Aloft Novena Revives Its Penang Buffet for the Summer Stretch

For Singapore residents who treat Penang as a familiar weekend escape, the cravings between trips tend to be specific. Char kway teow with blood cockles, assam laksa cut sharp with mackerel and tamarind, rojak built at the table. From 22 June to 10 September 2026, 21 on Rajah, the all-day restaurant inside Aloft Singapore Novena, is running a Kedai Penang buffet that aims squarely at those cravings, with more than forty dishes spanning hawker, Mamak, Peranakan and dessert categories on a rolling menu.

The headline draw is the pricing structure rather than the headline rates. List prices sit at $60++ for weekday lunch, $70++ for weekday dinner, and $70++ to $80++ across weekends. Layered over that are two promotions: Dine 4 Pay 2 at lunch and Dine 4 Pay 3 at dinner. In practical terms, a table of four at weekday lunch lands at roughly $30++ per person, which moves the proposition from special-occasion buffet into the territory of a workable family meal or extended catch-up.

The location matters for the target audience. Novena sits at the northern end of the Central Region, ringed by medical centres, international schools within easy reach, and a cluster of expatriate condominium stock that has held steady through the recent cooling-measure cycle. Aloft itself occupies the East Wing of the integrated development above Novena MRT, putting the buffet within a short walk of the Orchard corridor by train and accessible to families coming in from Bukit Timah, Thomson and Balestier. For long-stay residents, it is the kind of mid-week destination that does not require crossing the island.

On the food itself, the menu leans into dishes that are genuinely harder to find done well in Singapore. The Penang char kway teow is wok-fired with prawns, bean sprouts and cockles, the cockles being the detail that separates a Penang rendition from the sweeter, darker Singapore version. The chef's assam laksa is finished to order, built on a sour mackerel broth with shredded herbs and thick rice noodles, a different animal entirely from the coconut-based Katong laksa that dominates local menus. These are the items worth arriving hungry for.

Rotating specials extend the range beyond hawker classics. Kam heong mud crab, steamed whole seabass in a nonya gravy, Teochew-style braised beef short rib and grilled char siew lamb flap appear across the run, giving repeat diners a reason to come back during the eleven-week window. Two DIY stations, one for Penang fruit rojak and one for kueh pie tee, add a tableside element that works well for groups with children and for guests who want to control the balance of prawn paste, peanut and chilli in their own bowls.

Desserts follow the same brief. Chendol arrives with shaved ice, gula melaka and pandan-scented coconut milk. Durian penyet leans on Mao Shan Wang-style intensity for those who want it, and a cempedak cake threads the tropical-fruit theme into something more European in form. For families with younger children, the under-six policy is straightforward: they eat for free, while ages six to twelve pay from $30++.

The buffet is halal-certified, which broadens its reach considerably in a city where finding a halal hotel buffet of this depth is not always straightforward. That detail matters for Muslim residents and for mixed groups hosting visiting relatives from Malaysia, Indonesia and the Gulf, segments that increasingly shape Singapore's premium dining calendar. A 9 August promotion offers fifty percent off for diners wearing red and white, a National Day flourish that doubles as a useful booking trigger for the long weekend.

For foreign residents weighing where Novena sits within their dining map, this kind of long-running, well-priced regional buffet is a useful marker of how the neighbourhood is positioning itself. Aloft has played a quietly consistent role as a F&B anchor above the MRT, and runs like this one reinforce the corridor between Novena, Newton and Orchard as a viable everyday axis rather than a weekend-only one. The buffet runs daily, lunch from noon to 3pm and dinner from 6pm to 10pm, through 10 September.