One-Ninety - No Souffle!

My first brush with 4-Seasons Sunday Brunch was about a decade ago when I was still in colleage. We were on our way to Mezza 9 (if my memory serves me right) and I was told that 4-seasons serves the best Sunday brunch with a fabulous souffle station in Singapore. That sentence has been etched in my mind ever since.

So 10 years later, I finally have the oppotunity to validate this statement. Naturally, it was a visit with very high expectations.
The 1st spolier came when I called to make reservations, I was told that the brunch runs from 1115 to 3pm but divided into 2 seatings meaning we have to keep check on time as each seating is limited to about 2 hours. Dang....

So came sunday and we were all ready to feast ourselves silly within the limited 2 hour span.
The brunch spills out of the restaurant into the walkway and the corridor lining the lift from the carpark mainly consisting of the following stations: -

1. Chinese
There is a roast meat station with some dim sum items along side the laksa station. I did not bother with the chinese station at all but Mr HB reported that the laksa is pretty good.

2. Japanese and seafood
The japanese offering is really limited with only sushi and sahimi. The sashimi variety is also lacking with only 3-4 types of cuts. In front of the japanese station is the oyster spread. There are 2 types - canadian and irish. I tried the canadian oysters, there are fresh and delicious. Also in the seafood station is the prawns on ice which was skipped by me. I would expect that the seafood spread be more "extravagent" for the big price tag that it commanded.

3. Salad and Wrap station
Skipped this also.

4. Risotto stationYou have a choice between parmesan cheese and white truffle oil for your risotto rice. We ordered both to share amongst us. The parmesan version is more flavourful and the white truffle version rather lacking in taste, both pretty forgettable.

5. Pasta station
We had a pesto fettucine with garlic from this station. It is not bad but again not something that had us going for seconds.

6. Egg station
How can anyone miss out eggs in a sunday brunch? This was actually the first station that I headed to. You can have your eggs done anyway you wished. I had 2 egg benedicts that day. This was one of the more impressionable dish I had for the entire brunch. The egg is served on top of a piece of ham piled onto a english muffin bread with lots of cheese on top, this is simply delicious.

7. Grill station
This is the only other station that had me gg for seconds other than the egg station. There is a range of meats from ribeye, lamb, chicken breast, salmon, pork loin to choose from and you can have it according to your prefernce of doneness. I had a piece of salmon and ribeye of which the salmon is overcooked and dry and the ribeye is erm...I think I can get better ribeye steaks at a fraction of the price.
BUT, the saving grace is the foi gras. This is very juicy and tender, I helped myself to 2 servings of this before it became too jer lat to down anymore.

8. Cheese, bread and cracker station.
Skipped this as well.

9. Dessert station
Now, I had really really HIGH expectation of the dessert station and was expecting to see different types of souffle available for my selection but alas was missing! I hate to repeat myself but there is NO souffle station.
Looking around somemore, hoping to find something that will help to redeem the letdown due to the mysterious absence of the souffle only to discover that the spread of dessert is sorely limited, out of which I only find the sacher torte and strawberry cheese cake lived up to my classification of "good", the tiramisu and hazelnut praline just did not leave any impression.
After just 2 rounds from the dessert station, I gave up.

10. Martini and Juice Bar
Nope, the ice machine where u pour in your martini and collect it from the other end is gone, instead u have a bartender shaking it up for u. You get to choose from a list of 5 flavours.

There is also a variety of juices to choose from.I was expecting more, a lot more for the price of this sunday brunch, so needless to say, I was very disappointed by the lack of variety and quality find for this sunday brunch.
The only thing I find that justifies the hefty price tag is prbly the fact that there is a child care room that looks after ur kids while u kick back and enjoy a very time-limited sunday brunch (and the martini if u drink).

So I guess, this is a place I won't be coming back for in a long long time.

P.S. Melt stays at the #1 spot, unchallenged on my list of best buffets in Singapore. If anyone feels that there is a better place for buffet do let me know.

Must Tries: Egg benedict, foi gras