Setting the Scene: Ambience and Atmosphere
LUCE, nestled within Frasers House, a Luxury Collection Hotel, presents itself as a sanctuary of modern Italian elegance. The restaurant’s name—Italian for “light”—proves prophetic as natural illumination filters through the space, casting a warm glow across marble surfaces and contemporary furnishings. For the Season of Abundance buffet, the dining room undergoes a festive metamorphosis, with subtle nods to Lunar New Year traditions woven into the Italian aesthetic. Red and gold accents punctuate the neutral palette without overwhelming the restaurant’s inherent sophistication, creating an atmosphere that feels both celebratory and refined.
The buffet stations themselves are thoughtfully arranged to encourage exploration without creating congestion—a crucial consideration during the bustling festive period. Each station maintains its own visual identity while contributing to a cohesive narrative of abundance and cross-cultural celebration. The open kitchen concept allows diners to observe chefs at work, particularly at the pasta and carving stations, adding an element of theatre to the dining experience.
The Ritual Begins: Yu Sheng Station
Visual Presentation
The DIY Yu Sheng station greets guests with an explosion of colour—vibrant orange salmon sashimi glistening against crisp white radish julienne, emerald cucumber strips, ruby-red pickled ginger, and golden crackers arranged in individual compartments. The station resembles an artist’s palette, inviting diners to become participants rather than mere observers.
Textural Composition
The genius of Yu Sheng lies in its textural diversity, and LUCE’s rendition honours this principle beautifully. The silky salmon contrasts with crunchy vegetables, while the sesame seeds add a delicate nuttiness. The plum sauce provides viscosity, binding the disparate elements without creating pastiness. The ability to customize portions prevents the dish from becoming a burdensome ritual—you can honour tradition without sacrificing appetite for the extensive spread ahead.
Culinary Philosophy
What distinguishes this station is the generosity with salmon portions. Unlike many establishments where protein is dispensed sparingly, LUCE encourages abundance, allowing guests to pile on as much fish as desired. This liberality sets the tone for the entire buffet experience—one of genuine hospitality rather than calculated restraint.
Marine Treasures: Seafood and Sashimi Station
The Visual Seascape
The seafood display is a study in oceanic hues—pearlescent oyster shells cradling plump mollusks, translucent jade-toned salmon sashimi arranged in rosette patterns, deep magenta ahi tuna glistening under soft lighting, and burnished mini abalone catching the light. Ice serves as both preservative and presentation element, creating a glacial landscape dotted with marine jewels.
Quality Assessment
The Japanese oysters present that distinctive briny sweetness, their flesh firm yet yielding—a sign of optimal freshness. The jade salmon exhibits the rich marbling characteristic of quality fish, its coral-pink flesh bordered by creamy fat lines. When pressed gently, it springs back immediately, confirming its pristine condition. The ahi tuna possesses that coveted deep red hue free from browning or drying at the edges, while the mini abalone offers satisfying resistance without toughness.
The Dangerous Temptation
This station exemplifies the classic buffet conundrum—quality so evident that restraint becomes nearly impossible. The visual appeal alone triggers appetite, but the taste confirms initial impressions, making it perilously easy to consume stomach space better distributed across the diverse offerings. The strategic placement of this station near the entrance is either brilliant hospitality or calculated risk, depending on your perspective.
Garden Compositions: Salad Bar and Antipasti
Chromatic Variety
The salad bar presents a spectrum of greens—deep forest kale, bright spring mix, crisp romaine, purple radicchio, and butter lettuce in pale chartreuse. Supporting elements add punctuation marks of colour: golden cherry tomatoes, ivory chickpeas, obsidian olives, carmine beetroot, and alabaster cauliflower florets. The dressing selection ranges from pale Caesar to verdant pesto to amber balsamic vinaigrette.
Textural Philosophy
Modern salad construction requires attention to textural interplay. The “Harvest of the Day” selection allows for personal composition—crunchy against tender, smooth against granular, raw against pickled. The generous add-ons (nuts, seeds, proteins, cheeses) transform what could be perfunctory greenery into substantive opening courses. The availability of quality oils and vinegars for customization reveals respect for diners who take their vegetables seriously.
