Haute cuisine, haute price

Bonta Italian Restaurant & Bar
207 River Valley Road, 238275
#01-61 UE Square River Wing
Tel: +65 6333 8875

The recent price inflations in the Singapore dining scene can roughly be divided into three phases – what I like to call the French wave, the Japanese wave and the casino wave. The first wave probably started about 10 or so years ago, wrought by the classical haute cuisine places like Le Saint Julien and Saint Pierre and characterized by a marketing gimmick called the degustation menu. At the time you were looking at paying $150 - $180++ for these fancy meals. Then about 5 years ago the top Japanese places started muscling in on the high-end market, with their kaiseki and omakase dining, and the magical 200-dollar psychological barrier was broken. Suddenly, thanks to places like Akashi, Shiraishi and Goto, the price point for fine dining got pushed up to $200 - $250++, and in the boom years of ’06 and ‘07 $300++ was not an uncommon sight. Finally, last year, the casinos opened, and brought with them the high-end celebrity chef restaurants. That just blew the church doors wide open and today, a meal at Kunio Tokuoka will set you back $750++.

Now of course you have to adjust all these for natural inflation, but even then the upward tick in fine dining prices is significant enough to cause the average foodie some worry. I may exaggerate a little by only listing the prices of the top-end places, but the reality of the situation is that many of the second-tier or middle-of-the-road restaurants follow the lead of these places. It used to be that your average middle-income earners could still look forward to a fancy dinner for two on birthdays and anniversaries, but the way things are going, fewer and fewer folks are going to be able to afford that luxury.

I bring all this up because of my recent meal at Bonta Italian Restaurant. Bonta, of course, is the restaurant that generated much controversy when they started doing a white Alba truffle promotion during the fall months. Now, Bonta is otherwise probably considered an above-average Italian eatery, with prices slightly on the expensive side but nowhere near those of the places mentioned above. But September through December of 2009 they offered what they called the Ultimate Indulgence Menu – a six course feast incorporating sinful amounts of white truffle and Beluga caviar – which they priced at $1000++. Yes, that is the per-person cost, before wine and taxes. It was, naturally, immensely popular and has since become an annual affair, but also caused much consternation among foodies for breaking new ground price-wise.

In any case, I finally visited Bonta for the first time when we took several business associates visiting from Japan there. It is a charming space, if rather narrow, with deceptively high ceilings and dark, lustrous velvet curtains beside a ruby red wall motif. We were seated in the smaller private room, which was cut off from the main dining area and as a result, quiet throughout dinner; or should I say, only as noisy as we were ourselves.

One of the must-tries at Bonta is their famous goat cheese soufflé bread. This is an incredibly light roll that comes in a cup, but which has risen to twice the height of the cup. The goat cheese adds a decent flavour, but the true quality of this bread lies in its impressive crumb structure and texture. Large pockets of air, wispy grain, and pillow-soft to the bite – it was all I could do to stop at one.

(Note: the secret to creating such bread lies in a few factors. Yeast is very important. In Singapore, you cannot get fresh yeast, so the handling of your dry yeast must be spot-on to achieve light, voluminous bread. Yeast is most effective between 30-35 degrees Celsius, and must be given time to grow, so where and how long you proof your bread is key. Then you have to be very careful with the water you use. Hard water inhibits yeast growth, which results in dense bread; but if the water is too soft it prevents the formation of flour gluten, which you need for a crumbly texture and good bite. Finally, you have to mould your dough cross-grain, in order to create that wispy effect. There is clearly a skilled baker at work in the Bonta kitchen.)

We had deep fried zucchini flowers filled with mushroom ragout to start, served over rocket (arugula to some of you) and I was silently glad. Despite the little I had heard about Bonta I was half expecting another one of those frou-frou places that uses its food to make a statement – whether about the chef’s cooking philosophy or some other exalted ideal. What I found at Bonta was simple, uncomplicated, yet very refined Italian cooking – the kind that I associate more with New York City than Italy, really, but the kind that I absolutely adore.

