CLOVE Swissotel Serves A Taste of Korea

Post by Chiefeater Luke Soon

Saturday night at CLOVE, and the hotel’s buffet has gone Korean for the autumn. The “Taste of Korea” menu is added on top of the usual international and seafood spread rather than replacing it. That is both its charm and its limit.Having just come back from Seoul, where I spent a week eating eel, bossam and oysters, I was curious how a Singapore hotel buffet would handle the real thing. On Saturday night CLOVE was mid-way through its autumn “Taste of Korea” menu. It is added on top of the usual international and seafood spread rather than replacing it, which is both its charm and its limit. Start where everyone starts: the seafood on ice. There were plump, briny oysters, big red prawns, half-shell scallops with the orange roe still attached, plus clams and mussels. It was well kept and constantly topped up, easily the strongest station in the room, and I went back more often than I care to admit. The best move of the night was at the DIY laksa counter. I built a bowl, then loaded it with raw oysters and scallops and let them poach gently in the lemak gravy with tau pok, fishcake and quail eggs. Highly recommended.

The Korean section is generous rather than revelatory. The 24-hour pork shoulder bossam arrives in folded lotus leaves, braised until it falls apart. The grill pans hold chunky pork collar and thinly shaved meat on bamboo leaves. Tteokbokki is sticky and glossy, and the gochujang chicken braise, studded with fresh red chilli, looks the part. Kimchi jjigae is honest and comforting, and a small cup of ginseng chicken soup makes a soothing pause between rounds. Korean fried chicken and roasted purple sweet potato round it out. It all ticks the boxes, but none of it quite tastes like Seoul.

At the carvery, the Australian beef tomahawk looks magnificent under the lamps with its garlic, herb and chilli crust. Once it is cut into chunks, though, the doneness varies from pink to grey depending on which end you get, so ask the chef for the centre.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

The verdict: a solid hotel buffet with an excellent seafood counter, plus a Korean menu that is enjoyable without being memorable. With Seoul still fresh in my mind, the gap shows. The bossam is tender but lacks the depth of the real thing, and nothing here would hold its own against a proper Seoul kitchen. At S$130++ for weekend dinner it is fair rather than a steal. With a participating card’s 50% off on a non-blackout date, it becomes very good value. The Korean menu runs until 15 November.

Business Hours

Open Daily
12:00 pm to 02:30 pm
06:00 pm to 10:00 pm