Year end is always a time for holidays and feasting. First it was Sakura (colleague treating), then it was Sakura again (company event), and now, it is time to try out something for a change. Welcome to the Seafood International Market & Restaurant located just next to Big Splash in the East Coast. This is most probably the best deal of the buffets that I have ever had in Singapore. Only available for lunch and cost at most $30 per person, you get to enjoy steaming hot dishes cooked by chefs personally and wait for them to serve to your table! The dishes available are not those normal type that you can get anywhere else. Think about abalone and shark fins (for real)! You get my drift, sounds unbelievable right! Now for the food review:

Braised mini Whole Abalone with Oyster Sauce
Where in Singapore can you eat an abalone in a buffet? The abalone was chewy, definitely fresh and mix it together with the sauce on your dish...Heavenly!

Braised Shark Fin Soup with Crab Meat
This shark fin soup quality is as good as those that you get in the wedding banquet. The thickness of the soup was just nice, and with the additional vinegar and pepper that you add to your discretion, you will definitely finish the whole bowl in a flash! Not to mention that the serving that you get here is about twice the serving you get in those wedding banquet... =)

Steamed Tilapia with Nonya Sauce
This is a new dish on their menu and I must say that I don't quite really like the sauce. I have no issue with the tilapia, they were steamed perfectly, with their meat retaining most of the fish essence, soft and chewy, but with the sour and spicy (well it is not as hot as it seems) Nonya sauce, it did not quite go down well with me.

Drunken Prawn with Herbal soup
This dish is definitely a must try! Firstly, the prawn is as big as what you are seeing in the picture. After peeling off their shell, make sure you get a scoop of their solid herbal soup, dump your prawn in your spoon and send it all into your mouth! Extremely Solid dish!

Fried Sakura Chicken with Tri-Sauce in Stone Pot
Though this dish looks nice and is a chef recommendation on the menu, but at my recommendation, you can give this a skip. Most of the chicken that they use here are chicken breast meat and I think that they have over-cooked it in the stone pot. The chicken meat that I managed to dish out were quite hard in nature with the exception of perhaps the chicken drumstick. Further more, after downing a few pieces of chicken, you can get quite sick of their tri-sauce. Not a good choice to try.

Prawn with Green Salad
If you are looking for something light (or appetizer), you can give this dish a try. Steamed prawn with assorted fruits and salad sauce, the combination actually can give your tongue quite a tingle and open your appetite for more delicious dishes later on in the meal.

Overall, though some of their dishes are not as good, but at the rate which I have paid for this meal, I will give this restaurant buffet a high recommendation any other time. Sadly, the cost of the drink that you order are on a separate bill. For their dessert bar, you can give it a skip as well as normally, there will be throngs of people swarming at the counter to get their desserts. Typical Singaporean mentally.

Rate: 9/10

Had the opportunity to partake in a media dinner at the newly reopened The Seafood International Market & Restaurant, or TSIMR for short, courtesy of The New Paper. It was a reunion of sorts as I vaguely remember dining at its former premises at UDMC some years back. It has since transplanted to become the anchor tenant of Big Splash @ Playground.

TSIMR occupies an impressive 18,000 sq ft and can seat up to 700 people if my memory serves me right. The draw of this place is its live seafood market concept which allows you to choose your desired seafood from the tanks and it will be cooked and served to your table. This concept, though not unheard of, was pioneered in the early 1980s by TSIMC.

The live seafood section is reminiscent of a supermarket while the dining area is like your typical seafood restaurant - huge and noisy. I liked the private dining areas at the two extensions though, which offered a nice view of the park and pond in the day. What I didn't appreciate was the fact that when the sky turned dark, outside visibility became close to zero and passers by could look in aka fishtank. Did I mention that the partitions were nothing more than a facade? During the course of our dinner, I could hear the adjourning rooms' conversation and loud guffaws.

Assorted Mushrooms Deep Fried with Seven Spice Salt - Imagine my astonishment when I heard that the mushrooms were sold by weight. Its definitely a first for me and honestly, as preposterous as selling Tofu by weight. The seven spice salt was purportedly made from dried shrimp powder, curry powder, chilli, szechuan peppercorn, salt and two other secret spices. As impressive as this may sound, I found it nothing out of the ordinary, coming across merely as salty with a hint of spiciness. Ditto for the batter as well, which I personally found too thick and hinting subtly of oil residue.

Prawns Stir Fried with Chilli & Basil Leaves - Beautifully presented with ornamental garnishes, the prawns gave an illusion of being terribly spicy. In reality, even someone who can't really take chilli like me could handle it without much effort (and water of course!). I didn't quite take to it though as the flesh was a tad soft and not firm. My guess is that it was a little undercooked.

Sakura Chicken Braised with Tri - Sauce in Stonepot - I liked this dish the best even though it wasn't outstanding. Probably more of something that's close to my heart. Dished out in a huge stonepot, the chicken wasn't too dry and easy on the sweetness, carrying with it a light spice that made every bite rather enjoyable

Golden Platter - Stir Fried Pumpkin with Salted Egg Yolk - Aptly named the golden platter, this dish intrigued me as I've never actually seen pumpkin cooked this way before. Prawns/lobsters with salted egg yolk? Yes. But pumpkin? It didn't turn out to be very appealing after all as the pumpkin slices were a little too soft for my liking. Coupled with the strong overtones of salted egg yolk, it was a recipe for nausea.

Curry Crab & Bread - I didn't try the crabs so I shall not comment, but the curry tasted rather normal to me, albeit a little heavier on the coconut milk. I liked the bread that came with the crabs though, sinfully buttery and crispy. Guaranteed to increase your cholesterol!

Pad Thai - Call me ignorant or mountain tortise, but to my understanding, Pad Thai should be cooked with thin flat strips of glass noodles. TSIMR does a different rendition using thin vermicelli like noodles which I suppose are glass noodles as well. To be honest, the noodles were way too chewy and had the tendency to clump together, which made me feel like i was chewing on some kind of non sticky kueh.

Wonder Four on Ice - With such a fanciful name, who needs superheroes? Corny jokes and stunning aesthetics aside, this dessert was just red bean kueh, mango pudding, some fruits and lemon grass jelly served on a bed of ice. As normal as it gets.

A little bird told me that the above dinner for 6 pax would have cost about $40/pax, which to me is a tad pricey. Food quality is average and service could have been more attentive. With that, I would like to thank TNP for the dinner once again.

See all my pictures here