At The Ritz

Given that we will be cooking and cooking, and cooking some more over the next few days, we decided (or at least my mum and I decided) that we would not / did not want to cook for the Dong Zhi family reunion dinner last night and that we wanted to eat out instead. And of course the men didn’t have much of a say in the matter.

We opted to dine at The Greenhouse, Ritz Carlton. I still think this is one of the better buffets in town – with a very wide selection of high quality dishes. There would definitely be something to satisfy all the different tastes/desires of everyone in the family, and we can avoid the discussions and negotiation of where to go, what to eat…

The menu for the Greenhouse buffet changes constantly, day to day. I had been hoping to be able to taste once again a couple of the dishes which I had absolutely loved the last time I was there over 2 months ago – such as the braised “leg of pork” or more commonly known as pork trotters, and the teppanyaki beef tenderloin which were both absolutely sublime! But it was almost all brand new dishes last night. The selection was, as usual, incredibly wide-ranging – there was easily a choice of between 80-100, or maybe even more, dishes!

Needless to say, we never got round to tasting everything. I took only bite-sized pieces of various dishes and still only managed to taste maybe only a quarter to a third of the entire selection that was available!

The pictures are only of the food I did get round to eating Please excuse some of the slightly messy plates… but that’s what buffet dining is about isn’t it? All flavors and textures sort of intermingling on one plate! Haha…

Appetizers… clockwise from the top…

Smoked salmon on a piece of vinegar marinated daikon (or at least I think it tasted like daikon )... rather vinegary.
One of my perennial favorites: Japanese seaweed salad.
Roasted capsicums and mushrooms… another personal favorite. Nice intense flavors and sweetness. There were also roasted eggplants and zucchini but I usually find these too mushy as they absorb the olive oil all too well.
Yet another personal favorite: marinated octopus salad, done here with jellyfish and cubes of fried tau pok.
Thai-style chicken and pomelo salad… I really liked this. The flavors were a beautifully balanced combination of sweet, sour, tanginess and a little chilli heat. The combination of textures (and tastes) was very good too – with juicy pomelo pulp, tender and moist shreds of chicken breast, crispy raw shallots, a little heat from some chilli padi slices and an aromatic finishing touch from the coriander leaves.
In the center: this tasted like vinegar marinated tamago (Japanese egg omelette) to me, even though the label next to the dish said “fish cake salad”. So not quite sure what I tasted there…

This was an interesting twist to the traditional turkey. Instead of roasting the bird, it was smoked, which meant that it was therefore very nicely moist and tender. It was paired with a herbed curry gravy. Interesting idea, but I just wonder whether a more tangy gravy (maybe Thai-style, Vietnamese-style etc) would have complemented the turkey meat better.

I never even got round to the other two thirds of the appetizer stations… the sashimi, sushi, oysters, mussels, king prawns, dim sum items and much more which I cannot now recall.

I skipped the most of the salad stations with a huge variety of Asian and Western styled salads and the bread station too… and straight onto the entrees…

Clockwise from top…
Vegetable curry… I liked this, especially the pieces of paneer (Indian cottage cheese).
Pan-roasted cod fish… beautifully succulent and juicy!
Fried seabass in spicy sweet sour sauce… pretty good too, but I still preferred the cod.
Braised sea cucumber with Chinese mushrooms… yummy and fairly similar to what my mum cooks!
Baked chicken with wood-ear fungus (or was it kelp?) I liked this too.
Braised lamb with gravy and shallot salsa. Didn’t like this, unfortunately. It was very, very gamey, too underdone and yet very chewy.
Lamb curry. Not bad.
In the center: stir-fried seafood pasta. Nice. It was done with lots of garlic, which I love.

I didn’t actually eat the laksa, but “stole” two quail eggs from the bowl. I love quail eggs! Yum! No idea how the laksa tasted though… And in the end, he left much of it untouched too.

Didn’t get round to tasting the chilli crab, braised duck and quite a few other dishes. I decided I needed to save room (a lot of room) for dessert… my favorite part of any meal.

The dessert selection was… well, shall we say, enough to send a dessert and chocolate lover like me into a fit of ecstasy!

And I ate all this…

The glutton that I am… No, actually, I didn’t. I shared most of it. I was behaving myself. Truly. This was probably less than one third of the total dessert selection that was on display. I didn’t even get round to the Asian dessert station and one other dessert station (which I cannot now even remember what it had, haha).

Please indulge me now as I just “have” to show some close up shots of the desserts I did manage to try…

Wow! Rum-soaked cherries with rich chocolate mousse (dark and white). *swoon* Enuff said… *swoon again*

I had very fond memories of this from my last visit. An incredibly rich combination of white chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate mousse. It was one of those “died and gone to heaven” type of chocolate dessert. Last night’s tasted slightly different. The semi-sweet chocolate mousse was flavored with hazelnut, which was nice, but not as rich as previously. But hey, who’s complaining?

