Lemon Garden — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

Edited 24th July 2022, came for the 2nd time and disappointment dinner. Im going to edit my rate to 2/5, the price rm234 per head is not worth the taste of the dishes, below mediocre especially the lobster, lack of sauces, bland meats, inedible pastries.

below is my past review.2020 mco. I was impressed with the exterior design of the hotel. Upon my arrival with my brother, we were warmly greeted and directed the way to our destination, The Lemon Garden Cafe of Shangri-La's. We arrived on-time as my reservation is 8PM booking.

The following list is the things that we like from our buffet dinner in ala carte style;-

The idea of the buffet dinner being in the form of ala carte actually quite cool, as the customers, we only sit and orders while being served. This comforts us as we do not need to walk around and collide with other people. Furthermore, while being serve with a newer order, our used plate always being replaced and we dont need to put it away or to call the waiters to pick and clean it up, when they see it upon sending our orders, they will manage it so there will be spaces on the table.

I saw one of the reviewer said the order reach too slow or too late to his or her table. As for us, our first order took about 20mins to arrive, so basically when we arrived at 8PM, we started our dinner at around 820-830 PM. But that only for our first order, our second order up until our last order always arrives in a time wise, as soon as we finish our food, the next one arrive so the time gap is quite satisfying.

I personally like the lamb chop. The chef has it's own unique style of representing his dish signature. I also like the creme brule, if it's not because of feeling too full, I would order 5-6 plate of the creme brule.

I like the design of the cafe, beautiful.

I like our table for two, it felt spacious.

Really like the fried prawns and tempuras. They are quite tasty.

Basically, we do not order mainstream and common menu especially those that involved rice and noodles, and so far almost all of the things we ordered had us satisfied.

The following list is the things that we dont like;-

Disappointing main seafood: The lobsters doesnt taste fresh. Perhaps this is why the chef served it in a "chilled" style in order to maintain its texture, but you cant stop the degrading taste of its meat. The lobsters should be served in a warm condition, not chilled. and its common sense in culinary that it should be complemented with butter sauce.

The beef. Even though the texture is soft, the taste is quite bland. The lamb chop had a stronger taste than the beef. Moreover, I ordered mint sauce to complement the taste of both beef and lamb, but to my surprise, the mint sauce was made with over-poured lemon that it felt too sour and doesnt goes well with both meats. The beef had me disappointed.

----not much the things that we dont like it seems...

The closure to my dinner is Banana Fritters and Ice Kacang, both are delightful. We are proud that we didnt waste anything that we ordered (over 17+ dishes all of which are uncommon). Our stomach was filled with satisfaction. Well, except for the ice kacang, I was too full back then I couldnt finish it. Haha, sorry for that.

To be honest, the food taste above average but below the level of excellent. I would give rating of 4/5 specifically for the dishes. But because one of the staff @ waitress was being very very friendly with us, her name is Yana, and we had a wonderful time with her as she recommends us this and that and we had our jokes once a while, I am giving 5/5 rating FOR OVERALL SATISFACTION. We shoudnt be looking only on the food or dishes being served, we should also consider the services when making review for buffet dinner.

Thanks Yana for the great hospitality and for taking a picture of me and my brother. Sorry that it took me a while to make a time to make a review, weekdays got us busy with works, but to tell you something, this dinner is one of our escapism from works and we had a great time at Lemon Garden...

My boyfriend booked a weekend dinner at Lemon garden knowing that it’s going to be a great seafood night for us. However, when we tried their seafood, the half cut lobsters are not fresh.

Seafood section: soggy lobster meat. Lobsters tasted watery like they just took out from freezer. Scallop is tiny looks like they sliced the meat in half and serve half on each of the shell. Shrimp is standard. Sashimi is sad as it is not a great quality cut. Salmon sashimi not fatty. Octopus chewy like rubber. I didn’t try the other sashimi after. There is cheesy butter lobster at western section, the lobsters they used were not fresh at all. You are basically eating the Cheesy sauce, lobster meat is mushy.

Salad: I enjoy the freshly cut salad from the indoor veggie lab, I think this section is the best out of all the food from this buffet. The pre cut lettuce is browned on the edge of leaf and some of them looked dried.

