Ling Zhi - Food for the Vegetarian

Buffets, buffets, buffets. Buffets are common, but hey, vegetarian buffet is smth new to me.

Having tried Lao Beijing by Tung Lok w L and have a good dining experience, I obviously jumped at the chance of trying another new restaurant by Tung Lok - Lingzhi vegetarian, since both mummy and grandmother is on vegetarian diet that day.

I know, I know. You're being turned off by the thought of greens in trays waiting for you to eat them, no meat, no nothing, just vegetables and vegetables. This is where you are wrong. Because being a vegetarian doesn't mean there is nothing other than green leafy vegetables. There's delicious mock meat (which I suggest for people who are on a diet, to steer clear away from them since they are made up of flour), and desserts!

I believe a pleasant dining experience comprises of good food + good service. But unfortunately, this place doesn't provide any resemblance of reasonable service. Despite having made reservations, the waitress at the reception refused to let us in reason being that our seats are still currently occupied by the current customers. Why couldn't they let us have another table which is obviously unoccupied, and not reserved? As long as you explain it to us calmly, I'm sure we'll understand what is going on. After all, my family are very harmonious people.

Add in a small section of steamed dimsum and two pots of desserts, and basically you'll have the whole selection of food for the buffet itself. But of coruse, bearing in mind that this is just a hi-tea buffet, one can't expect much from it isn't it?

Fried beehoon and noodles are really tasty and not too oily. They went very well with the curry served as gravy. Lip-smacking combination, I went back for seconds.

Mock Shark Fin Soup

My all-time favourite dish. Perhaps I have held expectations that is too high for this dish, I was utterly disappointed. Not that it was bad of course, but it tasted a lot better with loads of pepper and vinegar.

Here are some of the steamed dimsum they provided. Not all impressed though.

The steamed mock char siew bun were fluffly, light, and tasty. Both my grandmother and daddy were full of praises for it.

These are bad. The skin is too thick for all our liking. For perfect steamed dimsum, the skin should be thin and light. When I sank my teeth into this little pouches of delicate looking dimsum, I thought I was eating into a slab of tough dough. Enough said.

This is so good. Lip-smacking, finger-licking good, and everything nice. But this may be a biased opinion because I've a soft spot for Lotus Paste. I had 3 trays of these, each tray consisting of 2. Everything with Lotus Paste tastes awesome. I can just survive on Lotus Paste alone daily. But okay, from an unbiased point of view, this isn't well done. The whole bun is hard and tough, the skin were (as usual) hard and thick too.

This is...interesting. For me, this doesn't taste right at all. Weird combination, or maybe I just dont fancy this.

Dessert time!

Walnut Cream

Not too sweet, perfect for the eldery or if you dont have a sweet tooth.

Chilled Mango Juice with Sago

This will make it up to people with sweet tooth. Chilled and sweet, the way I like my desserts to be. I had to go for seconds even though I was stuffed.

The food isn't lousy, but definitely not tasty enough to attract me back for another trip. And of course, the service was a huge turn-off. $113 for 6, which even out to be $18.80 for each person, I can't complain much about the variety of food, can I?

Lingzhi Vegetarian Restaurant by Tung Lok (Novena Square outlet)

238 Thomson Road

#03-09 Velocity @ Novena Square

Singapore 307683

Tel: +65 6538 2992

Opening Hours :
Mondays - Fridays
Lunch : 11:30am - 3:00pm
Dinner : 6:00pm - 10:00pm

Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays
Lunch : 11:00am - 3:00pm
Hi-Tea : 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Dinner : 6:00 - 10:00pm

The Square Restaurant - Food Outside The Box

Being an extremely lucky girl, I'm blessed to secure a part time job after A Levels, which lasted me all the way til I graduate from University. That's a whole good 3 years of part time, with 1-2 months annual breaks which allowed for me to study for examinations, and a 3 months break for me to go for internship at ease. With such flexible schedules, and of course, understanding supervisors, I really couldn't ask for more.

So after 4 months, I finally found time to meet up with both my NUS supervisors! Not without food, of course.

So here we are, The Square Restaurant at Novotel, Clarke Quay. Situated very near to Liang Court, please make sure you find the right entrance to Novotel. Or else, you will end up walking around in circles in Liang Court.

Get into the right building. Take the right lift up to 7th storey. Start feasting.

Perhaps we were too early. I couldn't think of any other reasons why the restaurant was so empty. (Until much later)

Almost empty restaurant

But I can't complain. Less crowd can make dining a more comfortable experience.

The spacious dining area with such contemporary furniture and deco makes this modern restaurant an ideal place for large gatherings or family dinners.

