We recently visited The Conservatory, for their “Rasa Malaysia Feast”, which was a Malaysian-themed food banquet on offer from the 11th to 25th July.

Here’s the official marketing spiel;

As Malaysia celebrates 50 years of nationhood, Conservatory welcomes celebrity chef Ismail Ahmad and master chefs Chiew Yean Teng, Lam Teck Seong, Sharun bin Ramil and Md Zamri bin Awaludin.

They will present a range of Malaysian specialties on the buffet, spanning Chinese, Indian and Nyonya cuisines.

Diners may also enjoy performances by a Malaysian dance troupe, who will perform during lunch and dinner.

The Conservatory is one of the fine dining restaurants upstairs, at the Crown Towers end of the complex. It has a nice light decor with high ceilings and huge windows looking out onto the Yarra.

We arrived just before 1pm, and were just barely seated when the Malaysian dance troupe started their performance. They repeat it every hour, so if you miss it the first time, don’t panic.

Their performance goes for quite awhile, so we took the opportunity to head to the buffet whilst most people were still watching.

The Conservatory’s Buffet

Considering they bought out three chefs from Malaysia, I expected to recognise a whole range of exotic food - and then some - that we’d eaten last year when we were over in Kuala Lumpur.

Whilst all the food was labelled, it’s only natural to lift the lid on each dish to have a look. They should have glass lids - it would help to speed up the queues as well.

The Conservatory’s Buffet

Sadly, beyond a few token dishes, most of the offerings were highly westernised, almost to the point where if it weren’t for the malaysian dancers, we’d have assumed the promotion was already over.

There was Otak otak (steamed fish wrapped in banana leaf), some steamed dim sims, a few curries, and some braised chicken dishes.

One chef was making (pouring?) Roti on the hotplate, but it certainly didn’t resemble any roti i’d seen before - neither here nor KL.

It was basically a few token ethnic dishes so the average person can go away saying “I’ve had Malaysian today!”, but for anyone who’s actually been there and seen (and tasted) the real thing, the two are worlds (not just continents) apart.

Apart from these dishes, the rest of the offerings were pretty standard over a broad range of cuisines - just incase you decided to have lunch without knowing there was a Malaysian theme, and wanted to grab some quiche, a pie or a bowl of pasta. Or, some mussels, like Louis found.

Desserts strayed even further from the theme, with a giant chocolate fountain taking up pride of place in the middle of the buffet. Around it, various ice creams, slices, cakes and other desserts were also up for the taking.

Quite decorative and intriguing, but hardly Malaysian

Now, I did mention this is one of Crown’s fine dining restaurants, and as such, it comes with a price.

For this weekday lunch buffet, it cost us $34.90 p/p, which included a complimentary glass of wine.

Depending on the time that you visit The Conservatory, you’ll be charged a different price - from $34.90 for lunch on Mon-Thurs, to $62.00 for dinner on Fri/Sat.