Kiseki - A Japanese Buffet Restaurant

My birthday celebration this year was so closely tied to food. Just the birthday weekend alone, We went for American brunch, steamboat and lastly, BUFFET!

We went Kiseki 2 years back but during that time, the restaurant was located at Heeren. Food selection was so-so and we didn't really rate it high at that time. 2 years later, we came across Kiseki again, but this time located at Orchard Central instead. We decided to give it a try once again.

Frankly, I prefer Kiseki to be located at Orchard Central than at Heeren. Situated at 8th floor, the full-length windows of the mall allow full sunlight into the restaurant, giving it a bright and cozy ambience. The moment we were brought to our seats, I immediately explored the food selection.

I was pretty glad that they improved over the years as there are more choices of food than before. First few which I came across,were Deep Fried Food section, where all the tempuras were.

Next, I made a turn and there were the Cooked Food section. Here's where the hotpot, chawanmushi, udon, noodles and rice would be. This is also the section that could fill up your stomach really fast, thus, I only took some of them so I could still have room for others!

Next up was the Seafood section. I know many seafood lovers might roar at me but being one who isn't exactly a seafood lover, I kinda skipped this section...but they looks good!

Last but not the least, I finally stepped into my favourite section, Sashimi! Regardless what they have, salmon sashimi is one selection they can't possibly be missing from a Japanese Buffet! I believe I ate at least close to 30 (or more) slices of salmon sashimi, hehe!

Though I did not plan to eat a lot of desserts during the buffet since I'm accustomed to my low calorie diet (5 months and on-going!), some desserts look really delicious to refrain from eating. :P

These dessert mixers look really intriguing so I couldn't help myself but to take some of them back to my table. Naturally, I didn't eat all of them but shared with my family, especially my little girl!

Well, Kiseki is quite a pleasant place for dining overall. Food selection has greatly increased over the years compared to the time when it was still located at Heeren. The restaurant is also very spacious, giving customers a comfortable space to dine. Price is reasonable too for lunch which is priced at $24++. I wouldn't mind patronising Kiseki again, when my craving for salmon sashimi kicks in.

Kiseki's Address:
Orchard Central, #08-01/02/03
181 Orchard Road
Tel: (65) 6736 1216

Rating: 3.2/5

Chiso Zanmai @ The Central ~ A Japanese Buffet

Back in June, I was browsing through all the various food sites looking for an affordable buffet restaurant as requested by my dearest for his birthday treat (he rejected my suggestion for Melt the World Cafe!) and stumbled onto this restaurant - Chiso Zanmai.

Maybe I had not been going downtown for so long, I honestly didn't know there was this restaurant situated within The Central. Based on what I've read from its website, it stated that it is the cheapest Japanese buffet from Osaka. After showing photos from the site to him, we made up our mind to go there for his birthday treat (finally!).

Chiso Zanmai is located on the 2nd floor of The Central, and customers are required to take an escalator to the actual main entrance. As we drove there and got to the restaurant from the other end, we went in through their 2nd floor rear entrance instead, hahaha...

Chiso Zanmai has a really nice decor - simple, minimalist and spacious. The buffet spread is being displayed in a linear way so anyone can hardly miss any single selection.

The very first and favourite dish I love from Chiso Zanmai is their hotpot soup! It is so tasty, and full of seafood within!

Usually, people might have patronised cold cuts first followed by the main dishes but somehow, I always like to do it the other way round. Other finishing most of the main dishes lined up on the opposite of cold cuts, I made my way to scan them through briefly before I started digging.

Frankly, I am not exactly a lover of cold cuts so I only took a few which I believed I could take and they tasted really good! On the bottom right of the photo above, it was a cold dish comprised of broccoli, mushroom and cooked salmon. Though the salmon was cooked, it was served fresh and cold. Odd perhaps, but yet delicious enough.

Last but not the least, dessert section could never be a section to miss, not matter which buffet restaurant you go! Their buffet section has all the usual desserts and pastries, but what made me pay more attention had to be the black tart placed alongside the rest.

From what I read on their food tag, this is called 'Seaweed tart'. With its look so black but yet captivating, I felt like eating it too. But poor me, I couldn't have a piece of it at all since it's made of seaweed. *shrucks*

Given its price and food selection, I'll say that Chiso Zanmai is a very affordable buffet restaurant for those who feel that going for buffet means spending a bomb. What disappointed us was the lack of sashimi (they don't serve sashimi at all) and cooked food was a bit less than warm. Overall, Zanmai gave me an affordable price for a buffet lunch, a cozy dining experience and a decent food spread.

With $19.90++ per pax (not inclusive of drinks) on a weekend afternoon, what more can you ask?

Todai @ Marina Bay Sands

Today, I am going to blog about FOOD. Yes, FOOD!

I've heard reviews about Todai many times, good and bad. Being one who likes buffet (though I don't really eat that much), I always hope I would have the opportunity to patronise Todai. That said, it is often true to the saying, "Be careful what you wish for, for it may just come true afterall". During my partners' visit to Singapore, I grabbed the opportunity and arrange a dinner at Todai.

For one, I didn't expect the restaurant to be so...blue-ish. It gave me an impression of a Seafood-oriented restaurant. Well, it is somewhat true since it serves international cuisine. Once seated, something on the table caught my eye.

How thoughtful of them to place a "map" of their restaurant on their dining tables so customers will have ease of navigating within their restaurant! During my visit, I was arranged to sit at the "Chinese Zone" shown on the left of the photo above.

