Festive Feasting @ PARKROYAL on Beach Road

How many of you have started the Christmas Feasting? Some like our family, will roast our own Turkey(s) every year and have it with at home with our family.

I know many can't cook or do not have the time to cook, and prefer to dine out. A few days ago, on the invitation of PARKROYAL on Beach Road, we had a Christmas / New Year buffet at the Plaza Brasserie.

Maybe for some of you who wants to head out for a Christmas lunch or dinner, this might be an option that is not that expensive.



You probably have read previously what they serve on their usual buffet, from the 15 to 31 December 2011, they have additional festive food for their Festive Feasting.





There's the delicious chicken rice, sashimi, laksa, soft shell crabs, spicy stir fried beef that makes you salivate. There are many more, but I shall focus this post on their Christmas and New Year offerings.




The 'live' station where a selection of "Roasted Turkey with Sausage Meat, Chestnut and Mushroom Stuffing", "Roasted Honey Glazed Ham with Pineapple and  and Cranberry Sauce", "Roasted Ribeye on Wagon served with Herbs Sauce" and "Duck served with Chili and Plum Sauce".

Last Saturday when we were there, we had the Turkey and Honey Glazed Ham.



Their specialty, the Roasted Turkey and the Roasted Honey Glazed Ham.



If you have been to their buffet last Christmas, the hotel continues the tradition of having 12 signature sauces to complement the Christmas Turkey.

Sauces include Laksa Sauce, Giblet Sauce, Cranberry Sauce, BBQ Sauce, Rendang Sauce, Thai Mango Sauce, Satay Sauce, Black Pepper Sauce, Mustard Sauce, Tong Gui Herbal Sauce, Sichuan Sauce and Pineapple Sauce.

My favourite sauce of all? The Thai Mango Sauce!




If Turkeys, Hams and Roast Meats are not the thing for you, you can just feast on their Christmas cakes and cookies.

Yes, I was the 'first' to go for desserts while others are indulging on other food. Probably my 3rd log cake this year so far.



Christmas Fruit Cake. One of my favourite cakes around is the fruit cake.
They also serve the Christmas Pudding with Brandy sauce. I did not see it though, probably it's for dinner or yet to be displayed out.



Ginger Bread and other assorted Christmas Cookies were also served.




Tempted? I was, that's why I took some first!



I snagged the corner piece with the chocolate. I should have gotten some ice cream and have it together with the cakes!

So how much does it cost? Depends on what day and whether it's lunch or dinner.
Quite affordable I reckon.

Here's the Festive Feasting prices:

Festive Period	Dates	Lunch	Dinner
Pre-Christmas	15 to 23 December 2011	Adult: $38 Child: $23	Adult: $48 Child: $29
Christmas Eve	24 December 2011	Adult: $38 Child: $23	Adult: $78 Child: $47
Christmas Day	25 December 2011	Adult: $58 Child: $35	Adult: $58 Child: $35
Pre-New Year	26 to 30 December 2011	Adult: $38 Child: $23	Adult: $48 Child: $29
New Year's Eve	3 December 2011	Adult: $38 Child: $23	Adult: $78 Child: $47
New Year's Day	1 January 2012	Adult: $58 Child: $35	Adult: $58 Child: $35

Prices are subject to service charge and government taxes.


Plaza Brasserie's Festive Takeaway Gourmet Treats:

Christmas Takeaway Gourmet Treats Selection	Prices
Honey Baked Ham (1.5kg)	$68
Traditional Turkey (4kg) with 4 sauces per order, extra sauces at $5 each	$98
Honey Baked Ham and House Wine	$98
Traditional Turkey and House Wine	$128
Traditional Turkey and Honey Baked Ham	$148
Traditional Turkey, Honey Baked Ham and House Wine	$178
Traditional Turkey, Honey Baked Ham and Mumm NV Champagne	$228

Prices are subject to service charge and government taxes.


