The Carvery at Park Hotel Alexandra – Festive Forest Feast with Meaty Indulgence

From the 5th to 30th December 2018 (excluding 24, 25, 31, and 1 Jan 2019), get transported into the world of logs, flowers, and leaves for the Festive Forest Feast, held in The Carvery at Park Hotel Alexandra. As you walk into this fantastical world of food, whet your appetite for the meat-lover in you – because the range of meats is going to be wild! The Carvery, as its name suggests, will be serving a set of meaty delights that are especially for Christmas, alongside the other seafood and meat dishes. So let’s go, fellow food elves, have a taste of this festive forest feast!

(There’s nothing quite like a delicious dinner set in foresty fun)

The stars of the show are the dinner cuts, roasted, treated and aged in many intriguing ways. We first tried the Dingley Dell Pork Rack (weekend dinner only). It’s brined with Chef Ian’s secret recipe, which involves brining for a good 12 hours and tenderising. After that, the meat is rubbed with Pommery whole grain mustard, sage and parsley before it goes into the oven. Pair this with the house-made pineapple sauce!

The pork rack was easily one of our favourites with its tender flesh steeped in flavour and strong seasoning. We would have gone back for more, but for now, trying everything out first is key.

The Whiskey-Aged US Angus Beef Prime Ribs (weekend dinner only) is another speciality dish. Just standing there in front of the prime ribs will have the aroma of whiskey wafting across your nose in no time – only sometimes bested by the Spit-Roasted Chicken with Truffle (dinner and lunch)! The prime rib is served medium rare to rare and we had the privilege of tasting both. The medium rare beef was actually just right while the rare slices (closer to the middle of the beef) was a bit too raw.

The beef was wrapped in a cloth soaked with bourbon for 14 days, and then slow roasted. You can eat the beef with the flavoured butters or the fluffy Yorkshire puddings.

The Spit-Roasted Chicken with Truffle was also a delicious treat. Slathered with truffle butter inside out, it was not only made tender from the butter, but it was moist and flavourful all the way through. Even the breast meat’s texture was wonderfully soft! Having the chicken on the rotating spit makes the natural jus and juices very evenly distributed throughout the bird. No wonder the meat was so succulent!

The Beef Wellington will only be available on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It’s a roast beef hidden inside a pastry – what a unique treat! It’s tricky to cook this one – it’s a preparation of filleted steak coated with pâté and duxelles. Thereafter, it is wrapped with a not-so-puffy pastry, and baked. The pastry wasn’t too soggy and it complemented the juicy beef slices.

Apart from these special carves, there were a lot of other food items that The Carvery will be serving during the buffet, like the seafood spread, the cooked dishes, and desserts. The seafood was fresh, very chilled, and succulent – delicious oysters, snow crab legs, mussels, juicy prawns.

There’s also the Seafood Nanta, which is a pot of stewed seafood with very tasty gravy.

We also tasted the smoked cold cuts on a bed of quinoa and orange citrus bits.

The Balsamic Braised Beef Short Ribs were very tasty and tender! If you love your stewed beefs, then you need to give this one a shot. 

For cooked fish, try the Trout with Apricot and Pomegranate Salsa. It tastes like salmon, and the meat wasn’t tough at all. The pomegranate salsa was a bit lacking in flavour, but overall a great fish dish!

The Purple Mashed Potato was a savoury treat, just like its telling colour! The Pumpkin and Cranberry Rice was mildly flavourful, but a tad dry. It’ll go great if you drench it over with the sauces of the beef short ribs dish.

The desserts were magnificent! We got to try their renowned Raspberry and Lychee Trifle (dinner only) and an assortment of Christmas dessert treats such as the Spiced Chocolate Pots and Creme, the classic Lemon Meringue Tarts, Bakewell Tartlets, and Orange and Ginger Jelly. It’s been a while since we felt that all the desserts we ate were great. They really were!   

What are you waiting for? Reserve your places for these Christmasy treats and star roasts!

 

Highlights for Lunch

• US Beef Striploin
• Spit-Roasted Chicken with Truffle
• Turkey Roulade with Spinach
• Mottainai Lamb Leg

Highlights for Dinner

• Beef Ribeye
• Roasted Pork Knuckle
• Spit-Roasted Chicken with Truffle
• Whiskey-Aged US Angus Beef Prime Ribs (weekend only)
• Dingley Dell Pork Rack (weekend only)
• Traditional Tom Turkey (weekend only)
• Honey Glazed Ham (weekend only)

 

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Special

• Beef Wellington

 

Special Dessert Treats

• Raspberry and Lychee Trifle (dinner only)
• White Chocolate and Cranberry Bread and Butter Pudding (lunch only)

 

Festive Dining

Mon to Sun, 12pm to 2:30pm: $ 48 per adult, $ 32 per child

Mon to Thu, 6pm to 10pm: $ 58 per adult, $ 32 per child

Fri to Sun, 6pm to 10pm: $ 68 per adult, $ 32 per child

 

24 Dec 2018, 12pm-2:30pm:

$ 98 (A) Inclusive of a glass of Prosecco

$ 128 (A) Inclusive of free flow of Prosecco, wine, beer and soft drinks

$ 48 (C) Inclusive of free flow soft drinks and juices

*Christmas carolling from 7pm to 7.45pm

 

25 Dec 2018, 11:30am to 2:30pm, 6:30pm to 10:30pm:

$ 88 (A) Inclusive of a glass of Prosecco

$128 (A) Inclusive of free flow of Prosecco, wine, beer and soft drinks

$ 48 (C) Inclusive of free flow soft drinks and juices

*Christmas carolling at 12.30pm and 7pm

 

The Carvery

Park Hotel Alexandra, 323 Alexandra Road, Singapore 159972

Tel: +65 6828 8880

Website: https://www.parkhotelgroup.com/en/alexandra/the-carvery

 

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Images and write up by @chowbaccas

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