Breakfast at Shutters is relatively cheap so don’t expect too much. But the variety of cuisines was impressive — Chinese, Malay, Indian, Japanese, and Korean food all made an appearance here.
The Amara Sanctuary Resort Sentosa serves its daily breakfast buffet at Shutters, its contemporary all-day dining restaurant. It’s relatively cheap compared to other hotel breakfasts we’ve reviewed. While we weren’t surprised to conclude it wasn’t as good as some of the higher priced-breakfast buffets, we thought it wasn’t bad overall. Breakfast buffet dim sum tends to disappoint us but we found those served at Shutters surprisingly decent. We also liked the mee rebus, nasi lemak, ginseng chicken porridge, Korean tteokbokki mochi rice cakes and pandan chiffon cake. The service, however, sometimes left us feeling a little ignored. No one bothered to offer us coffee or tea, forcing us to go the self-service route — a rarity for hotel breakfasts, in our experience.
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 breakfast buffet’s selection of American breakfast items was a little hit and miss. The pork sausages were all right, bacon wasn’t bad — streaky with a touch of crisp — while the mushroom ragout was creamy, soft, and tasty. But the cheese sausages tasted processed to us, the crust on the hash browns crispy but a little thick, and even the tomato sauce on the baked beans seemed watery. Even the live station for eggs made to order wasn’t always on point — the tomato and onion fillings in our omelette felt like they should have been cooked a little longer before adding the eggs.
Breakfast buffet dim sum tends to disappoint us but we found those served at Shutters surprisingly decent, tasting less processed or frozen than in other hotels. The chicken and mushroom fillings in the siew mai dumplings for example actually had texture while filling in the chicken char siew bao was also tasty and moist. We especially enjoyed the pork spare ribs: knots of fat and lean meat wrapped around soft bones, served with a light fermented black bean sauce that balanced its richness. While the packs of glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaves weren’t the best we’ve had, they also weren’t bad compared to other hotel breakfast buffets. The breakfast buffet also featured a Chinese dessert rarely seen in other hotel buffets: douhua beancurd pudding, served with a sugar syrup for taste. It wasn’t the best we’ve had, but still it wasn’t bad either.
What we didn’t think was so great however was the snow custard bao — the bread was a little dry. Outside of the dim sum selection, the carrot cake was also still so firm and undercooked that its sharp edges hadn’t even softened.
Our eyebrows shot up the moment we tasted the mee rebus — the thick and sweet gravy coating the yellow egg noodles a lightning bolt of flavour that jolted us awake. The nasi lemak (rice cooked in coconut milk) wasn’t bad either and paired well with the spicy sambal chilli paste, though the rice was a little on the hard side.
Indian food was surprisingly under-represented in the breakfast buffet. This consisted of just one dish: idli rice cakes and an accompanying curry. While we liked the curry, we were let down by the dry and crumbly idli.
There were also a few Japanese food items in the breakfast buffet — we were surprised to see even natto was available. Some of these were hard to mess up: miso soup, sweet tamagoyaki rolled egg omelettes, and Japanese pickles. However, the more substantial items did get messed up. Not only was the skin on the teriyaki salmon soggy, the meat itself was drying out. Even the rice seemed over-cooked.
We were surprised to see even Korean cuisine represented in the breakfast buffet — and were even more so to discover that it was actually pretty good. This went beyond just the availability of spicy and pungent kimchi. There was a pot of soft and chewy tteokbokki mochi rice cakes stewing in a tasty gochujang chilli sauce. Another pot contained ginseng chicken porridge — one of the few porridges and congees we’ve tried in a hotel breakfast buffet that brought us back for second helpings.
The highlight of the bakery section was its fluffy and fragrant pandan chiffon cake. There were also slices of cake being served which we found moist and buttery. The blueberry muffins didn’t look like much and were a little dry, but they also tasted fine. Apart from that, however, the croissants and Danish pastries were stale and soggy and the pancakes hard and dry.
1 Larkhill Road, Amara Sanctuary Resort Sentosa, Singapore
+65 6825 3866
