restaurant), the latter comes out tops.. 
but what really scores a winner is their egg tarts! coming in very small pieces, this sweet pastry certainly rivals all the famous ones that you'd probably heard of. apart from egg tarts, do try their Char Siew Puffs, custard pau and mango rolls when you are here. not forgetting their scallop cheong fun or prawn dumplings (Har Gau) which turned out really smooth and not too salty, excellent. 
we were not very adventurous when it comes to dessert choices, but we figured nobody could go wrong with mango pudding and their herbal Gui Lin Gao. i guess after a hearty dose of Dim Sum, some herbal jelly to wash everything down could be a welcome treat. we were a little irked that they had to place us in an obscure corner, despite making an earlier reservation. this obviously led to us having the challenge of attracting the service crew's attention. but other than that, Royal China is a comfortable and worthwhile place to enjoy Hong Kong's favourite tea-time delicacies.. 
Royal China 1 Beach Road #03-09 Raffles Hotel Singapore 189673 Opening Hours 12pm to 3pm; 6pm to 10.30pm (daily) Comes with very nice tiffany blue interior.. |
..ThE lEgEnD..
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Golden Village, Singpost Centre 
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