Sakura – Many Lovely Treats

Over the weekend we tried out the sakura international buffet at the somewhat shady-looking Orchard shopping centre. The wide variety of food meant that we could really keep ourselves busy throughout the entire duration of the dinner buffet. Food items that we buried our faces in included oysters, sashimi, drunken prawns, shark fin soup, steaks and cheesecakes. With the exception of the Chinese dishes, I sampled a little of everything.

Dory Fish Teppanyaki

The first thing I had was the dory fish teppanyaki. Along with other teppanyaki and barbecued dishes, the chef prepared it on the spot. Every table in the restaurant is assigned colorful tags labelled with the table number. These tags can then be used to queue for food which would be served at your table once it’s ready.

Anyway, the dory fish teppanyaki was a good choice. It had a lot of flavor and fared much better than the salmon teppanyaki, which turned out bland and stiff and was quite hard to swallow.

Salmon Teppanyaki

Salmon Sashimi, Scallop & Mussel

Fresh salmon sashimi was a much better option. A pity the salmon wasn’t too fresh. It flew off the shelf pretty quickly though and the staff had to keep replenishing it. The scallops and mussels were very fresh in comparison. I love those!

Shark Fin Soup

There did not appear to be any miso soup. What I could find was shark fin and cream of mushroom soup. Had me a bowl of shark fin soup which was a little on the thin side but otherwise quite okay.

Chicken Satay

Chicken satay was also barbecued on the spot, and served with peanut gravy already ladled over it. The chicken flesh was tender enough and the gravy was decent too.

Unagi Satay

If you love unagi you would love it in the satay form. It had been nicely marinated and was juicy and savory. The cook didn’t do a good job of barbequeing. It ended up being slightly burnt, which was a real shame.

Fried Stuff

Stay away from the fried food section. There were chicken nuggets, chicken popcorn, breaded crab claws, breaded prawns, etc. On paper these sound yummy but the real deal was all oily. The moment I sank my teeth into a breaded prawn, oil came oozing out. Ugh!

Dim Sum

I made a bad decision in eating the dim sum. They were rather bland and did a lot to fill me up. I felt quite stuffed after eating those.

Ice Cream

The best part of the buffet had to be the dessert. For ice cream they had twelve different flavors. My favorite was the strawberry ripple — yummy and not too sweet at the same time. Strangely I couldn’t find a chocolate tub anywhere. The toppings of chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles and chopped nuts were a real delight! We had fun making our own sundaes.

They also had some of those strawberries with ice cream fillings. Is there a name for those things? They are getting pretty popular these days. I don’t really like strawberries, but those things sure are fun to eat. First you unwrap the clear plastic wrapper. Then you spend some time admiring the pretty fruit. You bite into it, and finally taste the first hint of ice cream.

Miniature Cakes

Other than ice cream there was also a huge assortment of miniature cakes for dessert. That’s hands down my most favorite part! Just looking at those cute little cakes alone was enough eye candy! Each one looked so adorable, and there were so many of them! Marbled cheesecake, New York cheesecake, oreo cheesecake, peppermint, strawberry mousse, white chocolate lavender, chocolate eclair, etc. Yummy, yummy, yummy!

One major gripe I have with sakura is that the plates were not properly cleaned. I had to search through stacks of supposedly clean plates to find one that didn’t have specks of food left behind! I didn’t really care to know what the previous user had eaten. So sakura, suki, whoever, if you’re reading this please invest in better dishwashers!

Other than that, with the vast range of food available, this buffet really promises to cater to multiple tastes. With all the sushi, sashimi, teppanyaki, Chinese dishes, dim sum, good desserts, it probably wouldn’t be the last time I visit.

Sakura ( Halal certified)
Various outlets
$28 (weekend dinner buffet in Orchard)++
www.sukigroup.com.sg/sakura.htm

February 3, 2007: My list of Best (& Worst) Restaurants in Singapore for 2006
- Winner of “Best Value Buffet”
- Nominated for “Best Buffet”