Hi all..

Our flights are now booked to come to Singapore to live as a family from the UK.. We arrive on December 20th, My husband, myself and my daughter.. I was wondering if you could recommend somewhere we could book for xmas dinner?

It doesn't have to be overly special, I just wondered if there was somewhere people might recommend for a traditional/ish Christmas lunch? We have an apartment until we find permanent living accommodation and the kitchen doesn't look big enough or well equipped enough to pull off a full xmas dinner.. Any ideas would be welcomed?

Many Thanks in advance!

Haylee!

I'm no longer in Singapore but, when we were there, there were loads of places doing the traditional Christmas lunch or dinner! ranging from pubs to the big hotels so I would say just take your pick. May be best to book a table though.

Those in Singapore may have specific recommendations.

Which part of Singapore will you be staying initially? That may have a bearing on recommendations.

Depending on your budget, there are many hotels offering special Christmas lunch/dinner during Christmas week.. Shangri La, Goodwood Park, Fullerton, Mandarin Oriental.. just to name a few

Do check out their websites and make a reservation before hand. Do head down to Orchard area to soak up the spirit of Christmas!

Hi Xuan and to the forum.

As posted above, many places do put on special meals (mainly buffet meals) over the Christmas period, although many of them are aimed towards Asian preferences.

We have moved on from Singapore, but we didn't fancy going to the British Club for Christmas dinner in our last year there as we were going there for New Year instead. We usually did the traditional turkey at our apartment (and then would fly off on holiday somewhere on Boxing Day) but 3 years ago was the first year ever that it was just the two of us and there was no point in cooking a turkey at home for two


We went on the wait-list for the Fullerton Hotel Christmas Day buffet but I wasn't over-keen as it was pretty expensive. However, we were able to get in at the Hilton Hotel on Orchard Road and we were so pleased that we did!

The Hilton had (and probably still has) an enormous all-you-can eat champagne buffet lunch at the Checkers Brasserie - we were there for about 3 hours - which has more of an appeal I think to the European/north American palate.

They had hors d'oeuvres, a carving station where you can have all the usual roast meat (turkey, beef, gammon etc.), lobster/crab/oysters etc., deli meats and cheeses with different kinds of bread and crackers, huge salad selection, soup, even a raclette station (melted cheese with small potatoes, cornichons and tiny pickled onions which is a tradition here in Switzerland). They did have Asian food too, but it was definitely more of a buffet for Western-style diets.

For dessert they had so many yummy things like gateaux, fruit crumbles/pies, different kinds of mousse, trifles, ice-cream machine which appealed to the kids and my spouse, chocolates and petit-fours plus tea/coffee etc. I honestly can't remember if they had Christmas pudding or not though.

However.....for the children they have Father Christmas in attendance (although he was a very short and skinny little Chinese guy lol!) and a children's room with balloons, a clown etc. My husband's colleague was there with his four children. We all thought it was pretty good value for money, especially compared with the likes of the Ritz-Carlton, Mandarin Oriental etc. It isn't listed on their dining page (see below) so you will definitely need to phone them to make a booking and they definitely have it every Christmas (plus Boxing Day, New Year's Day too). Best to do it ASAP as all the hotels tend to get booked out at the most popular places.

http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/sin...ing/index.html (PS. They will e-mail you the buffet menu if you ask, as will all the hotels if you contact their restaurant managers).

A friend of ours from our condo (with four children) went to the Fullerton and she said it was a disaster; it was totally disorganised and although they'd booked it weeks in advance, they got there and had been missed off the list and there was no table setting for them. They ended up in a side room with many other families and there was no atmosphere; they also had to walk some distance to get any food and they didn't think it was that much different from their usual Sunday buffets. They tried to get a discount or a refund, to no avail.

As for me...well a nice Christmas Day gift from my spouse was for us to fly off early that evening for a few days in Koh Samui, Thailand, so we had to dash back from the Hilton and throw a few things into a suitcase!

PS; Christmas Day is weird in Singapore.....not only is it hot and steamy just like it is every day of the year, almost all the shops are open (Tangs department store is owned by Christians and usually closed though). It is packed with people shopping and thousands of maids on their day off wandering around Orchard Road.

I remember our son and his girlfriend flying in from New Jersey to spend Christmas with us and they missed their flight connection, arriving on Christmas Day. Whilst the turkey was in the oven, his GF (who is Jewish and doesn't celebrate Christmas) was desperately keen to see Orchard Road as it was her first visit to Singapore. We reluctantly went trekking down there - we'd always avoided it on Christmas Day - and it was like a normal Sunday shopping day. We did see a young Chinese woman parading with a real rabbit in a straw shopping basket (!) and a huge queue of young women waiting behind a velvet rope outside the Louis Vuitton store to get the latest new handbag. I know that everyone complains in the UK that Christmas has become too commercialized there - but it is *nothing* compared to Singapore or Hong Kong!

Going off topic - another thing your family might like to join is ANZA - the Australian and New Zealand Association (yes you can join!). They have a lot of fun events and have a huge football/soccer league for expat kids which my son played in, netball too. I was a volunteer for a few years with ANZA and I found it to be less 'sedate' than the British Association...

http://www.anza.org.sg/?

We had two expat postings in Singapore and had a blast! I hope that you and your family will enjoy it there

thank you so much much baked bean and Xuan.. your recommendations have been noted.. :-))) Englishmum thank you so much for your informative post!! - How long have you been out in singapore? - 4 weeks today and we will arrive!! - Im very excited although very sad about leaving friends behind back home.. :-) I think thats one of the main things for me, finding great friends in singapore is a must.. I have such a great network of really good friends here in the UK.. I will most definitely miss them dearly!!

I'm nearly 38.. is there somewhere you would recommend from the meet up groups or other expat sites where i would benefit joining or going along to meet other friends in singapore? - ps will join that ANZA site you mentioned.. - ps if you want to stay in touch my email is <<snip>> - i will have that both here and in singapore..

Thanks again Haylee xx