I know it's probably a little late to talk about Christmas as it's now the New Year and soon, it will be Chinese New Year.
But I'm gonna do it any anyway :P
Sorry for my disappearance. Again :( Had alot of small stuff to do and worry about during the festive season which made me super busy. I will do an update on my Christmas and everything in between soon! :)
I just wanted to share my lovely experience with Novotel awhile ago when they invited me for their Christmas buffet spread in conjunction with their Appreciation Night.
I felt the most beautiful highlight of this event was that they also invited Myanmar refugee children from the United Learning Centre to part of this Christmas celebration.
And they were all dressed as beautiful angels!
The buffet spread had a range of over 30 kinds of foods, so you could say I was spoilt for choice.
The appetizers, finger foods and salads -
Pan-burst Cherry Tomato and Baby Mozzarella and Basil Dressing
Tuna Pasta and Lychee Salad
Turkey Ham Salad with Pineapple
Kidney Beans and Aioli Sauerkraut Salad
Pear and Caramel Walnut Salad
Asian Thai Beef Salad with Honey Soy Dressing
Mixed Fresh Garden Salad
As you can see, some of the salads were daintily placed in little tart shells. What I liked about it the most was how amazing the tart shells tasted. It had a crusty and buttery flavour to it, enough to get your tastebuds excited while savouring the contents of the tart. Many tart shells these days lack that butter flavour, but not the one here.
Selection of Bread and Butter
Carvery- Oven Roasted Lamb Leg
Carvery- Oven Roasted Whole Turkey with Stuffing
Cranberry sauce, Black Peppered sauce and Mushroom sauce were served at the side
Topped with any of the sauces and the meat was perfect, otherwise it could have been a little more juicy if eaten without.
Beef and Chicken Satay with peanut sauce and condiments
One of the most talked about dish the entire night!
Everyone around me was saying how wonderful the satays were, and true enough when I tried it, it was as amazing as what they said it was. The meat was well grilled and flavoursome.
Live station- Chicken Shawarma with Pita Pocket
Mains- Spiral Pasta with Pistachio and Pesto
Crispy chicken chops with Peri-peri sauce
The chicken chops were well seasoned and tasted scrumptious.
Prawns with Mushroom and Bisque Sauce
Pan-seared fish with Mango sauce
Cajun Minutes Steak with Honey Mustard
The steak was tender and juicy, I certainly couldn't get enough of it.
Lamb Kofta with Prunes
Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges
The sweet potatoes were fragrant with the herbs used to marinate it.
Herb Buttered Mixed Vegetables
Desserts- Selection of Macarons with various flavours
The macarons were glorious with the shell being light yet crunchy and the insides moist, giving you the impression it may even melt away on your tongue.
Macarons like these don't come by everyday.
Chocolate trifle
Here is a cup of three different kinds of chocolate, which made this trifle such a sinful delight.
Not to mention the right amount of bittersweet flavours.
Panna Cotta
Selections of Pudding
Assortment of cakes
The cakes look ordinary, but was surely a pleaser. No less effort was taken in making these cakes even with the already wide array of desserts.
The texture of the cakes were perfect, all were rich and moist.
My favourite would have to be the banana chocolate moist cake thought, because of how you could still stumble upon banana chunks melting in your mouth even in such a small piece of cake!
Assorted Fruit Tartlets
Selection of Fresh Cut Fruits and Local Fruits Delight
Everything about the night was beautiful and memorable. The food did not fail to impress and it's really rare to find a buffet spread where everything is so complete, well rounded - the quality, the taste and the variety. And everything - from the appetizers, main course to the desserts were up to standard.
Kim Yau and I.
We were seated together and we clicked almost immediately!
The night continued on with Christmas carols sang and performed by the beautiful children.
It was really heartwarming to see these children dancing and singing, enjoying themselves after everything they have gone through, living their life in fear. And their simple act touched the entire room where everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and paid full attention to their performance.
After that was a speech by the co-founder of ULC. It was heartbreaking listening to what she had to say about the migrant children in our country.
All eyes and ears were turned to her as she took the front, not a single person was still eating or attending to their phones. And I think everyone there could agree that the last words she left ringing in our heads were 'These children are not running in the park. Instead, they are running for their lives'.
It really is sad to see how this children end up orphaned with no one to care for them and how they are all still so young, too young to see this cruel side of the world.
In fact, no child should ever have to run for their lives and to live in hiding and in fear.
Ending the night was the Lucky Draw session where it can win you free hotel stays in Penang, Pangkor, Jakarta, and more!
This Christmas felt so much more special to me, with a huge thanks to Novotel.
Seeing how they outreached to these children, sponsoring them and inviting them to be part of this Christmas celebration, to share in the Christmas joy and spirit.
At the end of the day, Christmas is all about giving and Novotel certainly went all out to play its part this Christmas.
I'm really glad I got to spend part of my Christmas with these little ones, as they definitely taught me alot. Sometimes all of us need little reminders to appreciate our lives more. These beautiful ones gave me an insight of what Christmas was, and how it should be.
Met another friend before the night ended :)
The buffet dinner is only priced at RM 95 ++ per adult and just RM 47 ++ per child (aged below 12 years), all at The Square restaurant.
They have a Christmas Eve Buffet dinner, Christmas day Buffet dinner and New Years Eve Buffet dinner which you can consider this coming Christmas 2015!
On regular days, they have buffet lunches priced at just RM 70 ++ per person.
Since Chinese New Year is coming up, do check out their menu if you're planning to have a nice reunion dinner with your family or friends!
All this will be held at Qing Zhen Restaurant in Novotel and if you have any additional enquiries or would like to make reservations, feel free to ring them up at 03-2147 0888.
Once again thank you so much Novotel for the invitation and giving me the opportunity to be part of something so meaningful!
Contact them
Novotel Kuala Lumpur City Centre
Contact：603-21470888
Email：H6324@accor.com
Address: 2 Jalan Kia Peng, 50450 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (It is just located beside Pavilion)
