The Line - A disappointed Dessertian

Finally!
After a month's wait, I finally have an excuse (it's Mr HB's birthday) to visit the much talked about buffet restaurant - The Line for lunch.

I had made lots of preparation for this visit, of which including waking up at 5am this morning so that I can run that extra distance in anticipation for the zillions of calories I'll be taking in later; eating lesser for breakfast (some people would skip this altogether but it is essential to prime your metabolism for large food in take); making arrangements for the kids so that we can reach the restaurant early to avoid "running out of sauages" (read Michelle_Ling's review)

After running around like a mad woman this morning with all the prep work and settling the kids into my parents house, we finally arrived at the restaurant at 12.30pm.
Without saying another word, Mr HB and I went off to survey the spread once we were shown to our seat.

The restuarant appeared chic and trendy with bold colour combination of orange and white and marble flooring. And while it is Monday, the restaurant is packed with what appears to be corporate people having some function/event at the hotel.Back to the food.
The spread is extensive so the next question is "Is the quality as good as the quantity". I mentally made that my deliverable for the day as I set out to taste the food.

First stop to the sashimi counter.
They have salmon, tuna, squid and salmon belly. Not a squid fan, so I only requested for salmon and tuna. The sashimi is thick and fresh dipped in soy sauce with an abundance of wasabi....umm...tear provoking and fulfilling....
On my way back I took a little abalone salad for appetizer which tasted pretty fragrant and sweet. So far so good.

Next onto the "main course" - cooked food.
Round 1 - filled my plate with
1. Snow Fish cooked in some herbs
2. Salmon steak
3. Ham

The snow fish was very tasty though it sort of reminded me of chicken. Salmon steak was very soft and I think I took too big a piece. Ham was ok.

Round 2 - I took
1. Teochew style steam fish - relatively tasteless, maybe bcoz it's teochew styled?
2. Char Siew Pau - all I can say is give this a miss, not worth wasting your calories on this
3. "Pi Fang Tang" chicken - crispy skin and juicy meat, not too bad
4. Murtabak with fish curry - murtabak is filled with generous ingredients, nice! but curry is a little too salty.
5. Naan - a little too dry and tasteless.

Round 3 - I took
1. Snow fish - ....again, I like this dish.
2. On the chef's warm introduction and "hard selling", I was embarressed to turn down the lamb and chicken tandoori. But sad to report that both are not worth wasting calories on. The lamb had a distinct lamb taste and the chicken is too salty.
3. Murtabak - Carbo deficient! I need to answer to the carbo lover in me.
4. Hawaiian pizza - normal

Walking pass the italian counter, I just felt that I had to try some pasta. So I asked the chef to whip up some cream based penne with sausage, mushroom and ham. This tasted pretty good with thick cream and cheese.

After all these, I am starting to feel full and decided to proceed to dessert. The desserts are not labelled, so it may be a little confusing for some people like myself who would like to know what we are putting into our mouth.

With great anticipation, I scoot off to the dessert section to pick up
1. Cheese cake - way below my expectation. Not cheesy enuf and the cheese tasted a bit weird (not sure how to explain)
2. Chocolate mousse cake - nothing exceptional. Chocolate not rich enuf.
3. Fruit tart - again nothing exceptional though it is covered with lots of fat strawberries and fruits.
4. Yogurt mousse - not too bad if you like yogurt.
5. Some raspberry cake or something - so-so only.
6. Mini chocolate fudge cake - decent, at least it has more chocolate content compared to the chocolate mousse.
7. Crepe with chocolate spread and mango - ok, I made a mistake. Chocolate and mango does not go very well together. But warm crepe and chocolate cannot go too wrong.
Last but not least, i had a scoop of green tea ice cream while Mr HB had strawberry and mango. Green tea ice cream was nice, one can taste the green tea with milk to make it creamy. But I can't say the same for mango and strawberry, these 2 flavours lack the real fruity oomph.

After all these, I believe I have eaten breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper all at 1 go. Mr HB and I each had a cup of tea to round things up before footing the bill.

In all, I am quite disappointed that the quality of the food is not as good as I would like it to be especially the dessert section.

The Line
22 Orange Grove Road,
Basement Shangri-la Hotel,
Singapore