Melt the World Cafe, Mandarin Oriental

Was at Melt the World Cafe with a grand total of 31 people (!) for a company's treat. Been hearing a lot about this place, so I was pleasantly surprised when the news came down that we're going there for a celebratory feast (and it's free too!). Though my cold stark exterior insists that buffets are not really my thing because everybody leaves the buffet feeling damaged, destroyed, and terrible about themselves, buffets are the perfect cure for the indecisive, and the your-plate-always-looks-yummier-than-mine diner (...me). Besides, nobody complains when they have such a gastronomical selection to choose from 8-)

First thing that caught my eye when I was surfing this place online was the cheese platter - one can never have too much cheese! While it was an interesting selection of cheese besides the usual cheddar and edam, many of the cheeses I felt were leaning towards overfermentation / blue cheesaization. Many of them were slightly purgent, which is strange especially when it also exudes nutty flavours @.@ I guess I still prefer gouda, which they didn't have. Gahhh. It comes with crackers and an assortment of nuts next to it.

Sashimi was reasonably fresh, with just salmon, maguro and hamachi to pick from. The colour on the salmon looks pretty good, although it was a bit too soft to the bite, but that's what you get when you leave it out unchilled.

That nice big roggenbrot was tempting me to defile it, gahhh. Too bad it was display only. I guess if everybody took a slice outta every piece of bread the display would look pretty pathetic D: There was another rye bread on the cutting board though, which was pretteh good with the chive cream cheese that was next to it. There were other spreads, with a selection of hams including prosciutto on melons.

Ah, and what self-deserving buffet would be complete without a raw bar! The oysters were reasonably awesome, and were next to a selection of asian chillis, red/green tobasco and lemons. There were also mussels, scallops, prawns and crab claws, although I found the crab claws overly frozen and powdery to my liking.

I find the raw bar to be the best place to get your money's worth :D The lobsters on the other side of the raw bar were pretteh dang awesome too. While also overly frozen like the crab claw, lobster meat generally gets hard instead of powdery when it's cold, so it was fine. I picked one which surprisingly had a huge hunk of lobster roe in it :DDDD

Moving on to the cooked food area, there was sooo much going on. Next to these awesome kebabs and tandoori was some chicken and beef roast, pasta and noodles.

Continuing the indian spread was naan, chicken and fish curry and an assortment of vegetable curries with acha. A good friend of mine convinced me to mix 4 achas with curry and eat it with the naan. With my experience and achas and curries I should have known better @.@ My mouth literally black-holed itself from the sourness.

Besides this there was also cream sauce sausages, seafood, roasted vegetables, pork knuckles, chicken roast, pumpkin soup (incredibly lacklustre), and a spread of assorted thai foods as well, which were surprisingly good. And the chinese roast pork was TO DIE FOR. Good lord.

The dessert area I think alotta people agree was where it got even awesomer. There was an assortment of nonya cakes, puddings in shot glasses, and cakes! Unfortunately it was around this time where Stomache No. 1 refused to cooperate anymore by rejecting further more input.



Bread and butter pudding was ok, but I guess after seeing Nigella Lawson's caramel croissant pudding, this was lacklustre :D Then again a sack of diamonds would be lacklustre next to her croissant and butter pudding, daymn.

And to top everything off was a chocolate fountain with fruits next to some waffles and ice cream. The waffles were surprisingly crisp and sweet, and nutella + pistachio ice cream on the waffle was heavenly :D

So ends the massive sinning of 31 people.

HGW Link : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/melt_the_world_cafe/