Ellenborough Cafe

Buffets buffets. Who could resist the temptation of eating as much as you can for a fixed price? I for one, am always intrigued by what is offered at these places. Ellenborough cafe happens to be the one that our dear Moses Lim happened to patronize when we were there. He donned a chef's garb and was patrolling the premises while we dined, for reasons unexplained. The reason i was there was because FatPig invited me and my gf in to share his good fortune of being able to secure a 50% discount with the help of his friend.

Location: Merchant Court Hotel, 20 Merchant Road

Contact: 63372288

Price Range: $22 per head (after 50% discount)

Thats Mr Lim walking towards the cafe

Ellenborough Market Cafe

The view from the seat

Fresh Prawns And Sushi

The cold dish and meats counter

Cooked Food Counter

Desserts Counter

Salad Bar

Assorted Chinese Cooked Food

Durians Anyone?

Assorted Pickings

Crabs and the second round of food.....or was it the fourth round?

As with all buffets, there'll be a few good pickings and a huge load of bad pickings before you realise which items are worth having and which aren't. The crabs were alright but its meat tend to stick to the shell which i detest. Seafood was generally fresh though not exactly tasty. The best items in these had to be the salmon and the otak which were moderately passable.

Sharks Fin Soup

Maybe its just me, but i fished the entire bowl and found at max about 5 strands of what i hope to be shark's fin. The broth was also a bit too salty and thin for my liking.

Durian Pengat

I've heard that you can't have a buffet here without tasting the durian pengat and i must say it has a certain amount of truth in that phrase. Smooth, creamy, sweet and rich are what you would use to describe the pengat served here. I had huge servings of food before having the pengat but still managed to get 2 bowls of it down. Still, there were comments that the standard had dropped for this item. On my note however, it stands as a very good dessert still.

Bill

Bill came up to $223.63 before discount. A staggering amount if you ask me. The quality and selection present does not warrant nor justify the price in the least. After discount however, it stands at $22 per head but i'm still not returning for another try though.

Score: 6.5/10

Last Word:
Decent selection due to additional items for anniversary event organized by the restaurant but food quality varies. There were some really bad items and some that were pretty good but for the price before discount, there should not be any bad items in the first place. Having heard many things about how good this buffet is from colleagues, it was a quite a disappointment for me unfortunately.