My Mom and I were in the mood for a dinner buffet the other night and dropped by Cafebiz at Traders Hotel. Following a $2.2 million renovation, this place has been transformed from Traders Café, a coffee house, into the current Cafebiz, a nice restaurant that offers Asian-style buffet. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Cafebiz. The food and service were top-notch, and scored full marks with me.
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One of the first things I sampled was the Alaskan crab. The crab meat had the sweetest, richest and most succulent flavour! I am no crab expert, and found it hard to believe that this was the natural flavour of the crab. Whoa!
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The lobster paled in comparison. Its flesh was totally bland! On a scale of 1 to 10 its flavour was a 0; there was no taste to it at all! Again, I am no lobster expert. But isn’t the lobster supposedly king of shellfish?
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Of course there were the usual fares like sushi and sashimi. I stuffed myself with heaps of salmon sashimi, my absolute favourite! One of the unique offerings at Cafébiz is their lok-lok (dip-dip) station with sticks of raw food such as crab claws, prawns and chicken meat. To accompany the lok-lok, there is a huge array of sauces such satay gravy and sambal belachan (fermented ground shrimp). Yum! No worries if you aren’t too adept at cooking. A chef stationed at the lok-lok booth would offer to cook it for you in soup and serve it at your table. Great service!
Another example of great service was when I asked for teriyaki sauce. Being a picky eater, I always, always ask for teriyaki sauce when eating Japanese food. But they did not have it, which was rather unusual for an Asian buffet restaurant. So, the waiter got the chef to MAKE the teriyaki sauce from scratch. Wow! I could not be more impressed!
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There were very few offerings of dim sum however. I tried the crystal dumpling and prawn dumpling which were not so good in comparison to those at dim sum eateries. But the chicken bun that had been slightly baked was a real treat! If I wasn’t so stuffed already I would have downed a couple of those yummies.
What sets Cafébiz apart from other buffet restaurants is that it has several unusual offerings. Apart from the lok-lok as mentioned earlier, there is also Churrasco, a South American specialty. A couple of waiters make their rounds with huge skewers of grilled food, stopping at each table to slice off chunks of meat onto the diners’ plates. We were offered sausages, chicken wings, and roast pineapple!
As if that’s not enough, Cafébiz also offers authentic la mian (hand-pulled noodles)! An in-house chef hailing from China is available to hand-make la mian upon request. He was rather enthused to “pull” some noodles for me but I had to decline as I was stuffed! He then offered to chop up a roast duck for me! But once again I declined and asked for a chicken drumstick instead.
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Mom and I both agreed that the chicken drumstick was awesome! The meat was smooth, succulent and juicy. On the same platter is some tandoori chicken and other North Indian food. Those were prepared by an Indian chef and were delicious!
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More unusual fares followed at the hot food station. There were dozens and dozens of delectables with names I have never heard of. Not being very adventurous, I tried out the safer options such as Kung Pao chicken with cashew nuts (very yummy), fish fillet cooked in pistachio sauce (an instant favourite) and Moroccan chicken that came together with some fruit in yellow stew. I can’t exactly remember for sure.
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Desserts! Arranged in neat rows were these fruit jelly cocktails. They came in cute delicate glasses and had flavours such as lime, apple and mango. For me they sort of served as appetisers for the desserts that were about to follow. Appetisers before the real desserts, get it?
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The ice cream counter was a very modern one. It had just eight flavours, but I really liked the fact that the ice cream was not too hard. I was able to scoop comfortably. You know how some places serve ice cream that is so frozen you have to break a nail and a knuckle just to get a scoopful? Over here the temperature is set just about right. Also, when you place the metal scoop back in its holder, there is some sort of suction mechanism that automatically cleans it instantly. Wow!
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And what’s a buffet without cake and tarts? I enjoyed the pandan cake and tiramisu. Thankfully they had been cut into very thin slices. Cafébiz must have anticipated that its diners would be too stuffed to polish off regular slices. I loved the prune pie most. It’s one of those pies that come in a big metallic platter and you scoop off the portion you want with a huge ladle. Then you have fun drenching it in vanilla syrup. And I absolutely love vanilla syrup!
And now, the grand finale. Are you ready for this?
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Ta-da! A five-tier chocolate fountain! How glorious it looked! The chocolate was absolutely heavenly!
