Review: Shabu Sai (with a dash of rainbow)

I should come up with a series of foodie adventures with the colleagues because we've been having pretty awesome meals this past week lol.

And since I have no social life after work am too exhausted to head out after work to try new food places, I was happy to explore this Japanese hotpot place as suggested by one of my colleagues.

Shabu Sai

181 Orchard Road 

#08-09/10/11, Orchard Central
Opening hours:
Mon - Fri: 11:00 - 15:00, 18:00 - 22:00
Sat - Sun: 11:30 - 22:30

Located directly opposite Kiseki at Orchard Central, it was my first time at this place because I am not a huge fan of hotpots in general.

But I was excited to try this because we rarely have Japanese hotpot places in Singapore and plus, buffet! Who don't want leh? :P 

Here's the general pricing for Shabu Sai's buffets, varying on time and days of the week.

Weekdays 

Lunch: Adult $16.99++, Child $9.99++
Dinner: Adult $24.99++, Child $9.99++

Weekend 

Lunch: Adult $19.99++, Child $9.99++
Dinner: Adult $29.99++, Child $9.99++

You can choose to top up $1.99++ for free flow of drinks and soft serve ice cream which was what we all opted for.

You first choose 2 soup bases - we went for the non spicy ones but do remember which ones the waiting staff actually filled in because I couldn't remember what soup was in which half so.... whack la huh hahaha! They all look alike anyway.

Soup bases all ready to be served and topped up

We ordered 2 portions each of the beef, chicken and pork

In my opinion, the cut of the meat was not very thick and in fact quite fatty that day (you can see our beef slices). But this is literally the most 'expensive' items on the menu so... I would say order them but do not have high hopes for high quality meat.

Moving on to the items available. Here's some sushi available, which in my opinion is really not nice.

They tasted bland and dry, unlike freshly made sushi so I highly suspect that they are premade days ahead. Not too sure but they are definitely not those sushi available at Sushi Tei or places as such.

Hotpot usuals. We spammed the mussels! :D

A wide variety of condiments is available so you can just mix and match the sauces for dipping your food in. I like this aspect because when I'm eating hotpots, I like to have a little bit of spice but I also like to dip meat in sesame sauce lol. Weird I know. So this actually allowed me to just throw everything into one bowl to dip into while eating.

The soft serve is majorly nice! I'm sorry I don't have a picture of what I ate but in general you get to dispense the amount you want into a bowl and then there are sauces available for you to drizzle onto the ice cream as well as rainbow sprinkles, raisins etc.

It was so melt in your mouth kind of texture - I kinda miss it now actually while typing this entry haha.

There is a soft drink dispenser next to this coffee machine. You also get to select a wide array of Lipton teas if you don't like coffee. So I think the additional $1.99 is quite worth the money if you want a drink to go along with your hotpot.

Our lunch feast!

Overall, I found the food quite alright. But I wouldn't head back because I don't really like the quality of the food available. It'll be better to just have steamboat at home haha! 

After we paid for our meal, on the way back to the carpark we passed by Dean & Deluca.

Spotted the rainbow cake in the display and dashed in to grab one slice to go!

I've been on a major rainbow cake phase and anything rainbowy, I tend to just cave in and buy (FML all the calories and food colouring).

I haven't visited Dean & Deluca since the last outing there almost a year and a half back so I was amazed by how much their menu had expanded!

So many different types of bread and pastries available!

So here's the rainbow cake I brought home to nom on while watching Running Man.

My verdict? I'm sorry but it was hands down one of the worst tasting rainbow cakes I've ever had.
The texture was quite fake(?) if you ask me, ahhhh ok lemme think of a way to describe this better.
Like huat kueh, but with an overpowering food colouring taste. And the overall taste was really bad. I had a couple of bites because I wanted to be sure my tongue wasn't playing tricks on me (oh the taste eeyer!) and then I binned the rest. Waste my $7.50 D:
In fact, I actually treated my colleagues to a couple of slices of rainbow cake from NOM and to me, the cakes from there actually tasted way better than this one from Dean & Deluca.
Oh wells, I know now when to save my money!
It's gonna be my birthday tomorrow and I actually ordered a cake from a local bakery store because I really liked it the last time I tried it.
Shall show it on the blog in another entry.
Have an awesome Saturday everyone! :)