Artisanal Indulgence
The adjacent cheese and charcuterie selection operates in a different register entirely—rich, funky, aged, and unabashedly indulgent. Italian and French cheeses rotate weekly, preventing familiarity from breeding contempt. The marbling in cured meats creates abstract patterns—threads of pure white fat weaving through deep garnet flesh. Paired with crusty artisan bread, still warm from the oven, this becomes its own complete experience rather than mere prelude to mains.
Interactive Theatre: Live Cooking Stations
Signature Frasers House Prawn Noodle
The prawn noodle station offers a masterclass in broth construction. The base—a rich, amber-hued shellfish stock—provides the foundation, its surface shimmering with droplets of prawn oil that catch light like scattered coins. Plump tiger prawns arrive with their coral-pink shells barely blushed, their flesh translucent white with just enough spring to indicate proper texture.
The beauty lies in customization: select your noodle type (yellow alkaline noodles provide chew, rice vermicelli offers delicacy), add crisp bean sprouts for snap, include jammy quail eggs for richness, and finish with fish cake whose sponginess absorbs the surrounding flavours. The final bowl arrives as a study in layered textures—slurpable noodles, crunchy vegetables, tender protein, and broth that coats the palate with umami intensity.
Pasta with Salmon Vodka Cream Sauce
The Parmesan wheel presentation is undeniably theatrical—a hollowed wheel of aged cheese serving as both cooking vessel and serving platter. Fresh pasta meets the pan al dente, that crucial moment where resistance meets tenderness without crossing into mushiness. The salmon vodka cream sauce clings to each strand, its pale coral colour punctuated by flecks of fresh salmon and herbs.
The sauce achieves a delicate balance—rich enough to satisfy, creamy without becoming cloying, with vodka providing subtle sharpness that cuts through dairy fat. The Parmesan wheel imparts nutty, crystalline notes with each toss, adding complexity that pre-grated cheese could never achieve. The texture is luxurious—silky sauce coating springy pasta, interrupted by tender salmon pieces that flake against the tongue.
This dish prompted genuine regret—not for the indulgence itself, but for the finite nature of stomach capacity. The perfectly al dente execution deserved a second (or third) serving, but the breadth of the buffet made such dedication impossible. Sometimes excellence becomes its own curse.
Italian Foundations: Hot Dishes
Pizza Perfection
LUCE’s pizza emerges from high-temperature ovens with leopard-spotted crusts—charred bubbles creating visual interest and textural variation. The base maintains that crucial dichotomy: crisp exterior yielding to chewy interior, with enough structural integrity to support toppings without becoming cracker-like. The rim, or cornicione, puffs dramatically, creating pockets of air that provide both visual appeal and textural contrast.
Traditional toppings showcase quality ingredients—San Marzano tomatoes reduced to concentrate sweetness and acidity, mozzarella that stretches but doesn’t congeal, fresh basil adding aromatic brightness. Each slice can stand alone as representative of solid Italian craftsmanship.
Melanzane alla Parmigiana
This Sicilian classic arrives in deep terracotta or white ceramic, its surface golden-brown from final oven gratination. Layers reveal themselves upon serving—thin eggplant slices that have surrendered their sponginess through proper salting and frying, tomato sauce reduced to near-jam consistency, mozzarella creating molten strings, and Parmesan adding sharp, salty notes. The texture is almost lasagna-like—soft, yielding layers bound by cheese and tomato with no trace of the eggplant’s sometimes-bitter rawness.
Pasta alla Norma
Named after Bellini’s opera, this Catanian specialty celebrates simplicity. Fried eggplant cubes maintain textural integrity despite their silky interiors, providing substance to the dish. Tomato sauce clings to rigatoni or penne, its acidity balanced by sweetness. Ricotta salata—pressed, aged ricotta—provides salty contrast and crumbly texture, while fresh basil adds herbaceous lift. Each bite captures the Mediterranean sunlight in edible form.
Purè di Patate al Tartufo
Truffle mashed potatoes could easily become a vehicle for excess, but LUCE shows restraint. The potatoes achieve cloudlike consistency—clearly riced or passed through a tamis rather than simply mashed, resulting in no gluey or lumpy bits. Butter and cream provide richness without greasiness. Black truffle (whether fresh or quality preserved) contributes earthy, garlicky, slightly funky notes that perfume each forkful without overwhelming the delicate potato base.
