It wasn’t quite Christmas yet and we still have just under 6 months to go but it’s always great to meet my Christmas boys. My friends and I went to AquaMarine (Level 4, Marina Mandarin Hotel) for dinner on Sunday 14 July 2013 to celebrate Glenn’s birthday. It’s been a while since I last saw them and as usual, I love our random conversation topics, sometimes bordering on scandalous. I’ve known most of them for possibly for 15 years or more. These days, we often reminisce about our foolhardy ways of yore where we struggle to remember how we made it to graduate with our degrees when we used to drink ourselves silly and go to the clubs several times a week despite being student poor.
And I digressed, so back to dinner… I read several negative reviews about this Halal buffet restaurant but I didn’t think it was as bad. The spread had variety and it’s basically a seafood lover’s dream. Crabs, mussels, prawns, oysters, sashimi and other creatures of the sea were served. There was a small Japanese section though not authentic in my opinion. Lots of desserts – cakes, ice cream, pralines, nonya kueh; a small selection of cheeses that included Brie and Camembert; Indian food with curries and briyani rice; other local Singaporean staples like Chinese stir-fries, satay, fried rice, kueh pie tee etc; and possibly many other stations I didn’t explore.
A vegetarian could easily fill up here but I didn’t feel like it was worth what we paid per head. After a credit card discount (I think 15%), we still ended up paying about S$69 each. The company though was great, so I enjoyed myself. There were large tables that easily accommodated big groups of 8 (like ours) or more. The seating was generous and spacious so sitting around and chatting for an extended period was comfortable unlike some places where they try to hurry you to finish within 2 hours or gets so noisy you can’t hear each other without raising your voice.
My verdict: 6.5/10 for variety, comfort, and accessible location.
And here are my friends’ opinions:
Kai – 8/10 “because of the crabs”
Felix – 7/10 “There’s no pork or bread pudding! And the ice cream is horrible.”
Daniel – 6.5/10 “Although it seems like a wide selection, there’s no one dish that really stands out”
Markie – 6.5/10 “the crayfish was powdery and there is no pork!”
Glenn – 7/10 “there’s variety but no quality for the price”
An Exercise In Trivial Pursuits 