To start off, here's the Fresh Seafood Selection.

Fresh Seafood Section

Well, being not a fan of seafood, I didn't try any.

Sushi Platter is next on the list.

Sushi Platter

Oh, how my heart jumps with joy when I spot my favourite Jellyfish Sushi sitting quietly on the tray, waiting for me to pick it up gingerly and pop it into my mouth. But the disappointment sets in as soon I threw the whole sushi into my mouth.

The rice was wrong, the seaweed were damp, even my favourite jellyfish doesn't taste fresh.

Conveniently next to the sushi was a variety of well, pretty looking sandwiches.

Sandwiches for your pick!

Let's just stop at pretty looking. I took a bite of the tune sandwich, and I left the rest uneaten. The bread was such a chore to chew, and the tuna mix was too raw and fishy. I understood why the tray of sandwich was almost left untouched at the end of the buffet.

The Square Restaurant offers quite a few live-cooking stations, namely Roasted Meat section, Singapore's all-time favourite Fried Carrot Cake, Satay/Otah/Chicken Wings, and Noodles section.

Roasted Meat Section (blurred)

The Roasted Pork were not bad. In fact, it was good! The meat was tender, juicy and very tasty. And of course, they provides a reasonable selection of condiment sauces right in front of the counter for your pick.

The Carrot Cake didn't score with me though. My favourite CC will be located in one of the most humid and stuffy hawker centre, where I will request for the cook to add it more cai-po and make it 'more black'. Never had a fancy for white carrot cake.

If you ever dine here and you can only eat one item on the list, please go for the chicken satays. They were so good, I can't help but to go back for three more servings! First of all, the station had already won me over with the familiar smell of smoke. Satay is always one of Singapore's famous dishes, but to make the meat tender, tasty and not overly dry after grilling, that needs alot of skills. The Satays served here absolutely scored full marks with me! Not kidding. The meat were very well-marinated, and it was grilled to almost perfection. I believe no words can do this dish justice, you have to try them yourself!

Next on list was the Noodles Station, which I was already too full to try.

Noodles section

You just let the friendly cooks behind the stations know what noodles you want, and they will whip up the dish for you right there, on the spot.

Aha, not at all unfamiliar with this dish, I am sure.

Chilli Crab

The meat was fresh, the sauce was tasty. What's more to ask? Oh. One of the waitress even serve our table a bowl of lemon water for us to wash our hands with, without us asking for it.

Now that I'm quite stuffed, time to head to the desserts section!
I love how many buffets now allow us to create our very own ice kachang!

Ice Kachang Machine

I meant, just look at the number of jars we can get our condiments from! You'll be lost for choices, really.

Danish pastry

Chocolate Fondue

A buffet isn't complete without a chocolate fondue fountain. Lke many others, the chocolate here is so rich yet not too sweet to turn people off. And it's warm chocolate! Okay, I'm won over.

Fruit Tart

This particular Fruit Tart got my hopes up high, and then dropped me from heaven. The sweetness of this fruit tart is artificial. The base was well, lousy. I can't even describe it in words.

Before

After

By the way, the rest of the desserts were disappointing too. Seems like most of them were leftovers, because majority of them tasted stale.

There were many other stations of course!
Salad sections -  Chicken Sausage salad was lousy. The sausage tasted well, expired. Pasta salad didn't impress as well.
Ala-carte sections - Roti Prata wasn't crispy, nor tasty. I felt like I was chewing onto dough which wasn't mix well. Char Kway Teow wasn't too bad though, just stay away from it if you don't fancy oily stuff.
Ice cream section - The normal sort of ice cream you could get from anywhere, but they tasted good here because I dripped loads of the chocolate syrup over my icecream. And of course, nata de coco (from the Ice Kachang Station which is just beside the icecream one.)
Drinks section - Many drinks to choose from. You've the cold drinks namely Guava juice, Orange juice, Milk (for cereal), etc. Then you have a whole tray selection of tea, packed into little individual packaging, for you to choose from. When I was there, both coffee machines broke down, so we can't try any.

Did not have a good experience with the food, since most of them didn't impress. But the waiters/waitresses were nice and thoughtful to attend to our needs, with initiative. Although they do get a little rushed to clear our plates when we are not even done. But still, the service is out to impress, at least way better than the food served.

The Sqaure Restaurant

Novotel Clarke Quay Singapore Hotel

177A River Valley Road

Singapore 179031

Tel: 6433 8790

Opening hours:Buffet Breakfast - 6:00am to 10:30 am

Buffet Lunch - 12:00noon to 2:30pm

Buffet Dinner - 6:00pm to 10:00pm

Ala Carte Menu - All Day