Ellenborough Market Café — Restaurant in Singapore

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So wife and me went today Monday 03.10.22 for the buffet lunch . Yes yes, i read the reviews, which were mostly negatives on  food and service . But those were written in 2019 - 2021 and 3-4 months ago. Maybe by now, they've got new cooks and new waitress/waiters? I promised to write a review if it turned out good. I do have good memories of the place as it was next to my building work site called Central long ago.

Food? Now my personel golden rule for reviews of Peranakan cooking in a buffet setting, amidst all the  other enticing distractions is this -just how darn good are the 3 traditional items ?

1.Nyonya chap chye, 2. Buah keluak and 3. Rendangs. Just get this holy trinity right  and all else will fall in place or secondary. Glad to report all 3 masih sedaaaap! AND the durian penyet still brings back memories when the hotel was called Merchant Court and not the mouthful of the weird name that it has morphed into now. (Paradox something xxx??!!!). Ah well.

Of course there is something for everyone too. I was curious by their two pastas (salted egg pasta with bird’s eye chili & good ole beef bolognese) which they placed among the prawn laksa station. Unusual east west fare side by side I thought . Took a sampling twist of the two. Twas as good  as Pregos, says it all! The banana bubor chacha was wicked, resisted a second but the durian penyet i could not.

Service ?

Very good what! They must have read the previous reviews and employed more part-timers. I had to politely shoo them away from changing my plates ever so wastefully often and topping-up my glass of water.

When it came to paying, Candy assumed I drove without asking me (which I did actually) and return my credit card together with a 2-hour complementary  car park. Nice hor?  except as usual I forgot to remove my card from ICU while chatting with wife on the way up the exit ramp. Over 5 bucks...

We had dinner on their Seafood night to celebrate my birthday. It was a sorely disappointing experience though.

Somehow we had a dinner crowd of cheapskates, who hogged the crabs and the crayfish. Once out, they stood there, picked and chose, the biggest piece, ignoring the people standing around waiting. Similarly for the crayfish, once replenished, it's only sufficient for the first two to reach the station as they grabbed almost everything over a few plates. The staff was slow to replenish and once out, everyone just started grabbing again like there wasn't enough to go around.

However, it didn't really matter for when I managed to get my hands on some of the crabs, cracked up their legs, not much flesh, mostly liquid, possibly not fully molted before being sold and served. The cold seafood didn't taste exactly fresh and the cooked shells/snails didn't taste nice either, lacking in flavour and had an earthy taste.

The peranakan food section fared better, the fatty babi pongteh slice was well flavoured and could just melt in the mouth. Assemble your own Kueh pie tee, and that was pretty nice too. However, Laksa was lack lustre, lacking the fragrance and creaminess which I had expected.

Another item I liked was the satay, well cooked, tender and juicy, went well with the satay sauce.

There were a variety of cakes and kuihs, some fruits and durian pengat (durian puree). Nonya kuihs fared pretty well, small and full of coconut fragrance, allowing you to try out more without filling you up too much. Cakes are just average, nothing special.

Overall, food and service is way below average for the price I had to pay - poor quality and slow replenishment etc This probably explains the number of empty tables in the restaurant on a weekend night, when most buffets are fully booked. I can only say quality has dropped drastically over the years.

Seafood night buffet - NOT RECOMMENDED, as paying a lot for poor service and low...

We had the Singapore Seafood Promotional Buffet Dinner which costs $88++ per person. Checked online to see which deals are available, at that time Citibank was offering 20% off which works out to be about $83nett per person.

What I tried and tasted good: ✅️ Durian Pengat // Must try! Pro-tip: Even better when paired with chendol.

✅️ Kueh Pie Tee // I love their DIY spread for this. Included mashed eggs, peanut, coriander, small shrimps, chilli sauce, mang guang and sweet sauce, etc.

✅️ Fresh lobster // It is cold and fresh with huge chunks of meat. Came without any sauce but it's a buffet so find a dip somewhere else and have it your way. (Not in photos)

✅️ Osmanthus Jelly // It is refreshing even though the taste is mild. It has refreshing ingredients and is a unique dish in general.

What I tried and they could have done better:

❌️ Stingray // Unless you are amongst the first few to help yourself, there is not enough sambal sauce, also missing the chinchalok. The meat itself is tough and chewy if you're left with chunky meat.

❌️ Singapore Chilli Crab // The meat was soft and didn't taste fresh. Their refill was slow as well.

❌️ Cooked prawns, in general // Tried the grilled and the har lok styled prawns; The meat for both dishes was stuck to the shells. It didn't taste fresh. Harder to peel them.

❌️ Service was subpar // As it was a birthday celebration, the staff was not discreet instead asking us if it was ok to serve the birthday cake. Since the surprise was broken, we just pointed to the birthday girl and said, "Yeah, it's for her." Even though the staff was kind enough to light a candle on a small cake, they only took a single photo for us without any countdown unknowingly.

❌️ Low parking coupon coverage // We spent about 2 hours at the restaurant, most of the time was waiting for them to replenish the food but they could not cover the entire...