Sun's Café

營業中

休息中

Sun's Cafe offers foreign guests an appetizing insight into Singapore's local delights as well as famous Asian dishes.

☆72/100

So two weeks back (yes, yes, late post, I know) the Seets went to Sun's Cafe at Hotel Grand Pacific to meet a family friend for dinner, in lieu of a CNY house visit. When I first heard of the dinner venue, the first thought that popped into my head was, "Sun's Cafe? Must be rather lame." - I mean, for a buffet restaurant, [Sun's Cafe] is certainly not a very professional name to have... The name reminds me of a coffee-shop and is definitely not reminiscent of a hotel eatery; I was expecting something more pleasant to fit the hotel name (Hotel Grand Pacific - how elegant is that?) But let's not stay on the topic of names and labelling anymore, because it has nothing to do with the quality of food served anyway...

Sun's Cafe serves an Asian-themed buffet with highlights such as Nyona kueh-mueh, Roasted Pork and Fish Maw Soup. To accommodate the palates of the international guests though, they have also made it a point to add in Seafood on Ice to the variety, which is good in my opinion. At first glance the spread is rather small, which might be disappointing for those who prefer quantity over quality. I'm somewhere in the middle, bending towards quantity, but I was still satisfied overall because the buffet was cheap to start with. You get what you pay for, and in this case Sun's Cafe offers more than it charges. I see a win situation. What do you see?

This is (hopefully) a full list of what was offered at the cafe at the date of my visit (28/02/2015):

APPETIZERS

Baby Asparagus

Fresh Green Lettuce (for salad; toppings/dressings below)

- Olive Oil

- Balsamic Oil

- Thousand Island Dressing

- Shredded Carrots

- Cucumbers

- Sliced Bell Peppers

- Cherry Tomatoes

- Peas (?)

Green Apple Salad

Marinated Papaya Salad

Nyonya Achar

Pasta

Smoked Salmon Platter

Seafood on Ice - Chilled Fresh Prawns, Green Lips Mussels and Scallops

MAIN COURSE

Braised Ee Fu

Crabstick Porridge with condiments (Century Egg was one of them)

Steamed Fragrant Rice

SIDES

Braised Dried Oysters with Black Moss (Fa Cai)

Braised Fish (Apologies for forgetting to note what fish - but it was good for the record)

Braised Pork Belly with Dark Soya Sauce

Broccoli with Scallop and Bailing Mushrooms

Crispy Boneless Chicken with Mango Sauce

Poached Herbal Prawns

Prawn and Fish Crackers

Roasted Duck

Roasted Pork

SOUPS

Fish Maw with Crabmeat

DESSERT

Assorted Fruit Platter (Honey Dew, Oranges, Pineapple, and Watermelon)

Assorted Nyonya Kueh (Kueh Wajik, Kueh Dadar, Kek Lapis, Kueh Salat, Tapioca Kueh, Kueh Lapis)

Fried Nian Gao

Swensen's Ice Cream (Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla, Yam)

White Fungus with Red Dates

For those who like visuals as I do, here are some photos of the spread at Sun's Cafe:

I apologise in advance for the poor quality - I am but a poor student surviving on a Samsung camera for my blog.

There was also Yu-Sheng because it was during CNY period! The platter was great

We relished every bit of it.

Blurry closeup of the Yu-Sheng

First plate of goodness!

To start my meal, I first had some Eefu Noodles along with braised fish. "Warm your stomach first!" as my grandma always says.

I liked how the Eefu noodles had absorbed the flavour of the sauce it was cooked in, without having its original taste being replaced (you know that fragrant taste of Eefu noodles? Gotta love that!) The fish was great - I always love a well cooked fish, because it tastes very off if it isn't prepared well. You either get a strong fishy taste, or powdery substance on your tongue (I'm thinking it's due to the meat not being fresh) ... The side vegetables and mushrooms were also good, but nothing to shout about. Very quickly I downed the first portion and went off searching for more food.

My second plate of food

After 'prepping' my stomach for more goodies to come, I dived into the food with stronger taste to whet my appetite ('prepping' my tongue ahaha).

The baby asparagus was mediocre, but the good thing is that it didn't taste disgusting - eat your greens, kiddos! The roast pork was really good, and the skin was still crisp despite having been left out for quite some time before I took some. Pair it with the chilli, and you get an appetiser! The smoked salmon on the other hand, was too salty for my liking and curbed my appetite for a while instead of whetting it. It was fresh nonetheless, and delicious if you are willing to overlook the saltiness. The pasta was good, cooked al dente, but was not very flavourful. I felt that the olives, which were extremely salty, were needed to enhance the flavour of the pasta, and I could imagine the moles of sodium entering my body as I advanced with every spoonful... Oh, but that's the price you pay for good food! Who cares! In 20 years' time I probably will, but let me just live in the present now.

