Food Review - S'mores

24th of September 2011 (Saturday)

Location:
S’mores @ Bangsar South

Type of Food:
BBQ Seafood, Meats, Pasta, Local & Western Sides

I had been itching to try out the Saturday Night BBQ Buffet at S’mores @ Bangsar South ever since I read about it on the restaurant blackboard whilst having lunch with JR about 3 months ago. Alas our first opportunity (Mo’s birthday) was not to be due to the Bersih campaign, but this time, we finally managed to gorge ourselves for my birthday!

S’mores @ Bangsar South has all the trappings of the modern pub, high chairs with high tables, big bar counter, projection screen TV for football or other sports, lounge sofas and is air-conditioned inside but also has tables outside. If you’re having the BBQ Buffet, you will be seated outside as the buffet table is situated next to the BBQ area. Whilst this does detract from the overall enjoyment on warm evenings I suppose the setup makes sense, else you’d end up having groups of people constantly entering and exiting the restaurant.

You will want to make your reservations in advance if you want to try out the BBQ Buffet as it is RM20 cheaper costing only RM38 per adult instead of RM58 per adult (I forget the children’s prices). They should give you a call the day before the buffet to confirm your booking (no deposit required), but if they don’t you should give them a call instead, some Fridays can be pretty hectic for them.

The buffet is only on Saturday nights and begins at 7pm – 10pm. Having said that, the full plethora of food was finally served at close to 7:40pm, starting with the salads, pasta and some BBQ fish slices. The full buffet for the night we were there included soup, salads, pasta (cream with mushroom), fried rice (thumbs up), BBQ (lamb chop [thumbs up], fish slices, salmon steaks [thumbs up], squid, tuna slices [thumbs up], scallops [thumbs up], prawns, chicken), fresh oysters (thumbs up) and some other Asian dishes.

The soup was a cream based soup that was too watered down according to my father-in-law but I don’t think children would mind very much and the salads & pasta were standard fare. The fried rice however was a surprise hit with my sister-in-law and wife, which I unfortunately just didn’t have the stomach space to partake of. The following are the dishes I personally sampled:

I think this was JR’s plate

The lamb chops come in three different sauce seasonings, honey mustard, barbeque and something I didn’t try. Both the honey mustard and barbeque were very distinct in their tastes without overpowering the lamb’s juices plus there was no “lamb-y” smell which can sometimes ruin the whole meat. There was however quite a bit of fat on the lamb but I suppose if you don’t like it you can always cut it off and if you do, jolly good for you. If lamb is your poison, this could be your designated lamb buffet night because the chops were half the size of dinner plates and there seemed to be an endless supply of them.

The other big hit of the night for me was the BBQ seafood, particularly the salmon steaks (half-steaks actually) which I suppose depends on whether you’re a salmon person or not. But as a big salmon lover, I enjoyed this meat the most throughout the night. In many ways it tasted more like grilled salmon with the skin still crispy and the bits of fish fat not totally burnt away. Supply tended to be a little slower but I never had to wait more than a few minutes before I got enough to keep me happy for another round. The rest of the seafood was equally well done although the scallops were burnt fairly black but still edible. The last to arrive was actually the fresh oysters, which is just as well else I would have scarfed a full dozen of them and JR would have given me her “oyster = high cholesterol” look.

And as you can see, my plate only has lamb and fish. Yum yum.

Here’s a pic of the oysters MC took, I already had my quota but as you can notice, most of us were already done when the oysters finally came out

Drinks are not included with the buffet but you can order water for 80¢, a jug of ice lemon tea for RM15 and a jug of coke for RM10 which is fine since the restaurant has to make money from somewhere, the seven of us shared two jugs of coke and one jug of ice lemon tea which was quite alright.

Verdict:
As with all buffets, not everything was excellent and to be honest you can’t go very wrong with BBQ, but there were some things that were very yummy for me and the rest of the family which I have given a thumbs up above. The service was good and the best thing is that there always seemed to be supply of the thing you want when you walk up to the buffet table, otherwise the two kind gentleman holding the paint scrapers would be more than willing to immediately cook up your order. All in all, S’mores @ Bangsar South was a nice experience and a great way to spend my birthday this year.

Total Bill:
Buffet 7 persons – RM38 x 7 = RM266
Drinks (3 jugs) = RM35
Total = RM301 (no service charge / tax)