Vienna Buffet Restaurant

VIENNA INTERNATIONAL SEAFOOD AND TEPPANYAKI BUFFET RESTAURANT 2009

It has been long since I last had a seafood buffet dinner partly due to the high price that I had to fork out, which could easily fetch me some pretty decent ala carte dinner. On one fateful day, I chatted with my closer-than-neighbor neighbors, we realized that it has been long since we last hang out together for some fellowship. So uncle G, proposed seafood buffet at Vienna and proceeded to make reservation but much to his disappointment that all the seats in the restaurant has been booked and the ones still open for reservation are seats outside of the restaurant which also means no air-conditioning.

Nice view outside the restaurant

Uncle G then tried another restaurant but due to the F1 event in Singapore, the price per pax has increased significantly (Partially due to the fact that alcoholic drinks are included and free flow at that) and made it not worth our while to go to that restaurant as none of us are drinkers/boozers. As such, auntie C urged uncle G to just make a booking with Vienna despite the outside seats as she mentioned that the food is rea~lly good. So the time is set and our reservation is at 8pm. The restaurant is located in United Square at Novena (Nearest MRT is Novena station). Parking is pretty cheap here.

Buddha-Leaping-Over-The-Wall
Savoury soup with shitake mushroom, sliced abalone,
chicken, scallops and some chinese herbs.
This was served right after you are seated.

Sliced abalone. Slightly sweet.

I have previously heard of this place Vienna from my colleagues and others but have zero idea of how good this place is. Anyway, I’ll have to say that I am very satisfied with the spread of food they served. The total price for our table of 4 came to S$184.10 (that is weekend/public holiday price, weekdays and/or lunch are slightly cheaper) which makes it S$46+ per pax. Remember to make reservation (+65 6254 6686) as this place is usually pacted to the brim, unless you are OK with the seats outside.

The up of this restaurant is that the spread is good as it consists of most (If not all) good seafood ingredients that most buffet restaurant operators would offer mutually exclusive of one another. The good combos are abalone, scallop, lobsters (Not crayfish or slipper lobsters), crab, sea cucumber, prawns, oysters, yabbies (crayfish), Unagi (eel) and some funny looking crabs. Most buffet restaurant either has prawns without the crab, crab without the lobsters, crayfish without the abalone and the list goes on and on. The food is also constantly refilled but I do realize that some items are not refilled as often (E.g. salmon roe sushi), but that is only a minor portion of the food. You may make a request to them and the chef will make some for you. There are also plenty of soup types for you to choose from such as Buddha-leaping-over-the-wall, herbal crocodile soup and artificial sharks fin soup.

Raw oysters with lemon and tobasco sauce.
Downed 20 of these morsels~!

The down side, the salmon** sashimi is not as fatty as it out to be. Although it is still good being salmon sashimi and all, the cut is just too lean for me. The funny thing though, is that the salmon on the salmon roe sushi is of premium quality i.e. nice marbled fats on each slice. I wallop 10 of these sushi~yum! Was it me? I find the yabbies (crayfish) meat kinda tough and dry, which is not what I have expected and one helping is enough to make me avoid them for the rest of my dining there.**On a separate note, just in case you have been pronouncing salmon as “Sael~men” please take note that it is actually pronounced without the “L”, which makes it “sae~men” or “sa~men”.

Check out the salmon sashimi beside the tuna.

Compare the salmon on the sashimi and
these below...

Some kind of crustacean.. not top shell, wonder what it is?
Tasted pretty good and chewy.

The cheese bake lobsters are terrific as it was made with cottage cheese instead of just Parmesan and Mozzarella. Fret not if you are not able to get it on the first or second round as they refill the lobsters regularly or by request. The Peking duck roll is pretty good, crunchy and refreshing. Overall, albeit expensive, its worth to dine here once in a while.

Baked scallops

Cereal prawns
The prawns are fried together with cereals,
curry leaves and slices of bird eye chillies. 
It is not hot if you avoid the chillies and truly a pleasant dish. 
You are highly recommended to use your fingers to enjoy this dish!

Oysters and yabbies
The oysters are fresh and tasty. The yabbies are kinda tough and dry.

Hashima dessert
Hashima with papaya, white fungus and rock sugar.Refreshing dessert!

2013: In view of the popularity of this posting, it is only fair for me to provide an update. The last time I visited Vienna Buffet Restaurant was in early 2013 and I have to say that it is unfortunate that the standard of this restaurant has dropped and the variety of the offerings are much lesser as compared to the time that the original entry was posted in this blog. Hence, a last word from my last visit is that, if given a choice, I will not go back to Vienna Buffet Restaurant because at the price that they are charging, the variety of food and the food quality does not really gives much value to the customers. But if I were to have a large group of friends who would like a place to be able to hang out and chat loudly without having the management or other customers to come and "Shhhh!!" you or give you that kind of irritated stare/look, this restaurant is really not too bad. 

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