Our second course was angel hair shrimp scampi, to which the chef recommended adding sliced chili padi. An unusual twist, but not so unusual once you find out that Chef Luca, prior to coming to Singapore, spent five years in Jakarta (and can speak Bahasa Indonesia), and loves spicy food. The pasta itself I thought could have been done a little better, but the addition of chili padi gave it an interesting kick which elevated the dish. It was, however, a twist not recommended for persons with palates unused to spice, as our Japanese associates quickly bore testimony to.

The main course was bistecca alla fiorentina, and Chef Luca had prepared a huge haunch of meat. He explained that the beef he used came from Chianina cattle, a large and muscular breed of cattle prized for its high quality. Again, the beef was simply done – olive oil, lemon, balsamic – and I could not complain. We also had a side of goose leg confit, which I thought particularly well done. Traditional confit calls for curing the meat with salt before cooking, a step which some actually omit. Salting it preserves it for longer and adds flavour, but dries out the meat, so you have to be quite careful with this step. Chef Luca had done a wonderful job.

To accompany dinner we drank a Tignanello (vintage unknown) that we had brought – the drinking of which by any sane measure should constitute an occasion. But later in the night we moved on to a 1999 Tua Rita Redigaffi, which was so sensational that nobody could go back to the Tignanello. Redigaffi is 100% Merlot, which makes it an anomaly amongst the Super Tuscans, but I felt it married the brio of Tuscan terroir with the stateliness of Merlot wonderfully. It had an intoxicating bouquet and was a huge wine, rich and velvety and very sensual.

So at the end of the night the food bill came to around $1000 for the seven of us, which was rather reasonable I suppose. The other reason why fine dining is so expensive in Singapore, which I failed to mention before, is because everything has to be imported, and Bonta – like many other places which emphasise quality and authenticity – is very guilty of taking this to its natural extreme. All the key ingredients, the cheeses, the balsamic vinegar, even the beef – are imported from Italy. Not only do you pay for transportation, but – especially for the fresh ingredients – you also pay a premium for processing and proper storage of the ingredients so that they remain fresh and suitable for use.

Bonta aside, at the end of the day, are such prices worth it? And even if they aren’t, what can the consumer do about it? Precious little, I’m afraid. Sooner or later these price increases will trickle down to the casual eateries and the mom-and-pops. I only hope that by then, my wages will have seen a corresponding increase!

Mobile uploads - food lomo

Calling for teams to compete in chili cookoff!

It was inevitable. One of my favourite events of the year when I lived in DC was the annual chili cookoff that my friends and I organised. If there was one thing better than a hot, spicy bowl of red in the dead of winter, it was getting to eat many spicy bowls of red all in the same sitting. That's why I loved the chili cookoff. That, and the daytime drinking.

So even though it's not really right for it in Singapore - I'm bringing it back! Chili cookoff in January, y'all - see the flyer below for more info.


We are now looking for participants to compete in the Chili Cookoff. If you think you make a mean chili and have the cojones to prove it in the heat of competition, please email chilicookoffsg(AT)gmail(DOT)com for more information. You can enter individually or as a team of up to 5 members.

We are also looking for judges! If you’re from Texas and enjoy a good, spicy bowl of red, please also get in touch with us at the email address above and tell us exactly why you deserve to be a judge for the event. If you don’t have Lone Star heritage but want to be a judge, by all means write us too, but you should at least know the difference between real Texas chili and the crap that passes for chili in Cincinnati.

Let the trash-talking begin!

A restaurant by any other name...

Chin Lee Restaurant
Block 115 Bedok North Rd, #01-285
Singapore 460115
Tel: +65 6444 5554

What is a restaurant, anyway? Does it have to have white tablecloths, and fancy cutlery? Does it have to have waitstaff? Or bricks and mortar, for that matter? If it is just – a la Janette Desautel in Treme – one chef pushing her large portable grill around, is it any less of a restaurant if it puts out good, honest food that people enjoy and come back for?

I struggled with this question during lunch today at Chin Lee Restaurant. Despite the name, Chin Lee is most decidedly not where you would expect to find a “restaurant” as you understand it. Located at the void deck of a block of flats, it nevertheless has unequivocally modern trappings, even if the décor is a mishmash of garish colours and uncertain influences. (Winnie pointed out what seemed to be a Chinese watercolour ripoff of Monet’s Water Lilies – or “Chinese impressionism” as she put it.) I can only hypothesise that the place had to have grown from humble beginnings in that void deck – expanding and improving to its current, air-conditioned settings.

