We had a Father's Day + sis in law's birthday dinner to celebrate this Sunday, and were at a loss of good places in Singapore to look for food (surprising, but true...) We knew what we wanted though - a buffet - and Dad wanted Brazilian churrasco (which we didn't completely agree with (given his health condition and the insane amount of saturated fat in churrasco...)
Well it just so happened that IS magazine that week had sent their hungry/greedy editorial team around Singapore rating hotel buffets. Vibe was last on the list and rated 4 out of 4 forks. And, although I'd never used an IS rating before, it turns out they were right on with all the points of note.
The Spread is an international picking of salads, cold seafood (scampi, crab, prawn, Pacific Bay oyster) and local fare meats. Apparently there's a choice of soups that they serve to your table, but we didn't get so far. There's also a pasta and noodle section that cooks up your order and serves it to your table to your specific preferences. The main course ranges were modest, but included some surprises like a not-too-bad laksa.
The Highlights were just as was said - the churrasco meats were of decent selection and tasty, juicy, cooked just right and completely comparable with the likes of Brazil and Carnivore. They had the usual ranging from sausages, to chicken hearts, to the highlight beef rump steak and pineapple. Surprising was the lamb which was cooked to medium perfection (their churrasco grill was not too hot) and juicy, tender and just yummy. Also surprising were their sauce selection, which featured a very yummy pesto dressing that went wonderful with the lamb. It was singularly one of the nicer pesto sauces you can get outside of home-made sauce.
They also had the customary chocolate fountain but with what was a rather large assortment of dippers - ranging from marshmallows, to turkish delight marshmallows, fresh fruit, dried fruit and cream puffs. Alas... no strawberries, or I would have been in heaven.
The Lowlights were not that many to mention. They could have done a better presentation of their cheese platter and included a proper cheese cutting board and fork. It was a shame, as they had a wonderful selection of cheeses, including manchego and terrango, a good selection of hard and soft cheeses and a real parmagiano wheel (I thought this could have probably been on display but I unfortunately ate some anyway).
The problem was that the hard cheeses like the manchego was a battle to cut. I ended up having a vigilant waitress (she had noticed me trying to use the display bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and had to rush over to correct my misunderstanding) putting down her tray to help me cut the manchego after I'd got a knife half lodged into the block. As a result, the cheeses ended up not keeping too well and most people wisely steered clear of them. Shame, as they were really good, and contributed quite a fair bit to the cost of providing the food I'd say.
The balsamic vinegar was more than the right amount of viscuous and didn't really quite go as well as it could have with the olive oil. That's more a matter of vinegar/oil selection than anything though.
Yet, the bad presentation however was more than made up for by an excellent dessert selection which was tastefully presented and tasted equally wonderful.
Main points of difference as rightly pointed out by the shrewd IS team is the churrasco. It's really quite good quality and for a very competitive price (see below) is a far better consideration than other similar churrasco places.
Value for Money is high on my list!! Not only do you get very good churrasco, the desserts, salads and cold seafood selections far outstrips dedicated churrascarias and at a lower price!
Lunch: $29
Dinner: $39 - $42
For Father's Day, I ended up paying around $42 pax and also got a free Father's Day bottle of Chilean wine.
Details:
Vibe
The Meritus Negara, Singapore
10 Claymore Road
Reservations: 6737 0811
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