Drinks: I expect to have more fresh juice from a high end expensive buffet, but they only have 3 juices and 1 coffee… so I’m not very impressed. The orange juice is not freshly squeezed rather it’s orange flavoured sugar water. So I’m a bit disappointed

Italian: pizza is good. Freshly made pasta is good. But overall these are just fillers in the seafood buffet. They taste better than the actual seafood tho

Indian/Malaysia cuisine: many selections for curry. I didn’t try all of them. I like the prawn curry more than the other curry (personal preference) satay is standard but I think you can taste better satay from the street with more charcoal flavor. Peanut sauce is very nutty so it’s good.

Chinese: soup is good. Didn’t try the dim sum. Roasted duck is chewy like rubber. I tried the breast and leg, both tough, can’t bite through the skin. Steam fish is good. Curry crab meat soggy like the lobster. They try to cover the freshness of seafood by adding sauce on it. Very disappointing, crab meat mushy.

Western section: roasted beef cooked medium rare, meat is tender but you can tell this beef is not a good quality meat. Crab cake is good, smoke duck breast very salty, prawn tomato soup flavourful.

Dessert: quality of dessert uneven. I grabbed one creme brûlée served in a round container, it is over cooked to the point it tasted like steamed egg, the second time when I grabbed it served in a spoon shaped container, it tasted standard. Fruit section looked sad and not fresh. Passion fruit barely has any fruit inside but they still served it. Green melon looked not fresh. They have self served shaved ice where you can add syrups and toppings, the shaved ices all melted in the bowel. I went to check 2 times and then I could grab some shaved ice. I didn’t see labels on the bottle so I’m not sure what I was adding. I saw a white bottle (evaporated milk), pink (?) brown (brown sugar?) so I think it would be better to have some labels for people who is eating this dessert for the first time

Overall I don’t recommend to come here to eat. You can spend the money elsewhere to eat better quality seafood. We paid about $62 Canadian dollars per person which is about $186 RMB. The atmosphere is standard. The servers are nice but the food is not up to standard and the...

Went for the premium seafood buffet on Friday. The spread was good but not great for its price. You have unlimited lobster (and no worries, it is always refilled), though the lobster is on the smaller side. I have never been blown away by lobster at buffets as the cold serving has never tasted amazing to me - it was ok, and so was the crab - good size and texture, but nothing special. In fact, the best tasting cold seafood was indeed the cold prawn which was firm and sweet. You also have the typical sushi and sashimi including salmon, tuna and squid. No tempura though.

The Chinese section was also good but not spectacular. They have relatively premium based chinese dishes, however the duck and chicken was not that juicy, but acceptable, and you have other options like steamed fish, herb chicken feet soup and dim sum and pau (lotus and red been) that you can never go wrong with.

The western side, carvery was berf striploin which was perfectly medium rare, but could be great if it was a bit warmer. The other carvery was salmon wellington, which the soft crust and chicken layer tasted very nice, but the salmon itself tasted good but mushy. Also had chicken, lamb dish, potato mash and others.

The italian section had minute made fresh pasta (didnt try it), various thin slice pizza (seafood, papperoni, and vegetarion) which were nice, various baked bread and olives, and a rather small selection of cheese platter (like 4 types).

They also had local and indian selection which includes briyani, tandoori, naan, satay and other local dish, as well as salad and cold cuts selections which all i skipped as had to save room for the 2 extra large rounds of the seafood!

Desert selection included cakes, pavlova, tarts and local desserts, and they all tasted quite good, especially the various durian deserts (cake and tart), but nothing really spectacular. Ice cream selection was four usual flavours and not of any particular highend brand (ie not hagen daz etc).

Overall, I would rank the buffet at LeMeridien and Jogoya definitely higher as they have better selection of food. LeMeridien has tempura and teppanyaki as well as a larger selection of desserts and the dishes overall taste slighty better than Lemon Garden. Jogoya is a seafood and Japanese style food paradise and have larger dessert selection and premium ice cream, though it lacks other food variety specifically on western front. The clear advantage for Lemon Garden are the unlimited lobster and premium selection of chinese dishes, though they all tasted just ok - this is my 3rd visit in 2 years 🤣.

All service staff were very pleasant, and they clear the table and refilled water quite promptly.

For its price of RM258 (vs LeMeridien RM208 and Jogoya RM188), it is less worth it without discount and as noted i would rate it last among the three, though its definitely better than most other KL buffet ive been to, but it is also one of the most expensive. Without discount, I would overall rate it a 3 star, but using Maybank Premier card, u get 50% off for 2 pax, basically buy one free one, hence the four...