While the breakfast buffet isn’t bad, it’s a shame that it falls short of the excellence set by the rest of the Fullerton Bay Hotel and its superb Deluxe Room.
With such a superb Deluxe Room, it’s a shame that the Fullerton Bay Hotel’s breakfast buffet at its French restaurant La Brasserie fell short of our raised expectations. To be sure, it wasn’t bad — we just wished it was as exceptional as the rest of the hotel. The restaurant cleverly circumvents its lack of space for a sprawling buffet spread by offering a sizeable menu of dishes it can make to order. These included not just usual suspects like French toast, Belgian waffles, and buttermilk pancakes but also eggs Benedict and even beef steak with fried eggs and mushrooms. However, not everything works — we wouldn’t try its “egg surprise special” again — and we can’t think of many items we’d shout about.
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The “menu from the stoves” includes eggs Benedict but we didn’t think it was especially good. Sure, the yolks were runny, but the Hollandaise sauce wasn’t very flavourful or sufficient for that matter. No, what you want is the pan-roasted breakfast beef steak which also came with a fried egg. It’s not the best steak we’ve had but it’s not every day that you see it on a breakfast buffet either.
This means you don’t have to try the “egg surprise special”, an eggs Benedict-like dish with poached eggs, Parma ham crisp, and a leek and onion soubise. We didn’t like at all. We weren’t fans of the omelette either — gorgeous texture and appearance, but underwhelming and undercooked fillings.
The buffet table fared better. We liked the potato gratin with its layer of gooey browned cheese resting on a bed of creamy soft potatoes while the quiche Lorraine was also excellent. The hash browns surprised us — their crusts were crunchy instead of crispy and their interiors dense instead of fluffy, diverging from the usual version — but they were still good. The chicken sausages, pork and cheese sausages, crispy bacon, grilled tomatoes, baked beans, and ratatouille weren’t bad either.
For us, the real highlight of the “menu from the stoves” was the chee cheong fun with its silky skin. The fish ball noodles were also good, its fish balls bouncy and soup savoury, while the stir-fried rice vermicelli wasn’t bad either. There was also a choice of chicken or fish congee — however, we weren’t impressed by the mild flavours of the fish option.
The Asian options on the buffet table were a little more uneven. We liked the egg noodles with seasonal vegetables while the salmon teriyaki was also good — soft, flaky, and rich with fat. The yam rice however was a little dry while the skin on the scallop and shrimp dumpling was too thick and mushy. The chicken char siew bao was so dry that its bread was falling apart. We weren’t fans of the bah kut teh either — its broth was salty instead of peppery — though its pork ribs were still good enough to chew on.
You shouldn’t prioritise the nasi lemak either — it was a little dry and not especially fragrant. However, it may be worth having a spoonful or two to eat with the sambal prawns which were fresh and not too spicy. The chicken wings weren’t bad either — still moist, though their skins were getting a little soggy.
The “menu from the stoves” also includes sweet options, best of which was the French toast, fluffy with a rich egg flavour that begged for a luscious drizzle of maple syrup. The buttermilk pancakes could have been fluffier, but we liked its side of citrus mascarpone which provided a touch of acid to balance the sweetness of the maple syrup. The Belgian waffles also came with a rich regular mascarpone to complement its maple syrup. If all that maple syrup scares you, there’s oatmeal brûlée option which is more of a health food and isn’t sweet except for its topping of banana with caramelised sugar.
From the pastry section of the buffet table, we liked the chocolate custard pastries — soft with a rich filling — the best, followed by the walnut pastries. The apple Danish and cinnamon roll pastries weren’t bad either. We’d skip the croissants which were oddly crispy on one side and soft on the other. The pains aux chocolat also seemed stale and lacked much of a chocolate filling. The blueberry and chocolate muffins weren’t great either — the former was mushy and the latter a little dry.
80 Collyer Quay, Singapore 049326
+65 6877 8911/8912
https://www.fullertonhotels.com/the-fullerton-bay-hotel/la-brasserie.html
