Halia Sime Darby Convention Centre

This is my 2nd buffet at Halia, Sime Darby Convention Centre. It’s easier to get a reservation there than at restaurants within hotels which offer buffets on Groupon deals. I can’t quite understand why the buffet there isn’t as popular as at hotels because Halia offers hotel quality food and parking at Sime Darby Convention Centre is free unlike at hotels where the minimum parking rate nowadays is RM10.

As usual, the buffet spread at Halia is indoors and outdoors where the grilled food is. The choice of starters indoors isn’t enticing and most people skip that section. This time the main courses indoors weren’t as appetizing as the previous time when there seemed to be more choices for the International and Local Buffet.

The siakap in sweet & sour sauce was extremely popular as it was all gone within an hour of my photographing it. I’ve learned something about buffets – always go for the fish first as it’s always the first to finish. I thought the fish as a bit overcooked and the sauce too thin and diluted but otherwise it was tasty.

The teppanyaki stall outside offers a choice of beef, “sotong” and prawns. The beef wasn’t very tender so I just went back for the seafood which were fried in a big “wok” before being transferred on to the hot plate which was then transferred on to individual hot plates according to customers’ requests.

The roast lamb was generally tender and very yummy with the brown sauce. The grilled prawns were huge and just a few of these was already worth the price of the buffet! There’s a variety of sauces to go with the grilled seafoods but I prefer not to have any sauces.

I skipped the steamboat section where you choose your own seafood to throw into the pots of boiling water. Too time-consuming to stand there waiting for the food to cook and the selection just wasn’t appealing enough. I didn’t notice many people going for the steamboat either.

Good selection of desserts with the tiny cakes beautifully decorated and small enough so that you can try a few. There’s also an ice cream machine so you can fill up your own cones. After an evening of grilled foods and mouth-watering satay, there wasn’t much room left for the desserts.