Chicken Karage with Mango Sauce

Halfway through my forage for my third plate of food, I noticed this interesting dish - Fried Chicken with Mango Sauce. Intrigued, I took a small portion and returned to the table, fixated on trying only that one particular dish. As a fan of mango, I daringly drizzled a substantial amount of sauce on the chicken despite not knowing what was awaiting me, and before I knew it the very first spoonful was about to enter my mouth...

AND IT WAS GOOD!

I love fried chicken cutlet itself, but pairing it with the mango sauce brought it to a whole new level with its refreshing sour taste. I know how fried foodstuff tend to get soggy after a while, so the mango sauce helped to disguise the texture which might have otherwise, on its own made the entire dish unpalatable. It was delicious, full stop. I went back for seconds, thirds, and many more servings. I guess you could say that I'm a sucker for fried chicken

and mango sauce

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My fourth plate of food with my favourites

I know how I said that the smoked salmon was really salty and unappetising at the top, and how the pasta was bland, but despite the bad points, they were rather memorable and I felt like having more carbs so I went back for more during my fourth hunt for food and decided to replace the olives with some smoked salmon. The new addition was the bailing mushroom which I tried from my sister's plate and liked. It wasn't anything special, but simple, old mushroom. Which I love! Yay mushrooms!

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Star of my main course: Fish Maw Soup with Crabmeat!

As my family would know, I love fish maw, and I love knock-off Shark's Fin broth. Combine them together and you'd get something close to this awesome fish maw soup that I had at Sun's Cafe. While it was extremely light on my stomach, which allowed me to go for many more servings without feelings full, it was rather bland on its own, so I often had to add some vinegar to it to enhance its taste. The consistency of the soup was rather disappointing too, because it was runnier than I had hoped it would be. Traditionally I would prefer a thicker broth, so that it would taste nicer, but on second thought I decided that a thinner broth contributes to it being 'light on the stomach' . So thumbs up! I must have like six bowls of it that day, because it was simply too good!

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Going strong... my fifth plate of food

After having so much Asian food I decided to try out the seafood section, which I had initially avoided because I didn't particularly like any of them. Towards the end of my fourth plate however I figured that I'd try them both for fun and the sake of this blog post (for the benefit of potential Sun's Cafe customers!)

The scallops were bland, but I guess that's just how normal scallops taste. I rarely eat scallops, so I'll need some coaching on this one, The mussels however, which I do eat sometimes, were good. Fresh, and not too chewy. Sometimes I get old mussels which are rather hard to chew because they are too tough.

I am not a big fan of prawn, so I usually avoid it to save stomach space in buffets, but that day I decided to try some because I know that many people out there love prawns and sometimes pivot their choice on buffet restaurants around the quality of prawn. Bear with me on this, though, because I am not experienced with prawns and therefore my verdict is purely a personal opinion: The prawn seemed fresh because the flesh readily detached from the shell and it didn't have the powdery texture that many prawns have (main reason why I don't like prawns much) - Bottom line is, the meat was fresh and it was good. But then again, nothing to shout about.

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A closeup of the prawns for you prawn experts to deliberate over

My appetite hasn't been good lately, so after my fifth plate I decided to retire to desserts, and as you may have seen from the photos above, there was quite a lot to cover. I skipped the fruits and went forward with the fried Nian Gao:

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Closeup of the fried gooey goodness

I like especially how the nian gao was not too sweet, and the batter was not too strong, so I could pop in several at a go without feeling overpowered by the taste. When I tore the nian gao into two the sticky contents would slowly and unwillingly separate into the two halves (think anaphase) and it was a really satisfying sight to witness. Once again apologies for not having a picture for that crucial moment as I was unable to take a photo with my two hands occupied with holding the two ends of the nian gao.....

Okay I lied. I was too preoccupied with eating that I forgot :'(

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Nyonya Kueh-Mueh! Kelihatan amat menyelerakan, kan?

The nyonya kueh-mueh were the star of my dessert quest. I remember that on that particular day I was craving for sweet food, so the kueh-mueh to me were like angels sent from Heaven. Delicious angels at that!

The kueh wajik was previously unknown to me, as I have neither heard of it nor tasted it before. My virgin experience at eating it was a pleasant one, though, and it is now on my list of favourite kueh-mueh. As with the fried Nian Gao, it wasn't too sweet, which was absolutely great, and it had a fragrant taste of gula melaka. My family friend sang praises of it as did I!

The kueh dadar was also very good, and trust me on this one - I don't usually like kueh dadar because I don't fancy coconut much. It was fragrant - what more can I say? I wrote "damn nice" on my notes for this Buffet review so it really must have been quite delicious (I am sad to say that I have forgotten the taste)

The kueh salat was delicious, but definitely not as fragrant as the ones you can get at Bengawan Solo. But I wasn't expecting it to be extremely good because they were yummy enough, so I was pretty much satisfied with the kueh-mueh.

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Closeup!

I then ended my meal with some Swensen's Ice Cream, which lived up to its standard. Creamy and sweet - best way to end off a buffet dinner! I like Yam especially, so it is perhaps biased of me to say that the Yam was the best out of the four...

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Ice Cream! Glorious Ice Cream...

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