Karen had recommended this place for its excellent Teochew fare, and we all trooped there for a well-deserved lunch after our tree-top adventure at the nearby Bedok Reservoir. After all that scampering and ziplining we had built up quite an appetite, and I think even the waitress was shocked at the amount of food we ordered.

I will readily admit that I don’t know much about Teochew food, except for the usual ubiquitous dishes – hae zho, steamed pomfret with salted veggies and sour plums, etc. But the Teochews, along with the Hainanese and the Cantonese, qualify as one of those dialect groups who love their food, are fiercely protective of their own cuisine, and know quality when they see it. A good Teochew restaurant – or one that has, like Chin Lee, built up a staunch following – seemed certain to promise much.

We started off with two quite delectable appetisers – pork jelly and fish maw soup. The former was pig trotters boiled down to gelatin, then frozen along with solid pieces of braised pork, into a jelly. This was firmer than some versions I’ve had elsewhere (suggesting the use of lecithin or some other emulsifier) but was nonetheless quite tasty. The fish maw soup – like all soups in Chinese restaurants – came woefully underseasoned, which was invitation enough to douse it with black vinegar and pepper. There wasn’t enough fish maw, and despite a strong (to quite strong) shot of black vinegar, the soup lacked the kick I expected.

The rest of the food arrived thick and fast – and disappeared with similar speed. The pomfret was nice and light (but cooked too long, I felt), and the hae zho, while one of the larger versions I’ve seen and containing large water chestnut pieces, was just this side shy of the version at Joo Hing. The tofu with straw and button mushrooms came in a rich, silky sauce that made my heart ache for some white rice to eat it with.

Special mention must be made of the coffee pork ribs, which were beaten and tenderised to the right point – enough not to present a difficulty eating them, not too much that it lost its chew. They were also flavoured wonderfully, showcasing the smoky, bitter tang of coffee. I tend to shy from ordering this dish because while it can be excellent if done well, the potential for disaster is high and I have had some pretty terrible versions of this dish. Chin Lee gets it right on the money, for my money.

The fried mee sua and luo han zhai were flat notes in an otherwise enjoyable experience, and by the time it came to dessert I was tapping for mercy. I still pulled my shit together to take a bite of orh nee, though. Now, I like orh nee (yam paste), a Teochew dessert classic, and I would venture to say that many others do. But it’s become one of those dishes that I continually taste and reject. I think subconsciously I have built up this idealised notion of the perfect orh nee – I’m not sure based on what, even – and every version I taste now can never come close. Every time I eat orh nee I always wind up pushing the bowl away, often empty, and saying it was good, but not great. I don’t know what it is I’m looking for in orh nee. Hopefully someday I will find it.

The version at Chin Lee is – you guessed it – good but not great.

It is hard not to call Chin Lee a restaurant. What else could you call it? An upscale hawker stall? A swanky coffeeshop? After eating at Chin Lee I am more and more swayed to the belief that if you put out hot, piping food and have people clean their plates and ask for more, then you can call yourself what you damn well please.

A room with a view - wasted

Si Chuan Dou Hua
80 Raffles Place
#60-01 UOB Plaza 1
Singapore 048624
Tel: +65 6535 6006


I believe strongly that the design of any place should incorporate its greatest and most distinct assets. In the case of Si Chuan Dou Hua @ UOB Plaza, this is the spectacular view of downtown Singapore. Along with that is the wondrous natural light that it gets, being at the top of one of Singapore’s tallest skyscrapers and – unlike other restaurants closer to the ground – bathed in sunshine that is unfettered by the collection of other buildings around it.

Unfortunately, the designers of this place chose to hide these assets behind a labyrinth of thick walls. Granted, these walls are of dark, sensual teak, and very good to look at in their own right, but one can’t help feel cheated after travelling 60 floors – via two elevators, three if you come from the basement carpark. I expected a grand view, and I didn’t get it. The windows are aesthetically well designed too, but ultimately not enough to let in the light, and inexplicably fitted with blinds and framed with cross sections.

