Cherry Garden

Came with high expectations after watching a video by a food critic on Youtube. Booked a reservation a couple days in advance.

We tried most of the entire weekend buffet menu. While there are several dishes that stood out, most of them were only ok, when compared to regular dim sum we can easily get in California. Many seemed like jazzed-up versions but the difference in taste just wasn't present.

The highlights were:
- green beans
- five spice beef
- hot and sour soup
- herbal chicken soup
- braised beef in clay pot
- avocado dessert
- osmanthus jelly
- xiao long bao

But others like the abalone siumai seemed fancy for no reason. There was e-fu noodles which were cooked well but seemed to be clearly a side versus an entree in and of itself.

Overall, I don't see much reason to return unless someone else really wanted to try it. Not too bad for the price, but just not enough that was spectacular.

A+ for service and decor. B+ for food.

We ordered the siu mai, har gow, cod dumplings, waygu dumplings and seafood congee.

The plainest most boring looking dish was the congee and it was really good. I fancy myself a bit of a congee connoisseur having eaten it in many countries/cities and the congee here ranks in the 25 percentile or so.

From there it's kind of all downhill. Not to say they were bad but the rest of the dishes were kinda like meh... I could have had like 3 dishes for the price of 1 back in LA and it'd be around as good.

Overall it's a good restaurant and a nice high end experience (if not a bit rushed)... but in a city with so many options it's hard to recommend.

This has to be one of my favorite dimsum buffet places. It's slightly pricey at about $70+ per person after taxes, but so well worth it.

We had Sunday brunch here and definitely have to make a booking as this place is IN DEMAND.

You come here, order what you like from the menu (no cranky old ladies pushing carts), and have a dimsum binge. Oh! I started with the pumpkin soup - I think I had 3 helpings. My favorite appetizer was the deep-fried almond prawns, which had roe and wasabi sauce on top. Making me so hungry right now.

The roast meats are absolutely delightful too, though I felt portions were a bit tiny, probably so we could try more things. Consistently good, would return, and starve myself before I come here again!

I wanted to do something a bit special with Hubby when we visited Singapore so I decided to book Cherry Garden restaurant for dim sum buffet. It literally combines the two best things together: dim sum and buffet. Hubby was so excited for it and we even arrived at the restaurant 15 minutes before it opened for trading. We went for the first seating that started at 11 AM.

The restaurant was quite grandeur and calm at the same time. The dark wooden furniture gave a very classy feel to the whole restaurant. Hubby and I were used to the bustling dim sum carts and noisy tables. I think it was quite calm because there were only a few people that morning. We quite enjoyed the warm and luxurious atmosphere at Cherry Garden.

Yes, there wasn't any dim sum carts rolling around the place that morning. We ordered what we wanted off the buffet menu through the friendly staff. Our tea pot always got refilled promptly by them too. The menu also consists of soup & appetisers, desserts and other hot Chinese dishes (rice, congee, noodles, seafood, meat, vegetables).

We started off with something light so we ordered the rice congee and a serving of hot and sour soup. The rice congee came with the century egg and shredded pork while the hot and sour soup contained a good amount of seafood in it. Both items look small in the photo but the size of the serving bowl was actually really good.

We really enjoyed our deep fried Chinese-bun that came with chilli crab meat sauce. It was so yummy and if there wasn't any time limit on the buffet I'd just sit there and keep on ordering this dish (heheh).

We ordered quite a few dishes from the dim sum selection such as chicken feet in black bean sauce, pork siew mai with baby abalone, juicy pork xiao long bao, and the yummy deep-fried escargot dumplings. I never seen or heard of any escargot dumplings before so we decided to order it. It was a sweet and creamy surprise! The Kurobuta char siew bao had a really fluffy exterior and juicy sweet meats on the inside.

We really liked how the serving is suited for the number of people in your group. As it was only me and hubby, they gave us a small serving of the braised beef fillet. The beef was really tender and juicy.

We really enjoyed our brunch at Cherry Garden and looking forward to go back there again next time we're in Singapore. The dim sum costs SGD $68 per person and there are two seatings available: 11 AM to 1 PM or 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM. It's definitely a great place to celebrate a special occasion as well although you might want to book in advance for weekend or public holiday seating.

4.5 stars. Excellent dim sum buffet in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. This is the buffet type where you sit and order from a menu and they serve you (as opposed to having a buffet line). Not cheap at S$68/pax but I think it's good value for money given the quality of ingredients. You could order dim sum, cooked dishes as well as dessert (all included).

