Breakfast at Kwee-Zeen was good overall despite some misses. Despite the hotel’s French branding, don’t expect too much from the croissants or for much French food apart from the pastries.
Sofitel Singapore Sentosa Resort & Spa serves its daily breakfast buffet at Kwee-Zeen, its Pan-Asian restaurant. We felt the breakfast buffet was good overall despite some misses. Basics like eggs, breakfast meats, hash browns, waffles, pancakes, and French toast met our expectations. However, we thought its croissants — nicely flaky on the outside but compressed and hard in the middle — could have been better. From the sizeable selection of Asian food, we liked the nasi kuning — rice cooked with coconut milk and turmeric — and chicken congee best.
We review anonymously and pay for everything. All opinions expressed here are our own and all information is correct as of our last stay or visit and subject to change without notice.
The American breakfast items were good overall, though not great. The live station for eggs made to order delivered our omelette loaded generously with ham, cheese, mushrooms, and red and green peppers. Poached eggs were also available and, while not perfect in appearance, tasted free of vinegar unlike some hotel breakfast buffets we know of. We felt these were better choices than the tray of scrambled eggs in the buffet line-up which was fluffy but a little under-seasoned and tasted strongly of dairy. The hash browns were also crispy, though we thought they could have been fluffier inside. Conversely, we wished the bacon were crispier; the ham, soaking in an oily yellow liquid, wasn’t especially tasty either. We felt the chicken sausages were probably the safer choice of breakfast meat here.
We didn’t think much of the Chinese items in the restaurant’s outdoor open terrace. We thought the flavour of the chicken congee wasn’t bad; we just wished it was a lot stronger so it could actually make an impression. Similarly, we wished the vegetables — which were just entering the sweet spot between tenderness and crunchiness — had been cooked in a more intensely-flavoured stock. We didn’t think the fried rice was anything to shout about either, though it wasn’t offensive.
The fried noodles however seemed a little overcooked and mushy — which was a shame as we thought we tasted hints of charred wok hei flavours. The live station for noodle soup made to order especially disappointed us with how weak and diluted both the chicken or laksa broth options tasted. We found the dim sum selection like most other hotel breakfast buffets: largely thick- or mushy-skinned and tasting processed. One of the dumplings we tried had skin so thick, it fought our attempts to pierce it with a fork. The har gow seemed the least offensive despite its thick skin, tasting better than the shumai which felt processed in both texture and flavour. We didn’t get past a single bite on the bao either — its steamed bread was thick and gummy and the custard-like filling was dry.
A small section next to the live egg station held a few Malay and Thai items. The highlight here was the fragrant nasi kuning — rice cooked in coconut milk and turmeric. This was served with accompanying condiments of hard-boiled quail eggs, roasted peanuts, crunchy deep-fried ikan bilis anchovies, cucumber slices. Most importantly, there were the two kinds of sambal pastes available: a fiery sambal chilli and an umami bomb of a sambal belacan infused with dried shrimp. Completing the ensemble with crunchy deep-fried chicken wings and Thai fish cakes, though these were beginning to edge toward dryness.
There was a selection of Japanese items in the outdoor buffet line-up, but these turned out to be disappointing. The teriyaki chicken wasn’t too bad, though it was a little dry. But the miso soup seemed more diluted than we liked and a tray of deep-fried items labelled “tempura” had batter far too thick to be considered tempura. Even the rice served in this section wasn’t short-grain Japanese rice.
The two curries in the Indian section weren’t bad, though a little mild for our tastes in terms of flavour (the dal makhani) and heat (the paneer masala). The roti prata wasn’t particularly good, but was still our preferred vehicle for eating the curries compared to the “idli”. We’re not sure what it was, but it wasn’t idli as we knew it. Where we were expecting fluffy white rice cakes when we lifted the lid, we found a beige mush mixed with herbs and spices, its top turning into a dry crust.
Having absorbed the hotel’s efforts to flaunt its French branding, we might have had our expectations set a little too high for the breakfast buffet’s bread and pastry selection. So our dreams of re-living our visits to Paris were dashed the moment we bit into our appropriately flaky croissants into its inappropriately dense and hard centre. In terms of flavour, it wasn’t especially buttery either. However, we were delighted to then try the pain au chocolat which did offer a robust buttery flavour that stood up well to the dark chocolate. We also liked the softness and moistness of the cranberry muffin. But our vote for the best item in the bakery section — indeed, our favourite item of the entire buffet — was the walnut pastry which crumbled to the bite like a cookie.
The other options weren’t especially impressive. We felt the waffles could have been crispier on the outside, the French toast thicker, and the pancakes fluffier but were nonetheless all right. These went well with the wide range of toppings available: maple syrup, chocolate sauce, vanilla sauce, chocolate chips, honey comb, peanut butter, and Nutella spread. The Danish pastries seemed uneven to us: while we liked the flaky and crumbly apricot and raisin Danishes, the blueberry Danish seemed a little thick and stale. We also felt the baguette could have been fresher, though we liked the olives embedded inside the bread. Even the sugar donuts felt like they needed more sugar and a sweeter custard filling to qualify as a guilty treat.
2 Bukit Manis Road Singapore 099891
+65 6708 8310