For the crowd that the restaurant targets, though, it might make the most sense. I imagine that the restaurant serves mostly the business lunch crowd – who want to feel cocooned away in private rooms, with only occasional reminders of the heights they occupy. Indeed, the perimeter of the restaurant – the areas with the most access to the view and the outside light – had largely been set aside for these private rooms, leaving the inner chambers of the restaurant with little natural light and without an inkling of the tremendous view that lay beyond those teak walls.


I was at Si Chuan Dou Hua recently for a workshop, after which they fed us with dim sum. I have to say, the dim sum here is surprisingly very competent. One wouldn’t expect a Sichuan restaurant to be well versed in what is a primarily Cantonese genre, but I found out that the chefs (Malaysian) had trained in Hong Kong, and you can’t get much closer to the source than that.


The pastries that I tried – a pancake of chicken floss and a seafood sesame bun – were exquisite, and the pastry itself was first-rate. Working in my line I have begun to develop an appreciation of the possible highs and lows of texture, of crumb structure and of mouthfeel that bakers can accomplish – and I can say that the chefs at Si Chuan Dou Hua know what they are doing.

Because prawns are an integral ingredient in so many dim sum staples, exercising care in the choice and use of this ingredient is paramount. The ones used at Si Chuan Dou Hua are juicy and succulent – especially in an excellent beancurd skin dish – and if they had ever been frozen, I certainly could not tell.


There were a couple of missteps, though. The dan dan noodles came in a sauce which was all heat and no flavour. Spice is well and good if it accentuates, or imparts flavour, but to numb the tongue and not offer a reward with that shock is just cruel. Another disappointment was the house beancurd. I bought a couple of orders to take away, and – conscious of the importance of consuming them “fresh” – sat down to eat it at the earliest opportunity. But the beancurd was not as smooth as some versions I’ve eaten, and also came in a syrup that was not sweet enough by some distance. It was actively disappointing, and for a restaurant that references beancurd in their name, quite a letdown indeed.

Of pedigree, and tradition

Roland Restaurant
Blk 89 Marine Parade Central, #06-750
Tel: +65 6440 8205


There are people for whom eating is a fad. For these people, it is important to keep up to date on the moving and shaking in the restaurant scene, and try the new restaurants as soon as they pop up. I, however, place myself squarely in the opposite camp. I like to search out the old restaurants – the ones that have been around for ages, the ones with tradition. In the restaurant business, time is the greatest arbiter of quality. You can’t keep customers coming back through good times and bad, if you didn’t put good food on the table. You just can’t. Don’t get me wrong: to suggest that just because a restaurant has been around for a while, their food will necessarily be spectacular is questionable logic at best. But you can’t go very wrong.

Roland Restaurant is one of those restaurants in Singapore that have pedigree up the wazoo – Chef Roland is from the family who used to run the famous Palm Beach Seafood Restaurant along Upper East Coast Road. This was back in the days when Upper East Coast Road was literally along the coast, before they reclaimed some land and built the ECP. Palm Beach was one of the several seafood places along that stretch, which all started from the same humble beginnings – in attap structures with zinc roofs, providing good food in mosquito-infested, “al fresco” settings. You have to drive down that stretch to get to my house, and I remember trundling down that road as a kid in the back of my dad’s beat up Datsun 1207. As I grew up, the restaurants slowly left one by one, to make way for condos and fancy residential developments. (The only one left standing today – Hua Yu Wee – is still going strong, in that beautiful colonial bungalow-on-stilts of theirs. I always mean to go back there, but the word on the street is that the quality has taken a tremendous dip, and so I am afraid of ruining my impression of the place.)

In any case, Palm Beach eventually closed for good, but Chef Roland eventually trained at the famous Sin Leong Restaurant. When Chef Sin Leong decided to hang up his wok, he left the restaurant to his disciple, who renamed it after himself. To this day, they are in the same, quirky location – at the top floor of a multi-storey carpark in Marine Parade.

