Lisa R.
Yelp
We had a very nice afternoon tea here today. I did not get a chance to eat anything beforehand, and we toured Gardens by the Bay all morning into early afternoon. We arrived for the afternoon tea session, which is 3:00-5:00 PM on Saturdays. I had made a reservation about a month ago for this.
The cost is 60 SGD per adult. Tea selections can be changed as pots are finished. I stuck with sencha the entire time, and my mom enjoyed the jasmine. Eric R. started with Alexandria and switched to sencha.
What was highly unusual about this afternoon tea experience compared to any other I have had in London, Osaka, or the U.S. is that besides our three-tiered server with sweets and scones, there was a buffet! The buffet included many savory dishes, plus four additional stations on the sides.
The server kindly gave us a tour of the entire buffet and pointed out which items had pork so my mom and I could avoid them. The center of the buffet had salads, gravlax, smoked salmon, and toppings like capers. The hot entrees included fried buns with "chili crab sauce," "black carrot cake" which is a stir-fried radish and egg dish, fried rice with vegetables, clam vermicelli noodles, Thai fried chicken wings, spring rolls, "cronuts" with masala potato, turkey rendang puffs, and Canadian salmon tarts. Another side of the buffet had soy milk and a local rose-like beverage.
The stations included:
1) curry chicken with paratha (roti)
2) popiah (fresh vegetable wrap), kueh pie tee (fried cup with seafood stuffing), and rojak (fruit and tofu salad that one mixes together in a bowl)
3) turkey roulade, stuffing, and pumpkin veloute with chestnuts
4) dessert station with tiramasu, lychee yule log/roll cake, pannettone, pecan tarts, bread pudding
Our three-tiered server included plain and blueberry scones with butter, clotted cream, kaya (coconut jam), and mango passion fruit jam. The middle tier had macarons, fruitcake, brown sugar coconut cakes (ondeh ondeh lamington), cassis chestnut tarts, stolen cookies, and cinnamon star cookies.
We were stuffed but I joked this was my intermittent fasting triumph because I ate all of my food for the day between 3:00 and 4:30 PM! "Last call" for tea was supposed to be at 4:30 according to the menu, but we were asked at 4:50 PM if we wanted anything else, which was nice. We lounged leisurely until 5:00 PM before heading back to our hotel. Because of the wide range of dishes that represented so many cuisines, I would suggest this is a great place to "taste the world" in an afternoon tea, which is atypical (especially the buffet experience).