Marriott Cafe (High Tea)

I'll just be honest why I like the high tea here more than that in Equinox. Passion Fruit Cake. More about that later.

Colours of the photos in this entry will be a little weird because they are taken with my iPhone. Generally, the food that you will find at the high tea are pretty localised, unlike some other buffets.

Here are the different stations. The salmon selection is considerably wide. There's smoked salmon, curried salmon etc. This photo is not representative because there are more at the side. I think this buffet is perfect for those who love salmon.

The seafood section is dominated by prawns. Wished there was a larger seafood selection. Next to the seafood selection was a rojak making section and on the other side was a small selection of sushi.

There is also a selection of deep fried food (e.g. deep fried fish, deep fried chicken on skewers), local food (e.g. curry puff, satay, roti prata etc.)

Other local food includes yong tau foo, laksa and mee siam where they do it on the spot for you.

I found it quite interesting that the station here had scones, pizzas and popiahs. What a weird combination. The chef here is responsible for making the popiah. I went for three small servings of popiah because I loved them sooo much! Just add the chilli sauce and you're hooked onto that popiah for life. There was also a whole lot of Chinese food such as bak kut teh, dim sum, etc. 

I'm obviously not kidding when I say that local food features very heavily in this high tea. Here, the chef fries oyster-egg pancake for you on the spot.

If you're feeling sinful for all that food, you could probably turn to the salad section. But seriously, paying money to go for high tea and eating lots and lots of salad is akin to paying to go to Disneyland but only taking pictures with the guy at the ticket booth. 

A selection of bread and some "dry cakes". The only thing I ate from this section was the durian pound cake which was good, although I would have preferred durian cake or durian, for that matter. There were cookies here as well. Although I didn't try it, my friend said it was not too sweet. 

Finally, moving onto desserts! To quote my friend, "This place has every single dessert that I love!!" Tau suan, ice jelly with soursop, chendol etc. I didn't like the ice because they were too choppy. They would probably fare better with an ice making machine.

There is also a variety of nonya kueh.

The ice cream flavours are good and there is a wide variety of topping to put on the ice cream. Cones provided! One thing I didn't like about the ice cream was that it melted too fast. Nonetheless, the ice cream was not too sweet.

Last but not least, look at those good looking cakes at the bottom right of the picture. I'm not exactly sure what its composition is. But I think it's passion fruit at the bottom with a thin layer of cake, and a layer of mango paste on top. Is that what pure happiness feels like?

As mentioned earlier, I would rather pay for this high tea buffet than that at Equinox. At $35++ (around $40), it isn't exactly cheap but it's worth it. Its timing is from 3-530 pm and I encourage you to make a reservation as it can get rather crowded. Service is erratic, with very fast plate clearing, but it took 10-15 minutes before we realised that we weren't going to get water if we didn't ask for it. We were also not asked whether we wanted coffee or tea (we drink neither) but I thought it would at least be good to ask. Despite this, the servers had very friendly demeanour.

I once again emphasise that there is heavy focus on local food. It can be a good or bad thing for different people so make sure you make a wise high tea choice!


Marriott Cafe
Marriott Hotel
320 Orchard Road
Tel: +65 6831 4605