The colour is pale ivory with black truffle specks distributed throughout like pepper, creating visual interest. The texture is supremely smooth, almost mousselike, melting against the palate and requiring minimal chewing. It’s comfort food elevated through technique and luxury ingredient addition.
Sicilian-Style Branzino
Mediterranean sea bass receives the Sicilian treatment—likely baked or roasted with tomatoes, olives, capers, and herbs. The fish flesh maintains its delicate texture, flaking into large, moist pieces rather than drying into fibrous strands. The tomato-based sauce provides acidity that complements the fish’s natural sweetness, while briny olives and capers add savoury punctuation. Herbs—likely oregano, parsley, or basil—contribute aromatic complexity.
The presentation likely features the whole fish or large portions, allowing diners to appreciate the ingredient quality and cooking precision required to maintain moisture and texture. The skin, if present, should be crisp where it contacted heat, providing textural contrast to yielding flesh.
Festive Innovation: Salted Egg Pizza
Conceptual Audacity
Creating a salted egg pizza for Lunar New Year buffet demonstrates either culinary confidence or calculated risk—perhaps both. Salted egg yolk, that cornerstone of Singaporean zi char cuisine, seems an unlikely pizza topping. Yet LUCE’s execution validates the concept, creating one of the buffet’s most memorable dishes.
Visual Characteristics
The pizza emerges with a pale yellow sauce coating the base—the salted egg mixture emulsified with butter or cream to create spreadable consistency. Roasted chicken pieces provide protein, their golden-brown skin catching light. Mozzarella melts into the sauce rather than creating distinct cheese pulls, integrating into the flavour matrix. Curry leaves, fried until crisp, dot the surface like dark green confetti, adding visual and aromatic interest.
Flavour Architecture
The salted egg sauce walks a tightrope between several flavour profiles: slightly sweet from natural egg sugars, savoury from salt and umami compounds, rich from fat content, and subtly sandy-textured from yolk granules. Rather than dominating, it creates a creamy foundation that allows other elements to shine. The roasted chicken contributes mild protein flavour and textural substance. Mozzarella adds dairy richness without competing for attention. Curry leaves provide the genius touch—their distinctive aroma (difficult to describe but instantly recognizable) and slightly bitter crispness cut through the richness, lifting the entire dish.
Textural Success
The pizza maintains structural integrity despite the wet sauce—evidence of proper dough hydration and oven temperature. The crust provides crunch at edges while remaining pliable in the centre. Chicken pieces offer resistance and chew. Curry leaves add brittle crispness that shatters against teeth. The salted egg sauce creates creamy lubrication without making the pizza soggy.
Cultural Fusion Assessment
This dish succeeds where many fusion attempts fail: it respects both parent cuisines while creating something genuinely new. The Italian pizza foundation provides vehicle and technique, while Southeast Asian flavours dominate the taste experience. It’s indulgent without being overwhelming, familiar yet surprising, and addictive in that “just one more slice” way that characterizes successful casual food.
Centrepiece Proteins: Carving Station
Roman-Style Roasted Pork Knuckle
The pork knuckle arrives as a monument to patience and technique—hours of slow roasting required to achieve the desired result. The exterior presents as burnished mahogany, the skin transformed through rendering into something resembling edible glass—impossibly crisp, shattering under knife pressure with audible crack, revealing amber-toned fat beneath.
The meat itself undergoes complete transformation during extended cooking. Initial toughness of this hardworking muscle surrenders to gelatinous tenderness. Collagen melts into silky gelatin, creating unctuousness without greasiness. The meat pulls apart easily, revealing fibrous texture that has softened but not disintegrated. Fat layers throughout provide richness and moisture.
Seasoning likely involves herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme), garlic, and assertive salt penetration—necessary for such a large cut. The flavour is unabashedly porky, celebrating rather than masking the animal’s essential taste. The ratio of crispy skin to fatty meat to tender inner flesh creates textural variety within single servings.
Roasted Australian Beef Ribeye
Ribeye cut selection demonstrates understanding—this well-marbled section provides natural insurance against dryness. The exterior shows proper caramelization—Maillard reaction creating complex savoury notes and mahogany crust. When carved, the interior reveals gradient doneness: well-done exterior transitioning through medium-well to medium at the centre, allowing guests to request preferred level.
