High Tea at Carousel @ Royal Plaza on Scotts

I had their buffet dinner at Carousel some years back, pre-renovation, and when the price was significantly lower. I don't understand why while other hotels' buffet prices remain close to, say, 8 years back, Carousel's leaped by a rather giant foot. Anyway, it did not stop me from wanting to have high tea there this afternoon.

Carousel is located at 25 Scotts Road, Lobby Level, Royal Plaza on Scotts, Singapore 228220 and the number to dial is 6737 7966. It has a rather spacious and brightly-lit interior, a contemporary and very modernistic design. There is a wide array and assortment of food from different cuisine.

*Charliez and I were seated besides the platters of freshly-baked pastries - everything looked delextable.

This is the station that serves Prawn Noodle, Laksa and a variety of yong tau foo items. Next to it is some Japanese Chee Cheong Fun (fried, I supposed) that looked interesting.

Across it is the station serving waffles, pita bread and an assortment of Italian beef pies, pizza and lasagne etc. Weird combination, I know, but it is a popular station.

By the side, we have the sweets and desserts - such as cakes, pastries, tarts, ice-cream, fondue with three flavors (green tea, chocolate and bandung / rose syrup) and fruits.

My favorite station has to be the one serving seafood and Sashimi. Everything looked so fresh I wondered what I should attack first.

After walking a few rounds to check out what was available and taking some photos, I finally collected some delicacies and returned to the table. I started with desserts since sweets cravings kicked in -  some chocolate cakes, red velvet cakes, green tea cake, orange chocolate cake and chocolate pudding - all fine and soft and sweet. The sashimi were fresh, as were the shrimps and shelled items. It was a rather good start so far.

I shared a little of what *Charliez started with - mainly Chinese cuisine of chwee kueh, fried carrot cake, Japanese chee cheong fun, crystal dumpling with vegetables within etc. The items were rather tasty and to their credit - not greasy.

Next, I got my own platter of Chinese stuff - Japanese chee cheong fun (fried on outside so it was fragrant, and contains fresh shrimps within), chilli squid, fried carrot cake, poached egg (cold, unfortunately) and a square of very tasty and fine scone wtih raisins.

I tried a bit of *Charliez's next platter of butterfly (dough, fried, sprinkled with sesame seeds), pizza slice, peaches and cream etc. I thought that the pizza was a tad dry, but the "butterfly" pastry was tasty - hwoever these items were all very filling hence wouldn't be my choice for buffet meals.

I finally queued at the station serving Prawn Noodle soup (soup was tasty, but the noodles and vermicelli were rather tough) and Laksa (tasted quite nice but no cockles and not spicy enough). They were tiny bowls anyway, and I had asked the chef preparing them to make the portions even smaller for me.

Now, this is the Popiah - soft skin filled with egg, vegetables and shrimps within. Scumptious enough, but nothing to warrant the "wow" factor.

*Charliez queued for these waffles! They looked like the ones we could get at bakeries for a dollar a piece, and are extremely filling. I had no choice but to take a couple of bites of these normal waffles with hard slices of peaches.

I had another platter of the fresh and sweet prawns, sashimi, mussel, oyster, brownie and cheese-cake. These two pieces of cakes are fine, sweet and wonderful.

We shared another plate of pastries because they were freshly-baked and the aroma was irresistable. The mini muffins were in chocolate, coffee, original and raisin flavors. They were fine and buttery-soft as well, and the flavors were very strong. It was a joy having them.

Finally, some fruits to end off the hgih-tea session. I also used some marshmallows to try out the different fondue flavors - interesting and refreshing flavors of green tea and rose syrup (banding) instead of just chocolate alone.

We spent SGD$53.00 each on this afternoon tea meal. Spread of food and flavors were really rather impressive, and service crew was attentive. Our only qualms was the crowd it attracted - the moment we were seated at 3.30pm, everyone was in a mad dash to the counters, as though having been starved for days on end.