Clockwise from top left…
Not too sure what this was (there were no labels at all at any of the dessert stations). It could have been a passionfruit mousse tart with apricot marmalade, maybe? Wasn’t too keen on the combination of flavors anyway.
Kaya (coconut and egg custard) cake. Hmmm… the whole table commented on the rather “unnatural green” of this cake. Similarly, can’t say the kaya taste was that natural either. : (
Rich chocolate tart. Need I say more?

Clockwise from top…
Christmas Stollen and two types of Christmas fruit cakes (one with mixed peel and the other with dried cranberries and golden sultanas). I’ve always liked these types of Christmasy sweet goodies.
This, I do not know what it was… hard to even describe what it was like… a very, very sweet, very dense, cakey kind of cookie with mixed dried fruits. It was hard, chewy, dry, cloyingly sweet… Uh… okay, moving on…
Blond honeycomb cake… this looked beautiful. Even my mum commented how well done the honeycomb effect was – every strand of the honeycomb was long, clear and distinct. Unfortunately, looks are no indication of taste… sometimes. Blond and bland, unfortunately.
White chocolate mousse with rich dark chocolate sponge cake. *she goes into another fit of ecstasy*

This looked absolutely seductive. It tasted rich and chocolaty enough, but rather dry. Everyone agreed they preferred my “death by chocolate” version. *awww… they are so sweet*

Sweet almond soup, made from cooking Chinese almonds for a long, long time to form a thick, smooth, creamy, milky white soup. For some reason, I really liked this version, even though it was very slightly grainy, and not as smooth as some other places. I really enjoyed this.

Okay, and now for the really heart-wrenching part of the evening… hankies out, please…

When I last dined at The Greenhouse over two months ago, I was completely bowled over by their cheesecakes. I just loved the strawberry cheesecake that I had. So much better than Hilton’s I thought (which I have always found to be over-rated even though many would declare them the best in Singapore). Ritz's version was rich yet fluffy, sweet but not too sweet, cheesy but not gaggingly dense. I thought it was sensational. And last night, I had made a mental note: I must have the cheesecake. When we arrived at the restaurant, and as we were led past the dessert station on the way to our table, I spied the cheesecake sitting there, and I grinned. Yeah! I was going to have not one, but two pieces of THAT, I thought…

But… I forgot one important thing about The Greenhouse, especially when it comes to their desserts. Very often they don’t repeat the items. That is, when a cake or dessert runs out during the course of the evening, it is usually replenished with something brand new and different. The good thing about that is that one can sit there the whole night and sample a parade of different desserts. The bad thing is, slow movers could miss out on their favorite dessert. And so it was for me…

By the time I got round to dessert, the strawberry cheesecake was gone. I hoped expectantly that another variety of cheesecake would appear. I waited and I waited… a succession of gorgeous mousse cakes, cream cakes and all forms of desserts appeared as previous ones disappeared from the display counters. But no cheesecake. We sat, chatted, ate, chatted some more, ate some more… still no cheesecake.

Then… as fate would have it, as we were leaving, and were walking past the cake counter again… what did I spy with my two eyes? Not one, but TWO cheesecakes, fresh out of the kitchen!! Oh goodness! If there had not been a steady hand on me I would have turned round and gone back to our table! Haha!

This was what I missed…

This looked like a classic baked cheesecake topped with various dried fruits. Yes, I know, the crust looks overly thick. But… this was what (I feel) contributed to making the strawberry cheesecake that I had tasted the previous time so seductively delicious. It’s something about their crust . In this combination, thick layer of rich, flavorful biscuit base with the creamy and fluffy cheese filling, it just tastes heavenly. *sigh*

But the real “killer” was yet to come. I then spied this…

Oh my gosh! I was definitely going to sit down again. I need to have a piece of this. This looked so unbelievably tempting. A layer of chocolate biscuit crust, sponge fingers on the sides, possibly white chocolate cheese filling, dark chocolate ganache topping and curls of white chocolate sprinkled on top. How could anyone resist something like this?!

I can’t believe this… I can’t believe they did this to me… how could they??! This must be some evil conspiracy! They hid the cheesecakes until I was leaving! I think there must have been some kind of glazed (or crazed?!) look in my eyes. The hand on my shoulder tightened. Someone had read my mind. Yes, for one wild second, I was contemplating grabbing the entire chocolate cheesecake and making a dash for the exit! I stood transfixed. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t leave without eating a piece of this. “Let’s sit down again”. I had voiced my thoughts out loud without realizing it. Then my feet started to propel me forward, as I was led gently, but firmly, towards the exit. One last turn of the head, one last longing glance, one last long sigh…

I came home and had dreams of this chocolate cheesecake. Maybe, one day… one day, we shall meet again…

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
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