If being the progeny of two famous franchises isn’t enough, consider these additional titbits: the family that ran Palm Beach Seafood is widely credited with inventing chilli crab – a dish that has now achieved ubiquitous, “national dish” status in Singapore. Also, Chef Sin Leong, Chef Roland’s mentor, was one of the four “heavenly kings” of the culinary world back then who created yusheng – the raw fish dish that is a must at Chinese New Year dinners now. Put all this together, and it is like saying Roland Restaurant is like Man O’War, Citation, Secretariat and Ruffian all rolled into one. I struggle to think of another franchise with as much pedigree as this one.

In any case, we got together for Sophia’s farewell the other day, and it fell to me to suggest a place. I hadn’t come back here in ages and, unsure of the quality, was a little hesitant about recommending it. But after considering the other options for good crabs in the East, there didn’t seem to be many other options: Eng Seng would have sold out by the time we got there, the seafood stretch at East Coast Park was a little difficult for everyone else to get to, and No Signboard at Geylang was in a pretty dodgy area. It was a good thing that Sophia seconded the suggestion, but she also cautioned that the place was sometimes hit-and-miss.

It might literally have been twenty years since I last visited the restaurant, and upon walking in I had no recollection of how it used to look like or how it had changed. What it does look like now is your standard banquet-style Chinese restaurant. For a Friday evening, it was surprisingly empty – apart from us there were only about six or seven other tables, and the restaurant was less than half full. I did a double take – surely this was not a good sign?

I needn’t have worried, because the food that Roland puts out is still – and I hate to use such a cliché but it is rather appropriate while eating crabs – finger-licking good. Roland has amassed a small array of signature dishes – culled from the history of Palm Beach and Sin Leong, and these do not disappoint. The prawns in soy sauce were succulent and flavoured well, while the braised pork ribs melted off the bone. Deep-fried you tiao came crispy and had good volume, without being too oily; and the sambal watercress was strangely addictive. The Peking duck was a little dry, and perhaps the most lacklustre of the dishes, but by then the kitchen had earned a reprieve.

And the crabs – who could forget the crabs? We ordered them two ways: in their signature chilli sauce as well as in a salted egg batter. Now, chilli crab may be a national dish, but it is one of those things that have as many variants as chefs, and nobody can agree on what the truly definitive version is. Some make it sweet, some make it spicy; some add crab roe, others add egg. Roland’s version was very good and had impressive amounts of crab roe – which I liked – but may have been a little too sweet for me, and definitely not spicy enough. The salted egg treatment was also, unfortunately, quite mediocre. The crabs themselves were meaty and fresh, though, so say what you will, but those dishes still disappeared in a flash. Li Jade was thoughtful enough to stop by even though she had eaten already – but she was unfortunate enough to arrive just as the crabs were served, so nobody paid her any attention.

Obviously, the best part of eating crabs is getting to dip mantous into the sauce and slurp it up. Roland’s mantous are bite-sized, which make them easier to handle with chopsticks, and also easier to polish off. I lost count of how many of those little buggers I ate, and by the end of the meal the serving dish with the chilli sauce was absolutely spotless.

The highlight of my night was the fried seafood mee sua at the end of the meal, to fill whatever empty spaces in the stomach you could possibly have after eight or nine courses of protein. It was fried well, had good, understated, nuanced flavour – and the noodles were very tasty.

We were there for quite a while – during what we thought would have been a peak hour – but the crowd never got larger. I felt a little sad for this bastion of the culinary scene. They’re still around, so they can’t be doing too badly, but I can’t help but feel that all the new restaurants popping up are dealing significant blows to the old ones.

My opinion may be coloured by nostalgia and love of tradition, but it isn’t too coloured that I cannot admit – Roland is not amazing. They will, sadly, not blow you away. The signature dishes are very good and very honest, but they are clearly not one of the big boys in the restaurant scene any more. From a subjective standpoint, I like Roland, and would go back in a heartbeat – because the food is satisfying and good value for money. But from an objective, professional standpoint – the place lacks the exquisite treatments of the finer restaurants around, and the oomph of the better tze char places.

