Food review: Valentine's High tea at Sheraton Towers

This is a long forgotten & overdue post which was saved and kept as draft since Valentine's.

A review of my Valentine's high tea at Sheraton Towers.

It was literally a very very sweet Valentine because my hubby and I had a sugar overdozed Afternoon Tea.

It costs $68++ per person for their Valentine's afternoon tea (with mini buffet and free flow of moscato wine). 

I thought of leaving when I saw the menu but my hubby insisted we stayed. Since it was Valentine's Day, we should just enjoy the day and don't think too much about the cost.

It's very true that we should pamper ourselves once in a while especially for Mommy who has devoted most time in caring the baby.

So we ordered 2 different sets - the Japanese Afternoon Tea and the English Afternoon Tea - to share and so that we could try both!

I had also requested to change the free flow of Moscato to apple juice as I prefer not to drink alcohol since I'm breastfeeding. Initially, the waitress mentioned that we were not allowed to change our drink. Luckily, their Manager over heard that I'm a breastfeeding mom and made an exception to let me change my free flow moscato to any of the juices.

After we ordered our drinks, we started with the mini buffet.

There were 6 different types of sweet desserts.

Soon, our drinks were served.

Cheers to Valentine's Day! 

The Japanese Afternoon Tea set

The English Afternoon Tea set. 

We felt that we were paying for their ambience and service more than the food. 

The food were "so so", not very fantastic. We can definitely find something similar or tastes even better for a lower price.

The environment was their highlight. Their couches were placed far apart from each other so we got to enjoy our "personal space". We had ample room for us to move around with my baby. I could also nurse my baby in a nursing cover comfortably at the couch.

During our visit, it happened that they had invited a lion dance troupe “舞龙舞狮” so it was really noisy. The experience would have been much better without the disturbance from the troupe.

I will recommend this place to parents with kids. If you feel rich or will like to pamper your family for a special occasion, high tea at a hotel is something you can consider. However, don't expect to have a very satisfying meal but more to enjoy the ambience.

xoxo,
Twentysixoctober

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Food Review: Carousel, Royal Plaza on Scotts

Hi All, 

It's time for a food review. Introducing award winning Carousel at Royal Plaza!
Carousel is a Muis Certified Halal local and international buffet with wide selection. 

I went there with my girlfriends to celebrate Yenn Rong's birthday so decided to do a review on it. We were there for their High Tea Buffet and was pleasantly surprised by their wide spread of choices. Below are the list of the goods and the not-so-goods. 

The Goods:

1) Wide Variety 

The food choices were splendid. There were so much that we did not manage to have a taste of every single one of them.  

The food range includes:

Seafood (crab, oyster, etc), 

Japanese spread (sushi and sashimi), 

Chinese style (stir fried noodles, Dim Sum, etc),

Asian food (Nasi lemak, PoPiah, Laksa, Noodle station, etc)

Western (sandwiches, salad, etc), Indian food and

Last but not least, hell lots of dessert choices (fondue, creme brulee, cakes, ice cream, waffle..) 

2) Efficient service

They were very prompt in clearing the plates. Every time, after getting a new serving and returned to our seats, we can be assured that the dirty plates on the table were cleared. 

The Not-so-Good:

1) Ambience

I personally do not like the ambience. The lighting is dim and the seating area is pretty packed. 

Kind of spoils the high tea experience.

2) Slightly below expectation

It may be due to the many good reviews I have read before heading to Carousel, so I had a certain level of expectation. I came to know from one of the reviews that they would serve cupcakes and sing birthday songs during birthday celebrations. When we reached the place, we had informed the staff of the birthday girl. Later, a few them came to check with us on who was the birthday girl. However, when the cupcake was finally served, the staff served to me instead of my friend. This was quite disappointing. 

Also, their staff has took a photo of us and said they will email the photo to us and has requested for my email. But till date, I have only received email to feedback on their service and have yet to receive the photo.  Overall, my experience was good but definitely there is room for improvement. 


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29/07/2014
After submitting this blog post on Sunday,
I have received an email reply from Carousel on the next working day.
Appreciate that Carousel's Customer Relations Manager has replied to my blog post and sent me the photo!

*I have checked my junk mailbox before writing this blog post

*********************************************************************************

Location:

It is situated at Royal Plaza Scotts

25 Scotts Road, Singapore 228220

Tel: 6589 7799

Price list:

Ciao,

Evelyn

How to Prepare a Wedding in 6 Month?

I still remember clearly that on the night, right after the proposal, after changing our relationship status on facebook from "in relationship" to "engaged", many friends enquired about when will be our big date. And all I've replied were "not so soon", "have not thought of the wedding". And in my mind, I'm thinking, I can do without a wedding since it's probably going to be troublesome, time-consuming, costly and tiring to plan a wedding.

Weeks after the proposal.....
while I was still immersed in the feeling of surprise and love, my fiance popped a question, 

"when should we get married?". 

And I looked at him with a blank look, "don't know"
Then he mentioned, how good will it be if we will to get married on 26 Oct, our dating anniversary?
We went to look at the calendar and so happened that 26 Oct 13 is a Saturday! How fantastic! "Maybe it's not a bad idea to have a wedding"
The only concern .. it's happening in 6 months time!
A few options we thought of, should we have it outdoor? In a restaurant?or In a hotel ballroom? 

1. Outdoor Wedding: 

• Pros: We can design it into a fairytale scene with lots of flowers or make it into a Twilight inspired wedding with garden theme "so beautiful"
• Cons: What if it rains? How much time required to coordinate the set up? Moreover, even if it never rain, Singapore weather is so humid and hot

Twilight wedding scene

2. Restaurant Wedding:

• Pros: Less pricey, maybe better food quality if we find a good restaurants
• Cons: Did not managed to find a restaurant available which have my ideal aisle. To me, one of the most important moment in wedding is when the bride walks down the aisle. The aisle is like the path to love and happiness "something I can't do without"

Pheony Jade restauarant

3. Hotel Wedding:

• Pros: Indoor, able to get a beautiful aisle, classy, a few hotels provide very good food quality, easy to coordinate, more convenient
• Cons: maybe more expensive 

So we felt that hotel wedding seem to has more pros than cons and we decided to go for it.

We've about 6 months to the day. Are we able to make it in time?

Next day, I immediately sent emails to all the hotels in Singapore to enquire on the ballroom availability at 26 Oct 2013.

Luckily, there is this website: http://singaporebrides.com/banquets.php which features all wedding banquets' names, pricing, email and contact numbers. It makes finding a the location easier, much easier.

After receiving the replies from hotels, we shortlisted a few and went on site visit. We've made a few appointments on weekends and took pictures of the venue. 

I realized that I need to set my requirements in order to decide. 

My requirements:

• Beautiful aisle
• Price not more than 1500 per table (inclusive of GST and service charge)
• Good food quality (knowing that my guest know how to enjoy food)
• Convenient location
• High ceiling (looks nicer)
• Preferably without pillars (Pillars is distracting and may block the view of certain tables)
• Of course good perks (but that's depend on your bargaining skills)

After one week.....
And going through the list of hotels, I found one which fits all my requirements and is available on 26 Oct 13! Guess it's fated for us to get married on this day. 

Most people told us that good wedding location usually need to be booked 1 yr in advance. 
BUT surprisingly, when I enquired hotels 6 months before my expected date, there are many which returned with availability. 

"Luckily married"

With Love, 
Evelyn