No, this isn't going to be a damaging review, hell just sounded like a good word to use ever since I read about the Hadron Collider...

Anyway! My wife and I, along with 2 friends chose this buffet location in a secret and ritualistic drawing of lots (if you must know, yes, there was chanting, candles and sacrificial ice cream; we draw the line at nudity) among the numerous and illustrous hotel high-teas in Singapore that offered a 4-for-3 promotion. Sadly, the 1-for-1 lunch buffet promo at Carousel ensured that it will be fully booked by kiasu Singaporeans until the end of 2010, which excluded us among its hoard of wide-mouthed, belt-loosened food shovellers.

Sheraton Towers' high-tea start at 12 noon until 4 pm. That's 4 hours of undisturbed pigging out. But figure in the cost of buying larger clothes into the buffet's price. Suddenly, it's not so cheap.

The spread is mainly Asian. I don't know if the menu rotates, if someone would throw a sponsorship my way, I'd gladly oblige to find out. The main dishes on offer (according to my poor memory) were:

1) Olive fried rice - Not too oily. Nice but no respectable Singaporean loads up on carbs during buffets.

2) Samosas with mint yogurt sauce - The skin was crispy but a little too thick. The potato filling was bland. The sauce added a good touch to the otherwise disappointing morsel.

3) Carroy Cake aka Chai Tao Kuay - 'Black' version inside the metal food tray. 'White' version can be made on request. Both were fragrant and fresh - lots of egg and chai por.

4) Spring roll aka handrolled pohpia - Fresh but nothing to shout about. Anyway, I never understood how pohpia can be well made, although I know of some very badly made ones.

5) Mini seafood tarts - Typical catered buffet stuff. Underpar

6) Dim sum - Was conned into think there wld be sharks fin inside the chawanmushi (thanks to the photos on camemberu's blog). Not even a koi fin inside, only some mushrooms and mince pork/chicken. The other items, chives dumpling and glutinous rice are mediocre.

7) Laksa - 4 of us couldn't stop raving about the laksa. It was 'lemak' with the right amount of spiciness. Prawns were fresh, translucent and crunchy.

8) Finger sandwiches - A wide selection of tuna salad, cheese, egg salad, smoked salmon (lox and bagel), parma ham with melon. All were generally of a high quality.

9) Handmade(mixed) rojak - Many ingredients available for madcap mixing action. An auntie spent the better part of her life at the bowl mixing up enough rojak to lift a 3rd world country out of famine.

10) Rice paper rolls - I am no expert on southeast asian cuisine, but the roll was fresh and crunchy with a nice mix of flavours. One of my friends got a plate that was nicely decorated by a chef.

11) Waffles - Many toppings (maple syrup, strawberry compote, jam, cinnamon apples, caramel bananas) available. The ice cream is decent too. But the waffles are not as nice as Oriental's Melt.

12) Durian Pengat - Mediocre. You can taste the durians. Which also means you can taste the poor quality of durians used.

13) Bread and butter pudding - A little too soggy, but otherwise...well, plain as butter and bread.

14) Chocolate fountain - Tastes like the same couverture we can buy from shops for our pseudo-chic fountains (which is one of those mysterious fad i don't get). I grabbed fruits from the next table and had a fun time drizzling cherries and dragon fruit with chocolate sauce.

15) Mini pastries - The mini lychee cake was as delicious as it was cute. The chocolate praline mousse has better chocolate than the fountain, with a crunchy praline base. I didn't try the cheesecakes and what not.

Buffet comes with coffee and tea, which were unremarkably pedestrian.

The service staff were attentive, polite and plentiful. None of that hurried and sweat covered service here, some hotels give the impression that they are a giant beehive.

Ambience, as mentioned, is the key perk here. How many people can have a buffet meal by a waterfall, in a room with a tall ceiling and, most importantly, unfettered by hoards of plundering eaters?

Price - $28++, after discount (4-for-3), about $26 nett per pax.

This spurs me on to find more high-teas....and to hurl stones at patrons inside Carousel like the angry peasant that I am.