OChre, Orchard Central

Was suggested to go here for a pizza and pasta buffet after a not-too-vigorous gym session. For $22+ (no service charge) and a supposed 20% UOB discount, I would never say no!

On the 11th floor of Orchard Central (coincidentally Ems was having Lobster Porridge downstairs), this snazzy Italian place was situated next to Tung Lok (should give a rough gauge of cost). Twas semi-fine dining and supposedly didn't take shorts and flip-flops, but that didn't stop person A (who came an hour late) from strolling in in said shorts and flip-flops.

For such a nice restaurant offering just $22 buffet (!!!!) on a Saturday lunch, one would expect a bigger crowd. We started to have our suspicions o_O Regardless ... on with the food! The three (later four) hungry post-gym Neanderthals decided to go crazy and ordered :-

Prosciutto - parma ham and rocket aka Pizza 1, which bears strange resemblance to :-

Marinara - anchovies and olives aka Pizza 2, which bears strange resemblance to :-

Funghi - mushrooms aka Pizza 3, which bears strange resemblance to :-

Quatro Formaggi - four cheeses aka Pizza 4, which bears strange resemblance to :-

... you get the idea. To be perfectly honest, the pizza base was pretty awesome. The thin crust was done reasonably well, and you can taste that the pizza is fresh from the oven with the bubbleh cheese nice and crispy. But my main gripe - the toppings were in miniscule portions.

Granted this was a ($22) buffet ... just looking at the Prosciutto, there was just way too little Parma ham (5 clumps on 8 slices), and the amount of rocket served was sad - there was barely 2 strands per slice! And since, you know, pizza without toppings is like bread without spreads, all the pizzas tasted pretty much the same. Could have very well served blank pizzas with toppings in a bowl :)

Still we were hungry (and overestimating of ourselves) and we ended up ordering Pizza 5, 6 and 7.

Not to be outdone, we also ordered one pasta each. And frankly, the pasta was pretty decent. The portions of actual non-pasta material was plentiful, the sauce was flavorful and overall the pasta was yum. But heavy pasta != good buffet value for money. The Linguine w/ Prawn :-

and Tagliatelle with Mussels & Zucchini :-

which unsurprisingly looked the same, both had a thick tomato sauce (i hate those soupy kinds) and were generous with their seafood. We also had pasta 3, 4 and 5 which were more or less similar in flavour (and colour).

Verdict : MediOChre. (AHHAHhhahahaha! See what i did there.)

To be honest, i'm sure the ala carte menu should be good given the prices they charge. And this buffet was honestly cheap! For 5 of us we ended up paying $19 each for 5 pastas and 7 pizzas :)

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