As the demography of Singaporeans changes, and their tastes along with it, Roland is slowly but surely becoming outmoded. You and I from a certain generation may still appreciate their signature dishes, and the way they cook these dishes, but sooner or later more and more will beg to differ. It’s like watching Roger Federer play tennis now. He is still a wonderful player, but no longer the best, and try as he might it is only a matter of time before he is surpassed by more and more up-and-coming players. Watching him play is only going to get more and more painful for his fans – maybe not now, but surely in two or three years’ time, if he plays on for that long. The only question is – how much longer can he, and Roland Restaurant, continue to trade on their pedigree?

Walking in the Garden

Au Jardin Les Amis
1 Cluny Road
EJH Corner House, Botanic Gardens
Tel: +65 6466 8812

A very good friend of mine once said about women, “You can’t live with them, and you can’t kill them.” I think that must be how chefs think about events – corporate luncheons or dinners, weddings, rehearsals, what-have-you. For these events. chefs often have to cede some measure of creative control over the menu, and they can be quite taxing on the kitchen because large orders of the same dish have to go out all at the same time. Yet they are a necessary evil, especially for restaurants with little walk-in traffic, and on slow weeknights. You have to do them to survive.

This is especially the case for Au Jardin, at the Botanic Gardens. It is a Les Amis restaurant, which means it comes from pedigree. (To explain, Les Amis at Shaw Tower is the grande dame of Singapore fine dining, akin to a Tour D’Argent in Paris or Le Cirque in New York: it’s been around for ages and by this point is surely more institution than restaurant. Whether or not the food is good is no longer relevant.) But Au Jardin (French for “in the garden”), one of their sister restaurants, is also tucked away in the deep recesses of the Botanic Gardens, in an old colonial bungalow surrounded by lush, well-manicured greenery. Needless to say, there is little to no pedestrian footfall, unless you count joggers and bird-watchers. In a sense it is more a “destination” restaurant than anything – everyone who eats there has made a pre-meditated decision to do so. So since it’s pretty far from likely than a random jogger is going to walk into Au Jardin after his run and ask for the degustation, doing events is an absolute must.

I went for an event at Au Jardin last evening (and in the process turned down an invitation from Karen to eat beef hor fun at Kim Moh, shucks). The whole converted pre-war colonial bungalow in the middle of nowhere concept has been done before (and failed before – see Alkaff Mansion, and that other famous restaurant that was in one of the old black and white bungalows along Scotts Road, but whose name escapes me). Au Jardin hews closely to the successes of these illustrious forebears. Stately teak-on-whitewash, little ornamentation, as much natural light as possible – all great things, and all make for a wonderful setting. It’s a little formulaic, but by no means unenjoyable.

It is always a tough thing organizing events over dinner. Do you have your speeches or presentations before, during or after dinner? If you have them before dinner, people get hungry and restless. If you have them during dinner, nobody pays attention. And people tend to leave once they are fed, so you can’t have them after dinner. It’s a no-win situation. Some people do the events in between courses, but that isn’t optimal either. Unfortunately, I haven’t been to an event where this has been handled gracefully, and I don’t have any ideas. It’s a tough one, this.

The food at Au Jardin was not bad, but ultimately quite disappointing. This was not the French cooking of bars and bistros, with their heavy sauces and their often lengthy, complicated processes. This was supposedly refined French cooking, with light touches and innovative flavour pairings. And one cannot fault them for trying, I suppose. All three courses – two appetizers and a main – were well thought through, not overly complicated, and promised fine ingredients. Lobster salad with vine-ripe tomato. Seared Hokkaido sea scallop with poached egg in a truffle emulsion. Wagyu beef filet. But the thing about cooking like this is that it demands quality, fresh ingredients. I assume the sea scallop was really from Hokkaido. Now I don’t doubt that if you eat sea scallop in Hokkaido, it might be a life-changing experience. But once that sea scallop is chilled, air-freighted, and transported to Singapore – travelling thousands of miles and changing hands several times – it loses a lot of what is good and great about it. The scallop I wound up eating in the Botanic Gardens of Singapore was cooked precisely, and flavoured well, but it paled in comparison to some of the fresh seafood I have had in the past.