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There were the usual dipping foods like fruits, marshmallows and hard biscuits. I didn’t exactly care for those fruits. As with chocolate fondues, I like my chocolate with marshmallows! And boy did I love it! I stood there by the fountain, skewer in hand, and helped myself to all the chocolatey goodness. For that moment in time I was in chocolate heaven. Warm chocolate in my mouth. Warm chocolate everywhere. I didn’t even notice I was dripping chocolate all over the place until a waiter helpfully pushed a plate beneath my chin.
S$9+++
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Finally it was all over. A tall glass of orange juice to cleanse my palate and aid in the digestion, and we’re all set! That was the most wonderful meal I’ve had in a long, long time. And with such wonderful, five-star service, it certainly wouldn’t be my last visit to Cafébiz.
Traders Hotel
1A Cuscaden Road
Singapore 249716
Tel: +65 6831 4374 | Website
Mon – Wed lunch buffet (12-3pm): S$39++
Mon – Wed dinner buffet (6.30pm): S$50++
Thu – Sun dinner buffet (6.30pm): S$55++
Buffet rating:
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February 3, 2007: My list of Best (& Worst) Restaurants in Singapore for 2006
– Winner of “Best Buffet”
– Nominated for “Best Service”
Aug 17, 2006
10
oh the food looks so good, I was about to lick my computer.
Aug 17, 2006
3472
Whoa I must admit the shellfish looks real tantalising.
Aug 17, 2006
1
fresh lobster is tasteless.
usually the fresher is a lobster the more tasteless it is. not so fresh ones would have a stale taste to it. usually in those case, the cooking of a not so good quality lobster would be to include lots of garlic and sauces or spices to mask the stale taste, or not so up to standard cleaning of the lobster. based on your description of the lobster you’d eaten, think the rating you gave is a bit misleading…
Aug 17, 2006
3472
Ummm, fresh lobster is tasteless[sic]? Now I have heard everything!
I respectfully disagree. Lobsters have that sweet, succulent seafood taste. What may be true is that the bigger the lobster, the less flavourful it gets. Perhaps that’s what’s happened here.
Aug 17, 2006
hey babe, how much did u pay for this buffet? i’ve been wanting to eat at traders’ hotel cos i’ve heard good reviews abt the buffet there. :D
Aug 17, 2006
3472
it’s $42 per adult on a weekday night, plus 10% service charge, 5% gst and 1% cess. there weren’t many people when we went, mostly hotel stayers eating ala carte. we practically had all the food, waiters and chefs to ourselves!
Aug 18, 2006
182
Sounds nice. But are there any other non Asian dishes? I don’t feel keen on some of the Asian dishes because of previous poor experience with Asian buffet elsewhere.
Aug 18, 2006
3472
Hmm I don’t recall seeing any Western dishes since it is an Asian buffet after all. The food was good so you could give it a shot!
Aug 18, 2006
5
k, thanks for e recommendation, ill hv to check it ouT!!!!!!!!!
Aug 19, 2006
3472
cool! let me know how it goes!
Aug 19, 2006
182
ok. I’llI trust your judgement then.
Aug 28, 2006
2
Wow, looks really yummy ;) All those pics are making me hungry. Arghh…
Oct 26, 2006
hey any idea how much is it for the lunch buffet? thanks
Oct 26, 2006
3472
I’m not too sure, but I have provided a number above that you can call up and ask.
Feb 4, 2007
2
yea i think the next hotel lunch buffet u can give a shot would be shangrila’s the line, its superb. Im sure you will love their tepanyaki ice cream counter.. :D
Feb 5, 2007
3472
Wow they have a teppanyaki ice cream counter? I haven’t seen that in any of the buffets in other places.
Feb 5, 2007
2
yea yea mix two or more ice cream with all ur fav toppings and syrup. but the price is abit steep around SGD 50 for lunch, heh. but there is so much food to go around can eat lunch cum dinner. haha
Mar 11, 2007
2
hey do u have any idea how much it costs for a weekend buffet over there? Looking at the pictures is making my mouth watery and I’m looking forward to going there this saturday!
Mar 12, 2007
3472
I have no idea, sorry! But the number is up there so you could call them up and ask. The pictures seen here are for the seafood buffet. It’d be good if you found out from them whether they have the same buffet for the weekend. Enjoy!
Apr 24, 2008
1
Is hala food?