It may not be one of the many celebrity chef restaurants at the Marina Bay Sands, but Rise serves a sprawling breakfast buffet with many items worthy of morning indulgence.
Considering the spread of breakfast options at the Marina Bay Sands — from its celebrity chef restaurants, no less — what reasons would you have to choose the hotel’s buffet restaurant? Well, plenty, as we found out — literally. The breakfast buffet at the lobby-level Rise restaurant sprawls across multiple stations and cuisines, with several live cooking and carving stations. There were so many items that we had to pick up the pace just so we could taste everything — you know we do — before closing time. With such quantity, we were impressed to find quality as well. Had we the stomach space — or time — after sampling the entire spread, we would have gone for second helpings of quite a few items. If you want to indulge, this should be your pick — especially when its price is on par with other luxury hotel breakfasts.
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.
Many people start their breakfast buffets at the egg station, but the highlight here for us was the live meat carving station. When we first arrived, there was an impressive leg of honey-baked ham — fat and juicy, especially further inside from the edges. When this ran out, a hunk of beef pastrami appeared — bouncier than the ham but still moist and boasting a fiery peppery crust.
When we finally got to the live egg station, we were again impressed to receive a neatly-shaped French omelette stuffed with peppers, ham, and cheese. However, we felt the scrambled eggs were a little under-seasoned and powdery. We weren’t fans of the broccoli frittata either: not especially savoury and mildly bitter and sweet from the broccoli, though still soft and moist.
Apart from the carved meats, we would pair our eggs with the hash browns here. We thought these were perfectly sized for the right mix of crunchy crust and fluffy potato filling with every bite. The pork bacon was a bit more divisive — very thin and crispy but possibly too crumbly for some. Other items in this section — the pork and chicken sausages, sautéed mushrooms, baked tomatoes, steamed vegetables, chicken meatballs, and baked beans — weren’t especially interesting to us.
What was more interesting was the separate section of cold cuts and cheese. There was a good selection of beef, pork, and chicken hams as well as emmental, brie, cheddar, and gouda cheeses. But the real highlight for us? Slathering obscene globs of cream cheese onto the chewy bagels with a heap of the especially luscious salmon gravlax (better than the smoked salmon).
We’d start with the fishball noodles in soup. While the noodles were a little softer than we liked, the fishballs were bouncy and hid an inner filling of minced prawn. Then move to the congee station. The plain congee was as plain as it sounded but the duck congee contained shreds of roasted duck — meat, skin, and fat turning an ordinarily austere dish rich.
Regardless of your dietary preferences, your next stop should be the vegetarian food section. The vegetarian fried rice was savoury and well-seasoned but the vegetarian fried noodles simply sang with the smoky and elusive flavours of wok hei. Get the noodles if you see them — the fried noodles eventually ran out and were replaced with braised eefu noodles which were not quite as stunning (though still good).
We’d look for the white sugar sponge cakes next, labelled as “sugar cake”. These are made of rice flour and, despite their name, were only mildly sweet with a gorgeous texture of little tunnels created during the steaming process. We liked the sugar cake far more than we did the Chinese sponge cakes which we felt could be softer and fluffier.
The deep-fried butterfly buns were a little more crumbly and doughy than we were used to but tasted fine of sesame. The skins on the vegetable gyoza dumplings were a little thick but the vegetable filling wasn’t bad. The dim sum wasn’t exceptional — we preferred the har gow to the chicken siew mai or the chive and prawn dumplings. We weren’t impressed by how the bread on the chicken char siew bao turned to mush in our mouths; its filling wasn’t superb either. And we’d skip the salted egg yolk custard bao — its filling was dry, pasty, and not very tasty either.
We especially liked the crumbly and almost buttery kachori fried fritters, even more than we did the deep-fried vada fritters. There were also idli rice cakes, uttapam pancakes, and upma — a thick, gooey, and fiery seasoned porridge. These could be paired with a bright and acidic sambar stew or spiced tamarind, coconut mint, and spiced tomato chutneys.
In addition to steamed rice, various pickles, and miso soup, there were two types of grilled fish. The salmon slices were rather thin, but they were skin-side — rich with fat and glazed with a teriyaki-like sweet sauce. There was also saba fish — mackerel — which can be a little too strong in flavour for some tastes. We thought it was fine, except that it seemed like it could have used some sauce.
When you’re ready for something sweet, go for the bread and butter pudding, one of the best we’ve tasted in a breakfast buffet. Not only were the bread textures still evident amid the custard, we felt it had just the right amount of chocolate inside without overwhelming the dish. This outshone the cinnamon rolls, which were nonetheless buttery and not excessively sweet. We’d skip the pancakes — way too thin and flat for our liking.
On the pastry section, we’d skip the plain croissants and pain au chocolat — not especially crispy or flaky, though buttery enough for our tastes. Instead, we’d grab the apricot and almond croissants, filled with apricot jam and almond paste, respectively. We also liked the madeleines—soft with a hint of almond and orange zest. The muffins weren’t bad either, especially the cinnamon raisin and banana flavours, as were some of the Danish pastries. However, the slices of pecan raisin cake seemed more like a disappointing fruit cake without its moisture or richness. The mini donuts were forgettable while the butter and sugar rolls were basically bread.
10 Bayfront Ave, Singapore 018956
+65 6688 5525