(Side note: I don’t know where the Wagyu beef was from. These days the term is bandied about so casually, who knows what you are getting any more? But I do know that it cannot have been from Japan, since Japanese beef imports to Singapore have been suspended since late April, due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease at a cattle farm in Japan’s Miyazaki Prefecture. In any case the beef that I wound up having was a long way short of Wagyu beef standards, and for some reason looked deceptively blood-red. I think they poured some of the juices on top of the filet to make it look red, but when I actually bit into it, it was a lot less rare than it looked. A very strange phenomenon.)

The other thing I noticed about Au Jardin was the uncannily stealthy, almost ninja-like efficiency of the waitstaff. Plates were whisked away, drinks refilled, cutlery replaced – all wordlessly and unnoticeably. I don’t know if this is a good thing – sometimes I like a little banter with my waitress (especially if she’s cute). At Au Jardin you strangely get none of that – all the waitstaff are trained to remain silent and expressionless, and to go about their duties speedily and with no fuss.

I don’t know if I would go back to Au Jardin (especially after looking at their prices online). I have no doubt of the chef’s talent, and their cuisine is one that I enjoy. It’s just that for their cuisine to work, fresh ingredients are paramount. And in Singapore – that is a little difficult. It’s still a very enjoyable place to sit down and have a meal though, and you really feel cut off from civilization even though Orchard Road is only two minutes away. I suppose it’s a good place to impress someone with, but the more discerning of companions will be able to see that you’re trying too hard.

So long, for now

Pavilion Restaurant
20 Craig Road
#01-02, Craig Place
Tel: +65 6557 2820

There are very few things I am willing to wake up early on Sunday mornings for. One of them is the practice of yum cha – going to restaurants and eating dim sum. I absolutely love doing this. Sometimes it seems that weekends wind up being busier than weekdays are – with one commitment after the other. Going for a nice leisurely dim sum brunch relaxes the mind and body like nothing else, and it is one of my favourite activities.

I got back from Sri Lanka Sunday morning at 8am after a red-eye, and any other reasonable person would have headed straight home for a deserved forty (or eighty) winks. But Victor had organised a brunch – to be his farewell before he leaves for Taiwan for a year – and it was one I could not miss. I headed home to shower and managed to close my eyes for an hour or so before it was time to head out again.

(Besides, he was buying, and I am cheap like that.)

Victor is one of my trusted foodie friends and eating kakis, and can always be counted on for good judgment when it comes to all things gastronomic. Our tastes are also quite similar in that we have an unabashed love of hawker food, and when it comes to restaurant dining we tend to prefer classical Chinese cuisine, with its soups and roasted meats. His departure may have meant just one less person in my network of scouts, but one who was a significant contributor. His presence will be missed.

He deferred to me for a choice of restaurant, and I suggested Pavilion. I had heard about it a little while ago from an acquaintance – and had wanted to wait till it had been open more than four or five months before trying it. Victor’s farewell came at just about the right time, and he was gracious enough to acquiesce to the suggestion – so off we were!

Pavilion is situated in an area with quite a bit of character, the Duxton/Keong Saik area, just a few doors down from Pasta Brava. It is pretty interesting coming here for dim sum on a Sunday because nothing else in the area – littered with bars and shady KTV pubs – is open at the time. Add that to the fact that it is smack on the fringes of the Central Business District – desolated on Sundays – and you have a restaurant that is bathed in an eerie calm as we approach it.


The inside was just as empty as the streets outside were, and for a minute we did a double-take, wondering if we were at the right place. But the restaurant soon filled up, and through our meal we saw a procession of families, groups of foodie friends – young and old alike – come and go. The clientele was decidedly eclectic, and it had the feel of a restaurant that had not come into its own yet, still finding its own gaggle of regulars.

The food surprised and spluttered in equal measure, alternating between the sublime and the shoddy. We started out really strong, with a cold dish of homemade beancurd with red cherry shrimp and century egg completely knocking me off my feet. I didn’t bother taking a photo of this since it was not much to look at, but one taste and I was reminded not to judge a book by its cover. The beancurd was soft and silky, and topped with a sauce made from century egg – so imagine white slabs covered in a gooey greenish-brown sauce. It didn’t look very appetising, but it was quite stellar.


