A great place for lunch is the Fat Buddha in the new Millennium Square area. It is what is now commonly known as Asian fusion restaurant featuring dishes from Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Korea and China. The décor is very well done, particularly the glass walkway and booths upstairs.
The lunch menu is a selection of popular dishes from the much more extensive evening menu but still offers loads of choice. My party consisted of 2 adults and 3 children aged 14, 5 and 10 months. The waitress was polite and speedy showing us to our booth and getting a high chair. Ideal when dealing with babies. Prawn crackers were brought to the table immediately, maybe to keep the kids quiet, but again nice touch.
So down to the food; The Spring Rolls served with Sweet Chilli Sauce were nice and crisp and the Chicken Satay fine, with the standard peanut dressing. Three main courses shared were Peking Chicken, Shredded Beef with Honey and Singapore Vermicelli. Both the Peking Chicken and Singapore Vermicelli were really tasty with a great spicy bite that left the kids licking their lips all afternoon. The Shredded Beef was nicely cooked but a little sweet overall. Heating baby food and filling a feeding cup was no problem, unlike some places in the City, and the service in general was attentive and
friendly. Now for the amazing bit, we asked for a jug of water to drink with the meal and we got a large jug filled with ice and four glasses. Free of charge. Nice touch.
The bill was £22.50, which was great value.
Tags: Asian fusion, Fat Buddha, Great value, Japanese, Millennium Square
April 17th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Agree with the review on Fat Budha. We were a party of seven and ate there on a Wednesday evening. We had booked in advance and on arriving at the restaurant were shown promptly to our table, in one of the private booths upstairs. The decor is great and my nine year old son thought the cat walk upstairs was fantastic. The service was excellent all night, not too intrusive - just there at the right times. We decided to have the set menu C for five people and ordered a different choice of soup for the youngest in our party although the waiter did offer to give us an alternative soup from the set menu if we wanted. We also ordered a couple of vegetarian dishes as well as we had a vegetarian in our party. Soups arrived and were good but a little spicy for our parties taste. Then came the duck and pancakes, loads of really nice duck with cucumber and spring onion, could have done with a few more pancakes and I am sure if we had asked they would have brought some more. Main courses were really good, rib eye beef with asparagus and black bean sauce, sweet and sour chicken, honey chilli chicken, vegetables in satay sauce, king prawns in wasobi mayonnaise, egg fried rice and garlic potatoes. Garlic potatoes were great as were all the main course dishes. As mentioned we had ordered 5 set meals with extras, two children in our party so there was plenty to go around. Then came the sweet menu, which was really good. Unfortunately 2 options were sold out but we were not disappointed with our choices. My son said that his was the best pudding he had ever had. He chose the sponge pudding which was chocoate with a chocolate sauce with cream and ice cream, the party also had white chocolate bombe and thai caramelised bananas. The puddings actually topped off what was a very good meal. I would give it 8 out of 10 for food, and 9 for service and surroundings. Total bill came in at £180 with drinks in as well. I would definately return.