I liked their Honey Baked Ham and will be ordering one for a Christmas pot luck gathering with some friends.

Plaza Brasserie @ Parkroyal on Beach Road 7500 Beach Road Singapore 199591 Tel: 6505 5710

Asia's Dining Destination @ Marina Bay Sands : Part 2 - The Club at the 57th Floor.

One of the privileges of staying in the Club Rooms at Marina Bay Sands Hotel is the access to The Club located on the 57th floor of Marina Bay Sands to have meals.

Yes, it's where the Skypark is located. The whole 57th floor is longer than the Eiffel tower laid down and the area of four and a half A380 jumbo jet. It's that huge! The view here is wonderful.

We had meals two times here. Once for afternoon tea and once for breakfast. For one of the breakfast, we had it on the 'ground floor' where the restaurant Rise is located. They have a better selection of food, but no 'view'. (Also good for those who are scared of heights.)

As part of the Asia's Dining Destination package you can have breakfast, afternoon tea and sunset cocktails with canapes here at The Club.



These are photos of the afternoon tea I had:



The afternoon tea selection was not too much nor too little. A reasonable variety was available. I tried to try everything, but I could not. I was quite full after tea.




These are what I call micro burgers. These were the Salmon Gravlax with honey dill mustard on bagel. It was my favourite among the 3. The other two 'bread' were Creamed eggs with scallion and Caesar Chicken with Parmesan cheese bread. A bit of gluttony crept in and I think I ate 5 of this!




The fruits were excellent. It was only 5 varieries that day, but they are the fruits that Singaporeans will know is expensive if you buy fruits. The strawberries were huge and the red raspberry and blueberries must be in season too.  I saw some people scooping up bowls after bowls.




Mini bites. There were 6 kinds of pastries to try. I just realised that I did not try those financiers.




I also ate quite a few of these. Mini maybe I should also call it micro (micro sounds as if there's less calories) dark and white chocolate coated waffle cup with different cream and a raspberry in it. Sweet inside but with a tinge of sourness from the raspberry.




The madeleines do look very good right?
The cupcake like thingy was probably too sweet for me. But I did like the cream cheese topping on top of it.



Tempting cookie jars. Makes me think of this kids game to remember names:

Who ate the cookies in the cookie jar?
Philip ate the cookie in the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes you!
Couldn't be.
Then who?




Scones! Lots and different kinds too. Cranberry scones, Lemon scones, Cinnamon and Raisin Scones, Hazelnut scones. With lemon curd and creme cheese too!



Oh, I was impressed with their selection of jams and honeys!
On the left were "Provence Greengage Jam" and "Apple and Caramel Jam"
On the right were Forest Honey, Polyflora Honey and Orange Blossom Honey.





The Mojito Lemonade (left) and the Cranberry Lemonade I believe are special to them.

I really liked the view from here. A nice place to while away time while on a holiday.  I was there with HungyEpicurean, CuisineParadise and TravelerFolio.  The few of us probably spent about 3 hours there! Slowly enjoying our food and also Instagramming! Did you all follow me Instagram and saw what we ate?

Read Part 3 - Visiting the Celebrity Chef Kitchen Tour here.

Asia's Dining Destination @ Marina Bay Sands : Part 1 - The Club Room

Last month, from 22-24 November, KopiKosongGirl and I took a few days off work and had a 3 days 2 nights staycation at Marina Bay Sands Singapore. The stay was courtesy of Marina Bay Sands. We stayed on a package called the Asia's Dining Destination Package.  Pricing starts from S$1638++ for 3 days, 2 nights and a maximum of 2 guests.

Everyday in Singapore, both of us wake up to the view of Bukit Timah, Singapore's tallest hill / natural structure. For the 2 mornings that we woke up, we woke up to this magnificent view instead. A gorgeous view of the Singapore's Marina Bay and view of Singapore's tallest buildings too!



We had the Bay View, and just from the windows, we would just pull our chair and sit down and admire it.



