While I have heard of Lime at the Parkroyal at Pickering, my main interest was with the form of the building itself, being an architect and all. But the boys and I decided to give Lime’s buffet a go one night, and while it wasn’t the worst, it certainly wasn’t the greatest either.

So, what’s the bad news? Well, the buffet selection is laughably limited. There are several stations: salad, bread, soup, seafood, western, oriental, and dessert. Sounds like every buffet in Singapore ever, but the thing I’m Pick-ering (ahem) on is the lack of choices within the stations.

The seafood station is reasonably well stocked, with the usual suspects of assorted sashimi, shellfish and crabs residing in that station. I was disappointed that there weren’t any oysters, but the Alaskan king crab legs did somewhat alleviate said disappointment.

The salad and bread stations were relatively unremarkable with all the usuals, and the oriental station was slightly underwhelming. While there was carrot cake fried to order on offer, there wasn’t much else there in all honesty. The soup station was an underrated star however, as there were serving up an utterly unctuous herbal chicken soup on the night I paid a visit alongside several other stellar soups.

The biggest disappointment was definitely the western station with its very limited selection. The carving station only had a beef chuck roast, and the other selections were either Oyster Rockefeller, or crispy pulled pork knuckles stuffed into a small mantou bun.

Now, what’s the good news, you might ask? While the selection was disappointingly limited, the quality of all the food on offer was undoubtedly excellent. The seafood, as well as the salmon, tuna and scallop sashimi were exceptionally fresh, the oriental food was undeniably delicious and authentic, and the three components from the western station were quite titillating.

The real MVP was definitely the dessert station. That was the one station with a healthy variety, and everything from the durian pengat to the chocolate mousse cake was excitingly enjoyable and exceptionally executed.

If you don’t mind a little less variety in exchange for quality in your buffet spread, Lime is definitely the place you want to be Pick-ering. If you’re more keen on variety, park your royals somewhere else.