Compared to the version at Victoria Peak, the siu yoke was at least cubed in sizeable portions, and paired with a decent Dijon. We also had a soup of crab meat and fish maw, which was very well executed. I don’t know why, and it may be just me, but restaurants never put enough pepper and vinegar in their soups. You may think it’s a personal taste thing, but I have never seen anyone drink soup from a Chinese restaurant without adding to taste. We all do it. It’s never seasoned enough when it comes out of the kitchen. Why wouldn’t chefs just adjust, and season the soups a little more? Perhaps it has now become a psychological mind-game, and chefs deliberately under-season the soups because they know diners will adjust it themselves anyway.



The dim sum dishes that we ordered were very impressive. I have to say Pavilion goes all out for some of these. Their siew mai was larger than any other version I’ve seen, and had large pieces of scallop in them – an appreciated twist. In contrast, the liu sha bao was tiny – the size of a golf ball – and despite the custard not being runny enough for my liking, was a very creditable effort. The deep fried spring rolls tasted rather ordinary, but at least didn’t taste oily or greasy.



It is right about here that the meal went downhill. We had ordered a set menu – at $78++ a very reasonably priced dim sum set menu for 4 – and rounding out the dim sum was a trio of “normal” dishes. The steamed kailan with beancurd and mei cai (preserved vegetables) was just passable, saved by the burst of umami that the mei cai gave the dish. The belly-rib “Zheng Jiang” style was battered and deep fried well, but somehow the taste just didn’t agree with me. This could be just a personal thing, for Daselin had many good things to say about the dish.



But what was severely disappointing was the wok-fried hor fun with pork and chye poh. Dry, dreary in colour, and lacking in wok hei, it really almost felt like an amateur had cooked it. There was nothing bringing together the dish, no harmony of flavours, no cohesion. By themselves, these are very cheap ingredients – rice flour noodles, strips of pork, and chye poh – and it really felt like it. I could only take two spoonfuls before I had to push the bowl away. Victor polished his bowl and joked that he didn’t like to waste food, but shook his head in disgust when I offered him the rest of my bowl to finish off.

The hor fun reinforced my innate distrust of set menus. Very often, restaurants will offer their star dishes as part of a set menu, but the line-up will invariably be rounded out with other disappointing dishes, or dishes on which they make the highest margins. At Chinese restaurants, you are almost always better off ordering a la carte.

Dessert was similarly uninspiring – two servings of tofu ice cream topped with a sesame and a lychee syrup. This place seems to really like the soybean, by the way.

Despite all that, I actually rather liked Pavilion. It is nice and cosy, and that first beancurd dish won them enough brownie points to forgive one or two misses. (Not the hor fun though, nothing can excuse that.) The service staff was efficient and attentive, and kind enough to let us stay long after the lunch hours – filling our teacups without asking.

So it is goodbye for now for Victor, and as we eventually trudged off from the restaurant there was a little sadness lingering. But we took comfort in two things: knowing that he would be back, and the fact that he could unearth more good eats in Taiwan. Consider this his overseas scouting mission, then!

Floored by fruit

One of the biggest drags for serious foodies in Singapore is the lack of fresh produce. Singapore grows less than 5% of the food it consumes, and land is so scarce that it is typically allocated to other uses than food production. Even though the agricultural parts of Malaysia may only be a few hours' drive away, something like a Blue Hill would still be next to impossible here.

I was reminded of this during a recent trip to Sri Lanka, where I was served a piece of papaya as part of breakfast. The papaya did not look all that appetising: veiny and overripe in parts while underripe in others, and I almost pushed the plate aside before something in me clicked. It may be the guilt from having too little fibre in my diet, but something made me pick up that spoon and carve myself a bite of that papaya.


Boy am I glad I did, because it was juicy, succulent and sweet beyond belief. I realised just how much eating fruit in Singapore had dulled me to the heights that fresh fruit can scale. The fruit we get in Singapore is almost always grown elsewhere, picked before it is ripe and sprayed with chemicals to retard ripening and kill pests, before it is transported here. I had forgotten just how sweet and wonderful a piece of fruit, picked when ripe and eaten within a day or two – or even hours – could be. This piece of papaya was a timely reminder.