Several months ago a friend introduced me to this restaurant in a hotel called Dorsett located on New Bridge Road.
I was a bit surprised.
My friend is not the kind to go to hotel buffets without making sure he has the appetite to do so. He too isn't the kind to go to a buffet on weekdays, whether it be lunch or dinner, and Lucent, on the lobby floor of the hotel, sounded just like what they might have.
As it turned out, well, it was a buffet.
But it wasn't the buffet in that sense where you got the typical spread of a European, Continental, American or Japanese buffet.
Instead what they offered was that of a seafood combined with a bit of roast.
Now, that sounded like a meal my friend would on a weekday evening go for.
First thing I noticed about the restaurant was just how naturally-lit the whole place was. It didn't make a difference whether you sat near the entrance or right at the back or in the middle. So much light filled the place it made you feel as if you were having your meal on a terrace, as if you were having it alfresco.
I don't have a lot of pictures from the dinner this evening.
Either I were too busy eating, or I were too busy trying to figure out what to eat.
One of the first pictures I took was of this plate of vegetables.
They may not look like much but Lucent had a shabu shabu hotpot and I was determined to put in as many vegetables as I liked.
What made the experience interesting was how you could pick out as much as you liked, and they did have a lot of variety, like how a buffet would be, but they kept the portions small so everyone only got to take a little bit of this and that and this and that.
Not a bad thing.
There was a lot to choose from, actually.
If I'm not wrong there was bean curd skin, tofu pieces, all kinds of green leafy vegetables, black fungus, various kinds of lettuce, seaweed, various kinds of mushrooms, and eggs.
Mushrooms there were enoki, shiitake and some others that had been chopped into pieces like what you see up there.
I took a couple pieces of the shiitake, plenty of the chopped mushrooms, heaps of lettuce- one whole plate- and even more of the quail eggs.
Quail eggs are, and have always been a favorite of mine.
There was a time when I'd eat it only during birthdays.
Now I eat it whenever.
For this dinner alone I probably had at least six, or seven.
The highlight of this place was, of course, the seafood, so to the counter I went for more.
By this time my friend had brought back to our table various plates of seafood, amongst which there were oysters, scallops and plates of freshly sliced sashimi.
It didn't take me long to realize he had come here specifically for the oysters, and the sashimi.
I don't know how many plates of chilled oysters he ordered- I lost count- but there was a stack of those pretty, heavy duty aquamarine-colored dishes on the table by the time I finished my own plate of sashimi and first portion of quail eggs.
Afterwards I helped myself to a whole plate of sashimi as well, choosing a few slices of salmon belly that I had to ask the chef to cut, a bit of tuna, and more salmon, which I then dipped with wasabi and soy sauce.
Would've been nicer had I remembered the sesame oil but I guess I've been too used to the wasabi combination that I forgot to grab a dish from the condiments row.
By this time the pot was getting full- I'd finally figured out what best to go into the shabu shabu collagen rich soup, and instead of meats, or other ingredients like snow crabs (that I saw fellow diners take), I chose prawns, carrots, heaps of seaweed and a single piece of sweet corn.
Prawns make for one of the best ingredients when it comes to hotpot.
There're diners who will cook the prawns in the soup and then eat them all. But then there're also those who, like me, prefer to have the prawns cook long and slow in the broth to make the soup tastier, and sweeter.
Except that I don't eat the prawns after that.
I just.. leave them there.
Not because I don't like prawns or I don't eat them.
Just that they fill you up very quickly, and I like to leave stomach space for more varieties of food.
My friend had a fine time with the seaweed though.
As did I.
This evening on my third round I went for a serving of bean curd skin, more of those quail eggs, even more seaweed, some black fungus (good for one's health), more variations of lettuce, and a couple of cuttlefish sotong balls.
My friend took the bean curd skin.
I, of course, worked through leaf after leaf of the lettuce.
So much of those veggies did I take, I tell you, that the best impressions I have of this meal are really all these leaves that I soaked in the soup and munched my way through.
We were starting to feel full by the time darkness fell, but there were still desserts to be had, and of course, no way was I going to miss them out.
So off to the square counter we went, where in bowls over ice there were apples and oranges and grapes and cantaloupes and watermelon and jellies, a small chiller of ice creams and on little plates by the side, small, carefully- cubed cakes that you could take as many as you liked.
I helped myself to a slice of watermelon, plus a couple of cakes that had, if I'm not wrong, based on the picture, ondeh-ondeh, and cheesecake with a topping of mango.