Song of India is an Indian restaurant housed in one of the black and white bungalows along Scotts Road. Recently awarded one star by Michelin Guide Singapore 2016, they have a wallet-friendly $29.90 weekday lunch buffet which tempted us to go try this restaurant. We realised when we arrived that there was an even better deal for Maybank credit card holders. Alas, none of us has that card. But still, a $29.90 lunch in a posh one-star Michelin restaurant in upmarket Scotts Road sounds like quite a decent deal.
It is rare to have a restaurant located in a bungalow in the heart of Singapore. The grounds were nicely decorated and we felt like visiting a restaurant in Bali. Another rare thing for us urbanites in Singapore is the attraction of free car-parking.
The Song of India restaurant is decorated in an ornate old-world European style, with gold trimmed Corinthian columns, no less. The heavy drapes were half-drawn, making the place rather dark. There were two impressive private rooms.
For lunch on Mondays to Saturdays , there is an option of either ordering ala carte or having the buffet lunch. The price of the buffet lunch is $29.90++ .
Here are pictures of some pages from the ala carte menu.
A row of hot dishes lined the main buffet table. A solitary pot of soup and a small selection of starters and desserts completed the buffet set-up. The starters were mostly Western in nature – cold pasta and salad items.
Some tandoori items – chicken, broccoli and cauliflower were served as appetizers. Naan was served warm at the table. All these items could be replenished on request.
We would rather not show you the food at the buffet table as they were not very pretty. The restaurant was around 80% full, so the heavy flow of human traffic at the buffet table meant that the food containers do not stay tidy for long. We do however like to eat our food nicely plated, even at buffets. We therefore made some effort to present our food as nicely as possible. Here are pictures of our efforts.
The picture above is a compilation of almost all the warm food items. There were a few types of rice, a couple of vegetable dishes and a couple of curries. The variety of food was not very wide, but was adequate for us. We would prefer less, but good choices. This is not a buffet where there is a mountain of food on a thirty-foot long table.
We cannot recall all the specific dishes that we had that day. The items included Baigan Tomato Masala, Jeera Aloo, Paneer Bt Masala, Jeera Coran Pulao, Murg Khada Masal and Goan Fish Curry. There are some sample buffet menus on the Song of India website. What we can say is that all the warm dishes were good with complex tastes. The curries were mildly spicy, which was a good thing as too much heat would overpower all the other flavours. The cold starters and desserts were however quite ordinary.
Overall, our lunch at the Song of India buffet was an enjoyable lunch. It was a bit quirky to eat Indian food in an ornate European setting, but it was a comfortable place.
Ratings:
Food : 3
Service: 3
Value: 4
Atmosphere: 4
Overall Rating: 4 TOPs
Song of India
33 Scotts Road
Singapore 228226
Tel: +65 6836 0055