Baccarat, which features predominantly Asian and Japanese cuisine, is slightly lacking compared to its competition. That’s not to say it’s bad. In fact, amiable and personable service more than make up for its lack of excellent food. We had made reservations and arrived in the later part of the evening feeling famished. We were quickly seated in the comfy sofa area and were delighted to get a good seat, even though the place was packed. The restaurant is big, but it did feel boisterous all the same because there was a lot of loud chatter going on and kids running around. We decided to begin our meal with some sashimi and sushi. While the selection was relatively fresh, it was not the best we’ve had all year, bearing in mind that this was a buffet after all. The soups were also a little disappointing. The sharks fin with shredded chicken soup was certainly too gooey, and lacked aroma and taste. The other starters such as the crab meat salad, tofu in wine sauce, salmon with potato salad, and marinated mussels in chili sauce fared better. The marinated mussels, for example, were nicely spicy, but not over-powering. We quickly moved on to the main courses and here, there were both hits and misses. The teppanyaki chicken, salmon and Taiwanese bean cress was well done, particularly the chicken, which was succulent and not overcooked. But the Chinese selection leaves much to be desired. The dim sum were pitiful (we’ve had better ones from the local coffeeshop), while the chili crabs were not as fresh as expected, even though the portions were generous. We were hoping that our desserts would fare better, and were half right. The chocolate ice-cream was rich and thick, and we were also fond of the chocolate fondue that came with a choice pick of fruits: grapes, honeydew and papaya (strawberries were suspiciously missing though). All in all, Baccarat fared fairly well.
