Archive for the ‘1.1 Hotel Restaurants’ Category

Brasserie Les Saveurs Restaurant Week Lunch 2014

November 12th, 2014 365days2play

Because I love St Regis Hotel so much, I decided to dine at TWO St Regis restaurants for Restaurant Week. Yes, TWO in the span of one week, or shall I say 5 days? But of course, this can only happen without robbing the bank, during Restaurant Week. If you haven’t heard of Restaurant Week, you should watch out for the next one in March 2015! And make sure you arm yourself with that American Express Platinum Credit Card to snag the early bird seats.

I must say I forgot to peruse the menu in my haste to secure my reservation for Brasserie Les Saveurs and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a buffet rather than the usual 3 course set meal. For $40++ for a lunch buffet at St Regis Hotel, is that a steal or what? It even comes with coffee or tea, something which most other Restaurant Week restaurants do not serve. The drink itself may be nothing to shout about, but I’ve always felt it necessary to end a nice meal with a hot cuppa, just to slow things down, enjoy the ambience and round off any remaining conversation.

Brasserie Les Saveurs Restaurant Week Lunch (4)

This was what greeted us at the front entrance, the strategically placed dessert buffet counter. A strategic move, and well played if I may say so.

Brasserie Les Saveurs Restaurant Week Lunch (8)

Brasserie Les Saveurs Restaurant Week Lunch (9)

Whenever I go for buffets, I find myself going for multiple rounds at the cold cuts and salad sections rather than the main courses. Love all those tasty smoked meats and the refreshing zesty prawn or sashimi salads.

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Yan Ting Restaurant St Regis 宴庭

November 8th, 2014 365days2play

My office is located just outside the Orchard area, which makes it sound like it’s in an excellent location. It is indeed but 5 minutes for those blessed with cars, but without one, it takes 1/2 hour to get to Orchard! So when my parents were in town and available to pick me for lunch, I had to select a restaurant befitting of the occasion. It wasn’t a difficult choice, given that it was Restaurant Week. Took the opportunity to check out Yan Ting, which is in one of my favourite hotels, the St Regis Singapore.

Yan Ting owes its inspiration to the Ming Dynasty, when authentic Chinese culinary art flourished. The words 宴 (Yan) 庭 (Ting) translates as an Imperial courtyard for a lavish banquet, where royalty and influential diners meet for a feast befitting their importance and stature.

Yan Ting St Regis (3)

I think Chinese restaurants can sometimes have decors that are a bit garish, if you know what I mean. I love Yanting’s elegant and refined look using pastel colours, with black rimmed chairs to accentuate the place. Can’t help but keep an eye on what makes for a pleasing look, now that I’m redecorating my house.

Yan Ting St Regis - Trio of Appetisers

Trio of Appetisers – Steamed pork and shrimp dumpling with black truffles, crispy beancurd roulette with shrimps and seaweed, steamed crystal shrimp dumpling with bamboo pith

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Hairy Crab season at Li Bai

October 20th, 2014 365days2play

After having been to so many restaurants in the last few years, I thought I’ve seen it all. Foie gras, Wagyu beef, caviar, sea urchin aka uni, been there done that. But last week’s meal at Li Bai Cantonese Restaurant simply blew my mind away.

I’m talking about the steamed hairy crabs I had at Li Bai. Believe it or not, it was actually my first time sampling this delicious delicacy. I’ve had crabs numerous times in my lifetime, so it didn’t occur to me to need to seek out these hairy crabs, which I had assumed all along were just merely crabs with a slightly different flavour.

Li Bai Sheraton - Traditionally Steamed Hairy Crab (2)

Traditionally Steamed Hairy Crab $60 per piece

The flesh of the hairy crab is not that different from the usual crabs we get in Singapore, albeit sweeter in taste. But the piece de la resistance, the crème de la crème if you will (pun intended), is the hairy crab roe. Alas, I do not have a picture of the glistening golden roe, because for once I was too busy savouring its sublimely rich taste to remember to capture a picture of it.

This hairy crab roe is unlike any other crab roe I have ever tasted. It tasted saltier than usual, almost like a salted egg yolk. But unlike the one dimensional salted egg yolk which is mainly just salty, the hairy crab roe brought about a savouriness that made it taste 100 times more magical than a salted egg yolk, or other crab roes for that matter.

I wanted to utter something to my neighbouring diner, but I’d noticed that the private room we were in was enveloped in a hushed silence the minute the crabs were served, with only the clicking of spoons to crab being heard. Forget about etiquette, it was every man and his crab for himself.

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Shima Restaurant at Goodwood Park

October 11th, 2014 365days2play

I love going to Goodwood Park Hotel. It exudes a nostalgia of bygone eras and was also one of the hotels I was seriously considering as a venue for my wedding. So it was without hesitation that I accepted the invitation to check out the newly renovated Shima Restaurant. In case this sounds familiar, yes Shima Restaurant has been around since 1980! It is in fact Singapore’s first fine-dining Teppanyaki restaurant.

The restaurant was previously opened by Katsuhiro Watanabe, a former Singapore resident who has since retired and back in Japan. Last year, JR Foods bought over Shima Restaurant, hence the facelift, which now sees Shima Restaurant downsizing from a double storey restaurant to a single storey one. To be frank, I didn’t know about the existence of Shima Restaurant until the invite. Apparently my parents have dined at Shima once more than 10 years ago, and spent a bomb there! Come to think of it, Goodwood Park has TWO Japanese restaurants, the other one being Tatsuya.

Shima Restaurant - 4 Kinds of Sashimi Moriawase $45

4 Kinds of Sashimi Moriawase (Maguro, Tai, Yellowtail and Salmon) $45

We were there to check out the Sukiyaki set, although we did get a chance to sample the sashimi and teppanyaki as well. First up, the sashimi moriawase set, that had all the bloggers oohing and ahhhing at the voluptuous slices of raw fish. You can really taste the freshness in the fish, in addition to the more pronounced and slightly sweeter flavours. Those salmon sashimi slices were hands down, my favourite item of the evening. If only I didn’t have to share this with 2 other bloggers!

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Afternoon tea at W Singapore Sentosa Cove

July 27th, 2014 365days2play

When you think of what to do at Sentosa, you think of the sun, the sand and the sea. Yes there are plenty of beach activities to enjoy at Sentosa, but there are also quite a number of luxury and relaxation options too. One such option is to have afternoon tea at the new W Hotel on the Western side of Sentosa.

Of course, afternoon tea options are aplenty too on mainland Singapore, but you will see that W Hotel Singapore’s W T Time aka Drop the Ts presents many small surprises. Chef Matthew Woolford has taken care to put in creative touches such starting with the whimsical use of the birdcage to house the sweet items. We are told the inspiration stems from days of yesteryear where people would bring their songbird cages to the park. I believe you can still find that happening in parts of Chinatown.

W Singapore T Time - Afternoon Tea at W Hotel Singapore (2)

Well there’s all the sweet treats laid out on an open birdcage. Don’t mind the Partner there photo-bombing my photo.

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