Todai serves quite a wide selection mainly Seafood, Sushi & Roll, Chinese, Deep Fry, Churrasco, Oven Food, Korean, Italian, Cold Food, Noodle and lastly, Pastry. The 1st place I "attacked" had to be the Sushi & Roll section! I took plentiful salmon sashimi and some sushi to begin my dinner at Todai~

Sushi & Roll section

Sashimi & Seafood

As you can see, there are simply too many varieties just for the sushi & roll section. I almost didn't know where to start when I got there. On the other hand, their varieties for Seafood were quite little compared to other buffet restaurants. Yet, I gotta thumbs up for their prawns. They're so fresh, and huge!

Next section, I moved on to the "Cold Food" section~

Cold Food & Italian section

This section displays mainly salads and cold cuts. Further end shown in the picture displays Italian food. Rightfully speaking, I should have started from here to amplify my appetite but the sushi section just got to me first.

The "Churrasco" section is one nasty section for meat-lovers. Oh, and when I said nasty, I don't mean it's bad, it's just filled with many choices of meat!

Ribeye, beef striploin, chicken and sausages are all in this section. How could the meat-lovers not love them? However, yours truly aren't exactly a big lover of meat, thus I just took a wee bit of chicken and mushroom. They taste equally delicious though!

 As I explored further within Todai, I found myself standing in front of the "Korean Food" section.

Korean Food section

What's the chef cooking? Korean Fish Pancake of course! They also serve Bibimbap (my fav!) but if I took that into my stomach, I definitely wouldn't be able to stuff other delicacy anymore. Other than those, they have bulgogi, spicy pork, kimchi and more. Took a little of each (except for beef) and headed back to my seat.

The "Chinese" section has quite a wide variety as well. Those who just can't stay away from Chinese cuisine may simply fall in love with this section.

Chinese section

The bestseller from this section will have to be the Chilli Crab. From what I saw the queue was always very long and the staff would need to refill it every 10 minutes. I skipped this dish due to the long queue...

Alas, we reached the final but the most sweetening section - Desserts & Pastry! This is one section no one should miss!

Desserts & Pastry section

Todai's dessert & pastry section is very impressive. They have so many different types of desserts & pastry, it took me quite some time to decide what to take first. In this section, I feel that the way they display the macaroons is very innovative (shown on the picture above). I felt kinda guilty taking them down from it, hehe.

Thanks to my colleague who was with me that day, he took a pretty good shot of me ^^.

To conclude, Todai is a pretty good place for buffet if you are looking for an exceptionally wide spread of cuisine, internationally. Priced at $42++ (Lunch) $58++ (Dinner) for weekdays, and $54++ (Lunch) and $58++ (Dinner) for weekends, I would say their price is pretty reasonable for the number of varieties they have.

However, do come on an empty stomach if possible. There's too many for you to indulge and you will not want to miss any of them. I made a mistake by having a high-tea session before going to Todai for dinner and I believe I only ate 50% of what's available over there. :(

Rating: 3/5

Address for Todai:
#B2-01 The Shoppes @ Marina Bay Sands,
2 Bayfront Ave Singapore 018972
Phone: +65 6688 7771

Brunch at Kuishin-Bo

*Below photos are all taken from Olympus XZ-1.

It was our country's Independence Day (National Day) and I decided to bring my native family out for a good lunch. Was deciding on a bunch of buffet restaurants and finally, I settled on a Japanese Buffet Restaurant - Kushin Bo.

Heard a lot of rave about this restaurant since ages ago but never had the chance nor opportunity to dine there. Now here's my chance! There was a wide variety of food spread such as Sashimi, sushi, teppanyaki, seafood, desserts, fondue and many more. My 1st choice had to be SOUP! Yummylicious soup!

The soup was delicious but kinda salty. However, they have hell lots of ingredients in it, that's why its more salty? I quite like the soup though!

Up next, I gotta get my hands on my favourite japanese cuisine and that's Sashimi! Even though i am spoilt with choice of various sashimi, i still can't help but to only devour salsom sashimi, hehehehehe! I also managed to grab some tamago and unagi sushi. :D

My favourite Unagi Sushi!!!

My forever love - Salmon Sashimi!!!!

Too much food intake already so time for some camwhoring moments! ^^

Camwhoring - My mom & I!

Camwhoring take 2!

It was a pity I'd forgotten to take the outfit of the day! What a waste!

I also managed to snap this glutton brother of mine who's indulging in his yummy DIY ice cream. Of course i made one for myself too, not to mention my little princess ^^. Mmmmm, now i'm drooling yet again!

Seafood is also one of Kuishin Bo's signature so how is it possible that we'll give them a miss? Well, i almost did since i don't really take a lot of seafood but thanks to my brother who's willing to do the dirty job of getting his hands dirty, he peeled the prawns for all of us. And i'm not talking about a few, but a mountain high of them!

The mess my brother made after his indulgence in prawns!

Imagine this is not the only plate but the 3rd one! Gosh...

Last but not the least, i took some of their desserts to close my chapter in Kuishin Bo. Though i've tried most of their desserts and pastry, i wanted to take this dessert down in my camera.

Yeah, that's a mango pudding. It looks normal but it tastes better than some of the other mango puddings i come across in a buffet restaurant.

All in all, Kuishin Bo's food is considerably above average but will be better if some of their selections are less salty. Will definitely re-visit again (this time, i want to try dinner buffet!) with my family for more japanese food!