Can you still enjoy a decent buffet lunch or dinner with your pals or families in light of this COVID-19 pandemic?
The Millennium Hotels and Resorts group has recently stepped up its precautionary measures across their various hotel brands to safeguard the well-being of their guests. This includes their ‘We Clean, We Care, We Welcome’ campaign where they carry out regular disinfection and sanitization routines throughout the hotel. Hotels like Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel has also taken steps to ensure that their guests feel safe and comfortable.
The à la minute-style buffet
In addition to these heightened measures, Food Capital at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel has also decided to offer à la minute-style buffet where the food is prepared and cooked on the spot when you order. This is to ensure the freshness and tastiness of the dishes as well as to ensure hygiene.
Furthermore, they have also introduced more seating areas for guests who wish to dine al fresco by the Singapore River, along the waterfront. Thus, you can continue to eat merrily and enjoy their sumptuous buffet in the open air, with the view of the waterfront.
Heritage Buffet Dinner @ Food Capital
Starting on 13 March 2020, Food Capital at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel will be launching their Special Heritage Buffet Dinner promo on Tuesdays for only $45++ per pax. That’s a whopping 40% discount off their usual buffet prices. From Mondays to Thursdays (excluding Tuesdays), the buffet dinner costs $78++ per pax. While Fridays to Sundays, it costs $88++ per pax.
We checked out their heritage buffet dinner offerings on a weekday and the restaurant itself as still rather quiet. The diners only start to stream in around 7 or 8 pm and they were mostly foreigners who were either staying at Grand Copthorne Waterfront hotel or touring Singapore.
For such a time like this, why not take advantage of this opportunity to visit places that you often want to go but were too crowded or check out restaurants you’ve always wanted to patronise? For me, I would much rather have a peaceful and quiet dinner where I do not have to queue or jostle my way through just to get my food.
Dining Al fresco
The weather may be really hot these days but it gets cooler in the evenings. There’s the evening breeze which will help fend off the heat at the waterfront.
Social distancing is key to curb this current COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, dining al fresco or at well-ventilated places is always a good idea. At Food Capital, they have arranged the tables in such a way that they are 1-metre apart. In addition, the restaurant also has a mandatory hourly checklist for sanitisation of dining cutlery, buffet counter, tables, chairs and even coffee machines.
So, what are some of the live food stations in the buffet line?
Popiah and Kueh Pie Tee Station
They brought back Singapore’s old-school delights like Popiah and Kueh Pie Tee. I am not a big fan of popiah but I really like their version of Popiah. It is stuffed with freshly cooked prawns and plenty of other ingredients which are cooked from scratch.
Singapore Laksa, Bak Ku Teh and Ngoh Hiang Live Station
This spicy noodle dish is a must-have buffet item especially if it’s a heritage or local-style buffet. You can customise the spiciness level of this dish by adding more or less of the Chilli sambal or Chilli Padi.
Most Singaporeans would associate this local hawker dish with other high-calorie local dishes like Char Kuay Teow and Fried Carrot Cake. But rest assured that the food served at Food Capital has less salt, oil and sugar in it. Thus, we can still enjoy such local dishes without compromising our health.
If you are a huge fan of laksa, you should try Beast and Butterflies‘ version of Laksa where they use rice pin noodles or Bee Tai Mak instead of white noodles. The restaurant is located at M Social hotel which is right across the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel.
Besides Popiah and Laksa, they also offer other nostalgic local dishes like Ngoh Hiang, Satay and Rojak.
Ngoh Hiang with Fried Bee Hoon
Chicken and Mutton Satay
Each dining guest will receive a complimentary Soup of The Day. That evening we had this seafood-based miso broth which has a mini abalone and prawns in it.
There are also other dishes like salted egg prawns and stir-fried vegetables where you can order ala carte during the buffet.
Dessert Live Station
From Ice Kacang to Tau Suan and Kueh Dadar, you can treat yourself to these sweet local delights after trying out all the favourite local savoury dishes.
The Pandan Kaya Cake stood out for me because I thought the creamy layers of kaya icing goes really well with thin pandan sponge cake layers. At first, I was thinking to myself – ‘how great can pandan cake really taste?’ It turned out that I’ve underestimated this dessert. It was one of the more memorable dishes I’ve tried that evening.
If you’re into wines, why not pair these local delights with their in-house brand of wines? I will probably order a glass of their white wine by M Wines because it goes well with most of the seafood-based local dishes like Laksa and Popiah.
Take advantage of their Heritage Dinner buffet promo on Tuesdays before it ends!