Far away, we noticed we could see Bukit Timah (Hill) too!

Let me tell you the story of our stay. Hope you will enjoy it.

We were checked into the Club Room at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. There are 3 towers and we stayed in Tower 2. 



Our room at Level 36 of Tower 2.
With our electronic keycards we opened the door and saw how wide it is inside!




We just moved towards the light. The wife was more excited and had walk straight to see the view.
I was pushing our luggage in and taking photos with my phone and tweeting it.

Those curtains are electronically controlled. Press a button on the wall and it opens. We noted that the curtain only opens maximum to what you see. At any time, half the glass is blocked by the curtains. I understand it is to prevent too much heat coming into the room, to be greener, less electricity is used to cool down the room. The whole building's glass outside!




The King size bed that we opted for. You can have 1 King, 2 Queens or 2 double beds.
This room is 62 square meter big!

Oh yes, I have a habit of finding out what mattress I sleep on for all the hotels I go to. They use Sealy mattresses that are made exclusively for them. It's the Grandeur Firm Pillowtop if you are interested.




If you want two Queen sized beds, I guess they would move this aside and put the bed here and you would still have space. If you want to enjoy a big bedroom for a few days, you know where to book a room.

For those of you who use iPhones like us, there's the iPod dock beside the bed that you can use to charge your ever draining phones.




There's also an executive work desk and a 42 inch flat-screen TV above the cabinet that hides the bar fridge, tea maker etc. Oh yes, a Nespresso machine is also available in the room.




Oh, the bathroom is huge too. Unless you stay in GCB or premium condominiums, the bathrooms in the mass market condos or HDBs are small. There's another section for the WC and also the standing shower that at least 3 very huge man can shower comfortably in. The WC is the comfortable wide top Toto WC. You can sit down very comfortably for quite a long time.




There's a nice bathtub too. We have been trained to 'save' water so much, that both of us actually did not fill the bathtub up.




The toiletries are the Paiza-branded. Paiza is their in house brand. It's also the name of their high roller's club.




Two huge sinks. Notice there's lights below the mirror that illuminates the vanity top. The busybody me noticed it was LED lights.




For the caffeine addicts, there's the Nespresso capsules. 3 flavours but KopiKosongGirl's favourite was not there though.




If you are not a Nespresso coffee person, they have Robert Timms and TWG Teas as well.

That's the review of the room. We slept rather well the two nights. We could adjust the air-conditioning to the temperature we liked and it stayed there.

The Club rooms have complimentary access to The Club on the top of hotel, beside the famous infinity pool. You get complimentary American breakfast, afternoon tea, evening cocktail and canape hour, and also all day non-alcoholic beverages here.

Kopikosonggirl is a gym rat. She visited the complimentary gym everyday we stayed there. The gym here is managed by Banyan Tree. It's called the Banyan Tree Fitness Club. It's on the 55th floor and she said it has the latest gym equipments like the ones in her gym. Very few ladies she said was in the gym, mostly hunky Caucasian men.

What we liked was the free internet access here. One of the few high end hotels that does not charge an exorbitant fee for internet access and provides it free. We had 1 notebook, 2 iPads and 2 iPhones with us. All except an iPhone could not connect into the hotel's wifi. A call to the IT Help solved it rather quickly.

We liked this room and the things this Asia's Dining Destination package has to offer.

This ultimate gastronomic discovery offers:

• a 2-night stay in a Club Room or Orchid Suite
• an exclusive behind-the-scenes kitchen tour through a selection of Celebrity Chef restaurants 
• a 5-star dinner at the Celebrity Chef Restaurant of your choice  
• daily breakfast 
• complimentary Afternoon Tea
• complimentary Sunset cocktails at The Club at Marina Bay Sands and more  
• complimentary Airport Shuttle Bus on arrival

The next few posts, I will show you photos of what we ate and also visited at Marina Bay Sands, Asia's Dining Destination.