The missus wanted to have some buffet breakfast on Sunday morning. I did a brief research on the internet and thought that maybe we should give Oscar's at Conrad a try. When I say brief I mean go through 2 web sites and look through for 10 mins.
When we got there, we were surprised. It wasn't EXACTLY a breakfast buffet. In fact, it was a Sunday brunch buffet. Which means they didn't have the bacon and eggs and waffles and the breakfast stuff. What they had was the lobster, the sashimi the works. My wife asked if we should go to another place for breakfast food but I was too lazy and the weather was getting dark. She knows that I get grumpy when we go to a buffet like this and she doesn't eat the expensive stuff, I get mad. Seriously, if I am paying $70 for her for a buffet, she better eat the money's worth! Sure, call me stingy but what about the kids in AFRICA?
So as per every other buffet, I hit the expensive stuff first. I went for the lobsters and oysters. Kelly went for the breakfast stuff first i.e. the egg station, Danish, and some juice. The oysters and lobsters were fresh. By the way, when we arrived at the hotel, we even got a brief introduction of where everything was; which was nice. Kelly loved the breakfasty stuff. She loves breakfast. Our usual Sunday breakfast is MacDonald but today was different. It was breakfast with an edge. It was highly entertaining personally that my breakfast on this day was lobster and sashimi. Unlike the many other buffets that I have been to, this place had quite abit of sashimi. Besides the regular salmon, tuna, squid, there was the 2 other meats whose names that briefly escape me, they were fresh, tender and scrumptious.
My wife then decided to make my day by taking half of a Boston lobster. I couldn't help but have a smile on my face. She was so sweet. Anyways, back to the assault! Even though this was a buffet, I was thoroughly surrounded by foreigners and I have to say that the service was excellent. They cleared our plates promptly, continuously refilled our water, and even advised on what was the best thing to eat at the buffet. I was actually impressed with their service!
I have learnt from my many buffet tour of duties that one should never take food from the section where nobody ever goes. The pre-cooked section. However, this time I was a little curious. They had some curry there and I felt like curry that morning. The chicken curry was average but somehow the pampadam was fantastic. I just didn't know why. Kelly took a slice of roasted ham which she thought tasted a tad bid dry, it looked dry, thats why I never took it, some tim sum which was pretty average. Later, she attacked the fresh unadulterated cheese, which she loved and bread, which a basket of these fine babies were placed on the table. Ahhh, how clever I thought. Trying to carbo load the customers so that they can't eat too much! I wasn't fooled! Actually, I was. Kelly and I finished all the bread because we loved the bread.
Anyways, to top off everything, I tried foie gras for the first time. Foie gras is something that I have always seen on cooking shows like Iron Chef but never thought about trying. Tasty Bites loves foie gras and lives each day to eat it. I am exaggerating here but I say this with love and compassion in my heart. The lady at the egg station was also responsible for the foie gras. I have to say. It was fantastic. How can something so bad like duck liver taste so good? I sms'ed Tasty Bites and he told me to remember the taste because I will be wanting more in the future. The foie gras was smooth, tender, sweet and dare I say melts in your mouth. I expected liver to be like those we eat at the coffee shop chicken rice store. Alas, how wrong I was!
The dessert was very good. Kelly and I hit the crepes, the ice cream, the brownies, the sherberts, the special conrad chocolates, and the waffles. Advice: don't try any other ice cream but the vanilla because it was heavenly, and save space for dessert at Oscar's.
Before I forget, I even had time to try a brief bowl of bak kut teh which I thought was very well done. The soup was eu naturel, no msg, it was herbal and delicious but not overly pungent but the pork ribs were slightly overcooked in my opinion. There was even some musical entertainment that I could barely make out. This is because the singer had a pretty bad enunciation problem singing hits from jobim. She wasn't bad. Its just that was she sang girl from Ipanema, all I could hear was wah wah wah, like those Charlie Brown cartoons. But I have to say that the guitarist was excellent.
This a place that I would recommend for people wanting to impress your clients or future in laws. Future because once you seal the deal, just bring them to the coffee shop for some local breakfast. Go there in the late morning and stay to 3. You'll have a good meal, great ambiance and you can impress the people you need to impress at the right time. The total damage was about $150. It is expensive for a brunch but I don't eat like that so often: having lobsters for breakfast.
Food: 7/10
Service:8/10
Value:6/10
I would say one of the best expensive hotel buffets around.
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