We find the cooked dishes standard good like what you would expect from an upscale Chinese restaurant but the dim sum were excellent, in particular the Kurobuta char siew pao and siew mai. Desserts were ok.

Considering this restaurant has earned a Michelin star, we had high hopes for our dining experience at Cherry Blossom, however it unfortunately fell very short on our expectations and we left feeling very disappointed.

FOOD - We did not select one of their pre-fixe menus, but instead opted for ordering multiple family-style items as suggested by our waiter. We ordered the Peking duck, scallops, pan seared chicken, fried rice, and wasabi prawns.

The food was mediocre at best, aside from the Peking duck - which was quite delicious and I would come back for only that. The other items were nothing special, and certainly not "Michelin-Star" quality in our opinion (and we're experienced Michelin Star diners).

SERVICE - What a disappointment! For this caliber of a restaurant we were extremely dissatisfied with the waitstaff.

While our courses came out promptly, our table was constantly left with dirty plates for sometimes up to 10 minutes after we had finished eating. Disgusting.

We also ended up pouring our own wine several times since the servers did not seem to notice our empty glasses despite how many times they walked by. Unacceptable.

The waitstaff was nice but very inattentive to us even though the restaurant was not that busy and we were seated next to the hosts stand. This was another annoyance in itself.

Upon arriving we were seated at the table right next to the host stand and entrance - in other words, the worst table in the house. It had no atmosphere and it barely even felt like we were dining in the restaurant. Considering it was 7:45 and the restaurant was less than half full, we requested a different table but were told "they were completely booked". By the end of our meal, the restaurant had only became more empty, and there were PLENTY of open tables, so this was quite annoying.

Our experience was so disappointing overall we skipped desert and opted to leave early.

For a Michelin-Starred restaurant, they have A LOT of areas to be improved.

The location of one of our more recent Yelp brunches, Cherry Garden was in truth, a little disappointing.

I've been here for dinner, and one thing that is really top-notch is the service. They really commit to delivering excellent service and deserve due recognition.

I enjoyed dinner more than the brunch buffet, mainly because the star of the buffet, the dim sum, was more lose-sum than win-sum.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of variety, and some very unique selections. The custard bun with chocolate was to me, just delicious. Not too sweet, super rich chocolate filling that other people at the table made rather unflattering analogies with, I was more than happy to eat two.

The cooked items such as the pork, duck, and other seafood items and meat were definitely of an excellent standard, and probably stole the show. It's only a pity that there's a limit on how many of certain items you can order because they cost more.

The soups were... alright. I wouldn't describe them as bland, but they weren't any better than something you'd order at Soup Restaurant. Overall, while the value for the buffet brunch is undeniable (particularly if you're a bottomless pit comme moi), but I think the quality of the dinner menu is far superior.

A good compromise? Go for the buffet, but aim for the cooked items. That's where all the delicious lurks.

A nice dinner in a nice restaurant with really nice n helpful service. The ambiance is nice, the Chinese foods they're serving is Cantonese but judging from the rice soup with pork that they served, I think it's more to Hokkien style porridge. But, I'm no expert to the Chinese food. The cod fish with vegetables and pumpkin soup also very nice. We tried the lobster soup which also very nice. Portions were small and just enough for one person. Price wise this restaurant is moderate. Some food's selection can be very expensive too. Next time I'll try their lunch :-)

I spent two years in Hong Kong so yes I'm picky about my dim sum. And I've also always been incredibly disappointed with the dim sum offerings in Singapore. Even back home in Melbourne there were better options than here.

Cherry Garden is the one exception. I will admit that I feel as if the standard has dropped a little since I first came here. But it's still the best dim sum I've ever had in Singapore.

Their dim sum brunch deal is good value for all you can eat. There are a few mis-steps, eg. the skin on the har gau is too thick, the fried tentacles are bland and the hot & sour soup also lacks punch.

But there are also a lot of hits. The char siu bao is very well executed, the loh bak guo is in the Singapore hawker style rather than the Cantonese dim sum style but tastes excellent, and I highly recommend the wasabi mayo prawns.

Service is professional and polite and the restaurant is a fairly comfortable one to sit in.

Wonderful place, secured, quite, nice waitress, good taste, good sets. Comfortable surrounding. Only non-convenient is no restroom there.