Quantity NOT Quality

Bubbly brunch on Sundays including the surcharge works out to be 560 something RMB a person including champagne and 430 something without alcohol.... Given these prices I wish that we had chosen Hatsune, Mosto, Sureno or some other high-end dining option.

The Bubbly brunch is all about shock-and-awe. Yup, there are lobsters and crab claws, scallops and oysters but they are not cooked well, seasoned or prepared in any way. Basically everything is just boiled to hell then thrown on piles of ice. They were all so dry, poorly cleaned with grey goop in their head cavities, half frozen and tasteless. I LOVE seafood and especially crab and lobster but I only ate one half lobster and a couple of crab legs before giving up and moving to other parts of the buffet.

Nothing was very memorable... the dry eggs, pancakes, bacon and other breakfast items were yuck. The teppanyaki steak station would have been nice, as the meat was tender and good but the guy had pre-fried about 3kg of steak and foie gras and left it just sitting there on a plate, seeping in blood and getting nice and bacteria-ridden. When you asked for one, he plopped in on your plate cold, unless asked to warm it up on the grill.

There was more Indian curry than anything else and it seemed that most other parties felt -as we did- that curry wasn't very appetizing at 11:30am with champagne so that whole section seemed to get ignored.

There were about 5 salads and the cheese platter was never topped up so by 1pm there was nothing left.

Good points: The dessert station was pretty spectacular, the sashimi was fresh and delicious and the very generous Moët champagne top-ups made the day worth it.

Honestly this place is good for families with lots of kids to make it worth the money. Kids run around and are well catered to, most parents get drunk while their brats disturb other diners and for those who want a nice decadent lunch, we are left wondering what all the hype is about. One 3-4 year-old was left alone for 10 minutes to pick up shaved ice from the ice bucket and ram it down the neck of the Moët bottle with his snotty little fingers which the server was then using to top up people's glasses. When we pointed this out to the server, she giggled.

I would never go back again, I used to go to the St Regis champagne brunch and remember it being better but then again, my friends who had been to the Westin in the past also said that the food used to be much better and the buffet much bigger so perhaps this was just a case of quality gone downhill. Whatever the reason, all 6 of us had really upset stomachs for 2 days after eating there and the general consensus was that this rip-off was all quantity and no quality.

P.S. I am not sure if this review should be for Zen5es restaurant in the Westin or not because the directory listing does not mention the Westin Bubbly Brunch.