Quality beef exhibits fine marbling—white fat threads woven throughout muscle tissue like marble veining, contributing to tenderness and flavour. The texture is simultaneously firm and yielding, requiring cutting but not excessive jaw work. Proper resting ensures juices distribute evenly rather than pooling on the cutting board—evidence of technical competence.
The beef likely receives minimal seasoning—perhaps just salt, pepper, and herbs—allowing the meat’s inherent flavour to dominate. At its best, each slice tastes minerally, slightly sweet, rich with umami, and satisfyingly substantial. The fat melts on the tongue, creating luxurious mouthfeel that enhances rather than obscures the lean meat’s character.
Asian Heritage: Festive Dishes
Netted Seafood Spring Rolls
These architectural creations showcase the Chinese culinary principle of contrasting textures. The “net” wrapping—likely thin rice paper or pastry cut into lattice pattern—fries into golden lace, providing structural integrity and visual drama. Inside, seafood filling (prawns, fish, possibly crab or scallop) binds with vegetables and seasonings, the mixture maintaining distinct pieces rather than becoming homogeneous paste.
When properly executed, the exterior shatters dramatically upon biting, revealing hot, savoury interior. The seafood provides sweet, oceanic notes and springy texture. Vegetables (likely water chestnuts, carrots, mushrooms) add crunch and moisture. The golden-brown colour suggests proper frying temperature—hot enough to crisp quickly without absorbing excessive oil.
Nonya Chicken Curry
Peranakan cuisine represents centuries of Chinese-Malay cultural synthesis, and this curry exemplifies that heritage. The gravy achieves rust-orange colour from dried chillies, fresh turmeric, and ground spices (coriander, cumin, fennel). Coconut milk provides richness and tames capsaicin heat, creating creamy consistency that coats chicken pieces.
The chicken, likely on-bone pieces for maximum flavour, absorbs curry spices during braising. The meat becomes tender while maintaining structure, pulling cleanly from bones but not disintegrating. Potatoes often accompany, their starchy nature absorbing curry and providing textural contrast to meat. The flavour profile balances multiple elements: heat from chillies, richness from coconut, earthiness from turmeric, complexity from spice paste, and aromatic lift from lime leaves or lemongrass if included.
Five-Spice Slow-Braised Pork Trotter
This dish requires commitment—both from cook and diner. Pork trotters, largely composed of skin, tendon, and connective tissue with minimal meat, transform through hours of braising in dark soy sauce, five-spice powder, rock sugar, and aromatics.
The result is unlike any other pork preparation. The skin becomes gelatinous, wobbling slightly when moved, its collagen completely broken down into melting tenderness. Any meat present falls away at slightest pressure. The dark mahogany colour results from soy sauce penetration and caramelization. The texture is simultaneously slippery, sticky, and tender—off-putting to some, sublime to enthusiasts.
Five-spice blend (star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan pepper, fennel) provides complex, slightly sweet aromatic profile. Rock sugar adds caramelized sweetness that balances soy sauce salinity. The dish is unabashedly rich, a small serving sufficient given its intensity.
XO Tiger Prawn with Scallop Sauce
This dish represents Cantonese luxury dining. XO sauce—invented in Hong Kong’s high-end restaurants—combines dried seafood (scallops, shrimp, fish), cured ham, chillies, and aromatics into complex, umami-rich condiment. The tiger prawns arrive with shells removed but tails intact, their flesh opaque white with coral-pink tinging, properly cooked to just-set texture without rubberiness.
The scallop sauce extends XO principles, likely incorporating fresh scallops alongside dried, creating additional textural dimension. Broccoli and mushrooms serve dual purposes: visual contrast (jade green and earth tones against prawn coral) and textural variety (crunchy florets, tender mushrooms, bouncy prawns). The sauce itself is glossy rather than watery, properly emulsified and thickened to coat ingredients without pooling.
Man Fu Yuan’s involvement explains the dish’s authenticity and execution precision. This tastes not like fusion but like genuine Cantonese restaurant cooking—proper wok hei (breath of wok), balanced seasoning, textural integrity maintained through controlled high-heat cooking.
