TAMPINES - SAFRA - SAKURA INTERNATIONAL BUFFET
We arrived at about 8 pm on a Saturday night. There was a long queue!
We were ushered in after a table was hastily cleared.
What a mess! The place was packed, the tables placed closely to each other with little walking space - making it difficult to move about. The floor was slippery, sticky and had spilled sauces.
Anyway, we headed for the drinks station first.
There was quite a variety of soft drinks, sweetened beverages and a coffee machine (one had broken down).
They have Lipton tea bags for tea lovers.
Once again, the place was a mess with spilled drinks, scattered ice and generally a small place with a large crowd and barely any order.
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| The Sushi & Sashimi Counter |
My favourite Inari sushi was gone and never refilled. No fish roe sushi either :(
The remainder of the sushi didn't look appetising at all! :(
Thankfully there were still some salmon and squid sashimi left, along with a miserable amount of tuna.
Octopus had run out and was not refilled.
I was also vastly disappointed when I saw that the ginger slices had barely any left.
I love my sushi with generous servings of wasabi and pickled ginger :(
The salmon was OK, though not as fresh as other salmon sashimi I have tried before.
The tuna was horrible! It wasn't fresh and had a stale taste. Yuck.
The squid wasn't crisp and chewy as it should be! Instead, it was mushy :(
The wasabi wasn't fresh either.
It had lost its bite and I had to heap enormous portions of it without the soy sauce to experience some of it's spiciness.
My partner managed to grab the last inari sushi!
The rice was pretty tasty, but other than that the sushi weren't good.
Skimpy fillings that weren't very tasty. What a let down :(
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| Cold Dishes Counter |
And nooo! Barely any Baby Octopus left! I love them too!! :'(((
I scrapped off the last remaining octopus, took some cold jellyfish and headed back to the table.
My lovely marinated octopus which were supposed to be sweet and crunchy were SOFT AND SALTISH D:
The jellyfish was marinated well, but it wasn't cold and crunchy either - it was soft and mushy.
Maybe it was due to the previous disappointments, but the octopus and jellyfish were the worst I had ever eaten.
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| Seafood Counter |
I LOVE SEAFOOD :'((((
The Crabs were all GONE. One last scallop remains. A few mussels remain...
Nooooooooooooooooo-
Sigh.
The seafood wasn't up to standard either.
The mussels were not fresh - mushy and saltish.
The scallop was saltish too?
The prawns were very saltish?
Aren't these supposed to be fresh seafood?
I've eaten at many buffets, but this is the first time I've come across saltish 'fresh seafood'.
My favourite sections - sashimi and seafood - were pretty disappointing.
Oh well, at least there's a salad bar.
After so much saltish seafood, a nice platter of salad would be delightful...
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| Salad Bar |
I spy a single lettuce leaf?
Everything else was empty, with some scraps of shredded carrots, sweet corn and legumes.
I decided to skip this section entirely...
Next up we have the grilled food which you have to pre-order with your table clips.
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| Grilled Mushrooms |
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| Chicken Satay |
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| Mutton Satay |
As for the other grilled items such as salmon and beef, the meat were rather tough and the seasoning too saltish.
I didn't bother taking photographs for the cooked food section.
Most of the trays were empty with only the leftover sauces remaining.
The cooked broccoli only had one stem left!
The Dim Sum items and soups were still available.
The Kueh Pie Tee section was thankfully still available, though they had run out of coriander toppings.
There's a reason why the Kueh Pie Tee and Dim Sum sections were still filled.
As you can see, the Kueh Pie Tee shells had softened already and broke easily when I filled it.
The chilli sauce was so saltish??
It didn't taste good with the sparse coriander leaves and saltish chilli.
For some reason, the Dim Sum items were cold despite being kept in a bamboo steamer.
The skin was tough and unappetising and the fillings bland.
For the fried food, only some prawn tempura and chicken wings remained.
The rest such as fish balls and vegetable tempura were still aplenty.
Perhaps they were left out in the open for too long, but the prawn tempuras were soft and soggy, instead of being crispy.
The chicken wings were not crispy either.
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| Desserts |
They were HARD and unappetising.
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| Fruits |
Overall, for the price we paid (about S$30++ per person), the quality and quantity were terrible.
To be fair, we came pretty late at around 8 pm.
However, the staff at the entrance should have had the decency to warn us that we would only be eating the leftovers and that the food would not be replenished.
Perhaps the place was understaffed, as the plates were cleared infrequently, leading to stacks of plates all over the table.
Spills should have been cleaned quickly to prevent customers from stepping on them and smearing them all over the place.
Separate tongs should have been provided for different items.
Instead, tongs were used interchangeable and were strewn haphazardly.
I can only conclude that this was the WORST buffet I have ever been to.
Overall [3/10]
- Food [3/10]
- Ambience [3/10]
- Service [3/10]
- Value [2/10]
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