I had lunch at Lime during my stay at PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering, so by the time I sat down, I already knew what the hotel does well: it wins you over before you get to the practical parts. The greenery, the layered architecture, the slightly overachieving “hotel in a garden” energy; it all works. I wrote about that in my PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering hotel review.
Lunch at Lime, then, had one job: not ruin the mood.
It mostly didn’t.
Lime is one of those hotel buffet restaurants that understands setting better than most. The room is bright, open, and calmer than the usual city-hotel feeding zone. Officially, Lime positions itself as a modern buffet restaurant with three open kitchens and a mix of local favourites and international dishes, and that is broadly what lands in front of you. It feels like a restaurant first, buffet second, which is a compliment.
One-line verdict: Lime’s lunch buffet is strongest when it trusts its local dishes, weakest when the room gets too busy, and best approached with strategy rather than buffet democracy.
First Impressions: The Room Is Doing Half The Seduction
I like a buffet more when the room is not actively stressing me out.
Lime gets that right. There is enough light, enough space, and enough visual calm that you do not immediately feel like you are about to spend two hours power-walking between trays while pretending to be selective. Even when the restaurant starts filling up, it never feels as punishing as some hotel buffet rooms do. That matters. If the setting feels like conference overflow, I start resenting lunch before I have even touched the seafood.
What I Actually Wanted To Eat
The smart thing about Lime’s lunch buffet is that it does not depend on one giant luxury item to justify itself.
The current lunch runs 12:00pm to 2:30pm on weekdays and 11:30am to 2:30pm on weekends. Weekday lunch is currently S$58++ on Monday and Tuesday and S$68++ from Wednesday to Friday, with menu items explicitly stated to be on rotation. That price point matters because it tells you how to judge the meal: this is not an ultra-premium seafood spectacle. It is a mid-to-upper-tier hotel lunch buffet that needs to feel satisfying, not hysterically extravagant.
That framing helped.
I did one quick sweep of the room, saw the usual spread of cold seafood, Japanese station, hot dishes, carving, desserts, and decided very quickly that this was not the lunch to waste on generic buffet behaviour. In other words: I was not here to fill up on pasta and call it variety.
The Local Line Is The Real Reason To Come
What gave Lime its actual personality was the local and Peranakan-leaning section.
The official menu currently includes a seafood assortment with tiger prawns, half-shell scallops, black mussels, Pacific flower clams and whelk, plus sashimi, sushi, soba and somen. All useful. All expected. But the buffet becomes more interesting once you move to the Peranakan and Asian sections: spicy crab meat kueh pie tee, Nyonya chap chye, butterfly pea coconut rice, and rotating mains such as beef rendang, assam fish curry, itek sioh, and kari ayam kapitan. Then there are the more comfort-food buffet moves like bak kut teh, Hainanese chicken rice, mala pot, and a rotating noodle station.
That is the side of Lime that feels rooted.
The more generic international section (roast beef, truffle cream parmesan wheel pasta, mushroom soup, black pepper lamb, seared salmon) is fine, but it is not why I would tell anyone to come here. It is there because hotel buffets are constitutionally incapable of trusting their own local identity. The smarter move is to trust the dishes that actually make sense in this room.
What I’d Go Back For
If I went back tomorrow, I would not waste time trying to be fair to every section.
I would go straight for:
- the cold seafood once, not repeatedly
- the kueh pie tee
- whichever Peranakan hot dishes are on that day’s rotation
- the noodle station if the queue is civil
- local desserts before touching the generic cake table
That is the version of Lime that makes the most sense to me: less “buffet conquest,” more edited appetite.
Dessert: Save Room, But Edit Ruthlessly
Dessert at Lime is broad rather than precise.
The current menu lists a dark chocolate fountain, whole cakes like strawberry shortcake, ondeh ondeh cake and banana cake, plus smaller treats, mini pancakes, pandan panna cotta, Valrhona chocolate mousse, chendol, assorted Nyonya kueh, and bubur cha cha. That is more than enough to tempt people into making weak late-stage decisions.
My advice is simple: do not behave as though every dessert is equally deserving.
The local sweets make more sense here than another anonymous square of mousse trying to perform luxury. I would save room for the chendol, the Nyonya kueh, and anything else that feels tied to place. The rest is there if you need emotional support.
Where The Buffet Starts To Slip
Like most hotel buffets, Lime is easiest to enjoy before the room gets too full.
Once the crowd builds, the meal becomes more mechanical. You notice the lines more. You start caring whether the trays are being replenished fast enough. The whole experience shifts slightly from restaurant to buffet logistics. It is not disastrous. It is just the point where the lunch becomes less graceful.
That is why I think timing matters here almost as much as the food.
If you arrive earlier, the room feels more polished and less needy. If you arrive right in the thick of the rush, you may still eat well, but the lunch will feel more like a minor urban endurance sport.
Is It Worth It?
On a weekday, yes.
At S$58++ to S$68++, I think Lime is fairly positioned for what it offers: a good-looking room, a broad spread, enough seafood to keep buffet expectations intact, and local dishes with enough character to justify the trip. On weekends, the official lunch price rises to S$88++, and that is where I would be more selective. Bigger prices invite bigger expectations, and buffets tend to suffer when people arrive expecting revelation instead of lunch.
The best way to do Lime is:
- go on a weekday
- arrive hungry
- prioritise the Peranakan and local dishes
- do one disciplined seafood round
- edit dessert like your afternoon depends on it
Because it does.
Final Thoughts
Lime’s lunch buffet is not the loudest buffet in Singapore, and that is part of why it works.
It suits the hotel. It is greener, calmer, and more grounded than the average city-hotel buffet, and it is at its best when it leans into that instead of trying to impersonate a luxury seafood carnival. I liked it most when it felt rooted: local dishes, good room, sensible pace, enough comfort to justify a lazy lunch during a stay.
Would I go back? Yes.
But I would go back on a weekday, sit down before the room gets loud, and head for the kueh pie tee before anyone starts pretending the pasta station is the main event.
J.C. Yue is often in transit, and hotel buffets are her most reliable “in-between” meal in Singapore. She reviews hotel buffets for RERG based on what she actually ate; highlighting what’s worth returning for, and what isn’t.
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