Lotus-Leaf Wrapped Glutinous Rice
This traditional preparation transforms humble glutinous rice into aromatic, complex dish. The lotus leaf imparts subtle floral, tea-like fragrance during steaming, while also creating dramatic presentation—packages unfold to reveal sticky rice dotted with Chinese sausage, mushrooms, dried shrimp, and other treasures.
The rice achieves characteristic sticky, chewy texture—individual grains distinct yet cohesive, requiring deliberate chewing rather than dissolving immediately. The filling ingredients distribute flavour throughout: Chinese sausage adds sweet-savoury notes and firm texture, dried shrimp contributes intense umami and slight chew, mushrooms provide earthiness and soft bite. Dark soy sauce colours portions brown, creating visual interest within the white rice matrix.
This dish is substantial, each package potentially serving multiple people at a buffet setting. It represents comfort food elevated through technique and tradition, simultaneously homely and celebratory.
Sweet Conclusions: Dessert Landscape
Eight Treasure Almond Fruit Cake
This dessert bridges Chinese and Western pastry traditions. The “eight treasures” likely include various dried fruits, nuts, and seeds—traditional lucky ingredients for Lunar New Year. Almonds provide base flavour and textural interest, possibly ground into flour or scattered throughout. The cake likely achieves moist crumb through almond meal, butter, and possibly ground fruit, avoiding the dryness sometimes plaguing fruit cakes.
The colour palette ranges from pale almond cream to darker fruit specks—golden raisins, ruby candied cherries, green candied peel, amber apricot pieces. The texture balances tender cake crumb with chewy fruit pieces and crunchy nut fragments. Sweetness is present but not cloying, allowing fruit and nut flavours to register distinctly.
LUCE-misu
The hotel’s playful name variation on tiramisu suggests either house variation or commitment to the classic. Proper tiramisu presents in layers: coffee-soaked ladyfinger biscuits (savoiardi) alternating with mascarpone cream, finished with cocoa powder dusting. The texture should be spoonable-soft, the biscuits completely saturated and tender, the cream light yet rich, the cocoa providing slight bitterness.
The coffee element is crucial—strong espresso or coffee liqueur providing necessary counterpoint to mascarpone’s sweet richness. When properly executed, tiramisu achieves remarkable balance: bitter coffee, sweet cream, alcoholic warmth (if Marsala wine or liqueur included), cocoa’s earthy notes. The colour contrast—pale cream against dark brown biscuits and black cocoa—creates visual appeal even in simple presentation.
Lucky Gold Bar Chocolate Cake
The name suggests gold-foil decoration or gold-coloured elements for auspicious Lunar New Year symbolism. The chocolate cake itself likely follows classic formulation: cocoa powder or melted chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, flour. Proper chocolate cake achieves remarkable moistness through fat content and sometimes additional liquid (coffee enhances chocolate flavour).
The texture should be tender, fine-crumbed, and yielding rather than dense or dry. Chocolate flavour should register as genuinely cocoa-derived rather than merely sweet. Frosting or ganache likely covers the exterior, adding additional richness and glossy appearance. If gold leaf adorns the surface, it contributes visual luxury without flavour interference.
Earl Grey Lavender Cake
This botanical combination demonstrates sophistication—Earl Grey’s bergamot orange notes complement lavender’s floral character. The cake likely incorporates tea-steeped milk or cream and dried lavender, requiring careful dosing to achieve present-but-not-overwhelming perfume.
The colour might show subtle violet tinging from lavender or remain traditional cake beige. The texture should be light and tender—lavender’s association with delicacy demands corresponding textural treatment. The flavour walks a fine line: enough botanicals to be recognizable, not so much as to taste soapy or medicinal. At its best, each bite evokes afternoon tea gardens in edible form.
Chocolate Swiss Roll
This classic preparation demonstrates technical skill through simplicity. The sponge must be moist and flexible enough to roll without cracking—achieved through proper egg-to-flour ratio and careful baking. The chocolate filling (likely buttercream, ganache, or whipped cream with cocoa) provides richness and helps bind the spiral.
When sliced, the cross-section reveals pinwheel pattern—pale sponge spiraling around dark filling, creating visual interest from simple elements. The texture contrasts light, airy cake with creamy filling. Proper Swiss roll should be simultaneously indulgent and somehow not overwhelming—the thin layers preventing the heaviness that sometimes characterizes layer cakes.
Auspicious Golden Ingot Nian Gao
Nian gao (sticky rice cake) is essential Lunar New Year food, its name providing linguistic pun (nian = year, gao = cake/tall, together suggesting “achieving greater heights yearly”). Traditional versions are simply glutinous rice flour, sugar, and water steamed into dense, slightly translucent brown blocks.
The texture is extraordinary—incredibly sticky, chewy almost to point of jaw fatigue, simultaneously elastic and yielding. LUCE’s “golden ingot” presentation likely involves shaping into gold-bar forms for symbolic prosperity. The cake might be served plain or pan-fried in egg batter (creating crispy exterior, molten interior contrast).
The colour ranges from pale yellow-white (pure version) to deep amber-brown (with brown sugar), achieving almost jewel-like translucency when properly steamed. The flavour is mildly sweet, the rice contributing subtle grain taste. This is traditional festive food in its most authentic form—not adapted or westernized but presented as cultural touchstone.
Gelato Selection
Italian ice cream concludes the Italian-Asian journey appropriately. Proper gelato differs from American ice cream through lower fat content, slower churning (creating denser texture), and serving at warmer temperature (enhancing flavour perception).
The Mango gelato should taste intensely of fruit—tropical sweetness and slight fibrous mouthfeel from mango puree, bright orange colour natural or enhanced, creamy texture from milk base. Quality versions avoid artificial flavouring, instead using real fruit to achieve authentic taste.
The Matcha gelato represents beautiful cultural fusion—Japanese green tea powder in Italian frozen dessert. The colour should be vibrant jade green, the flavour distinctly vegetal and slightly bitter with underlying sweetness. Matcha’s tannins provide complexity that prevents the gelato from tasting merely sweet, while its natural umami creates intriguing savoury notes in sweet context.
Other flavours likely include classics (chocolate, vanilla, stracciatella) and possibly seasonal or Asian-inspired varieties. The gelato should be scoopable but firm, melting slowly to coat the palate rather than dissolving immediately into liquid.
Overall Assessment
LUCE’s Season of Abundance buffet succeeds through breadth without sacrificing depth. The Italian-Asian fusion concept could easily devolve into confusion, but careful curation creates coherent narrative. The Italian foundations (pasta, pizza, proteins) demonstrate technical competence and quality ingredients, while Asian additions provide festive relevance and cultural authenticity rather than tokenistic inclusion.
The buffet format rewards exploration but risks overwhelm—the sheer variety makes comprehensive tasting impossible unless approached with professional discipline (or remarkable appetite). Strategic navigation becomes essential: sample sparingly from less distinctive stations, allocate capacity to standouts like the Salted Egg Pizza, Pasta with Salmon Vodka Cream Sauce, and XO Tiger Prawns.
The visual presentation throughout maintains luxury hotel standards—thoughtful plating, fresh ingredients prominently displayed, lighting enhancing rather than disguising. The colour palette ranges from seafood station’s cool ocean tones through hot dishes’ warm golds and browns to dessert station’s festive reds and golds.
Texturally, the buffet offers remarkable range: from oysters’ slippery brine to pork knuckle’s brittle skin, prawn noodle’s slurp-worthy broth to tiramisu’s creamy softness, netted spring rolls’ crackle to nian gao’s sticky chew. This variety prevents palate fatigue, each station offering different textural experience.
The pricing structure reflects strategic positioning—lower weekday rates encourage trial, weekend premiums capture high-demand periods, Lunar New Year peak pricing maximizes revenue during guaranteed capacity. The promotional codes (LUCE30, LUCE25) provide value-conscious diners opportunity to experience luxury at relative discount.
For families and groups seeking Lunar New Year celebration that accommodates diverse preferences—elderly relatives wanting traditional dishes, children preferring familiar Western options, adventurous diners seeking quality and variety—LUCE’s buffet offers rare comprehensiveness. It’s festive without being kitschy, abundant without feeling wasteful, and culturally respectful while remaining accessible.
The buffet format itself, with its emphasis on shared abundance and personal choice, aligns perfectly with Lunar New Year values of prosperity, family gathering, and celebratory indulgence. LUCE has created not just a meal but an experience that honours both Italian conviviality and Asian festive traditions—a genuine fusion that works.