Ocean Restaurant
If you have not been to Ocean Restaurant in Resorts World Sentosa for the past six months, you will find that it has gone through a sea change. Only the name and its location adjoining the S.E.A. Aquarium are unchanged as it has been transformed from a family restaurant into today’s fine-dining destination.
An extensive renovation exercise has turned the dining room into an elegant cavern supported by pillars that extend into organic lines along the ceiling. The striking blue colour reflects the aquarium’s giant water tank that lines an entire side of the restaurant.
New booth seats provide some privacy for those who seek it, while diners who like to get closer to the marine life can ask for tables beside the tank where they can watch fish, rays and sharks swimming.
There is also a private room now for six persons with one-way glass mirrors, so diners inside can enjoy the view of the aquarium.
New chef-patron Olivier Bellin, who is also the chef-owner of two-Michelin-starred L’Auberge des Glazicks in Brittany, France, is in charge of the seafood-centric menu. He has just launched his new menus priced from $148 a person for lunch and from $248 for dinner.
The chef is an advocate of sustainability, which is why he uses responsibly sourced seafood more than meat. But he does not eschew farmed animals totally.
For example, one of the new main courses is a beef cheek that is slow-cooked till tender and served with carrot, black garlic, potato mousseline and a red wine jus. What could have been a generic beef cheek dish is thrown a little off-balance by the black garlic puree, which gives the palate an occasional jolt with its intense flavour.
Other dishes, too, come with surprises, such as a grilled scallop with a bit of smoked beef amid celery foam, and a seared langoustine with apple and grapefruit paired with a curry sauce.
Some of these odd combinations may take a bit of getting used to. But one thing is certain – you are not going to be bored with the food here.
Where: B1M West Car Park, Equarius Hotel, 8 Sentosa Gateway
MRT: HarbourFront
Open: 11.30am to 3pm, 6 to 10.30pm daily
Tel: 6577-6869
Info: www.rwsentosa.com/oceanrestaurant
Cassia
Cassia’s new executive Chinese chef Alan Chan should not be a stranger to many foodies here. The Hong Kong-born chef had headed the kitchen at Jiang-Nan Chun restaurant in Singapore for almost six years before moving to Jeju, South Korea, in 2017.
He returned to Singapore in July to join Capella Singapore’s elegant Cantonese restaurant and has just launched his new menu there.
I have been a fan of chef Chan’s cooking since his last posting here, and his new creations do not disappoint. I am particularly impressed at how original the ideas are without detracting from traditional Cantonese cooking.
Take the Sauteed Italian Spinach With Truffle Oil, for example, one of the six dishes in the chef’s signature set menu ($188 a person). What appears to be a simple stir-fried spinach dish turns out to be more. The vegetable is fried with egg white and it is impressive how the chef gets the greens soft and sweet without over-cooking the egg. I find the truffle oil an unnecessary distraction though, especially since the chef shaves some real truffles on the dish at the table.
The Chilled Almond Jelly dessert is another surprise. The chef mixes almond cream with tofu and jellifies it before cutting it into long strands like noodles. He then serves it with bird’s nest with a sprinkle of crushed almonds for crunch.. You eat it with chopsticks the way you do with noodles and it is really refreshing.
Chef Chan is a maverick with Cantonese soups. The Double Boiled Chicken Soup With Fish Maw And Conpoy that comes with the set menu is the result of his latest research into the art of brewing. Instead of using a basic superior stock, he now uses a double-boiled broth as his base. No Chinese ham is added and the soup has a cleaner taste, with distinct flavours of chicken and conpoy.
Variations of his soups are also available in the a la carte menu from $18 a person.
Where: Capella Hotel Singapore, 1 The Knolls
MRT: HarbourFront
Open: Noon to 2pm, 6.30 to 10pm daily
Tel: 6591-5045
Info: str.sg/wjWe
Gyu San
Gyu San, the two-month-old Japanese butchery and sando shop at Guoco Tower that specialises in wagyu, recently added takeaway sukiyaki and yakiniku sets to its offerings.
There are three sets to choose from: Yakiniku Set ($85 for self-pick-up and $95 for delivery), Kamichiku 4% Miracle Gyu Sukiyaki Set ($88 for self-pick-up and $98 for delivery) and Premium Kamichiku 4% Miracle Gyu Ribeye Sukiyaki Set ($158 for self-pick-up and $168 for delivery).
I got the Kamichiku 4% Miracle Gyu Sukiyaki Set and it is very good value. The highlight is the 300g of thinly sliced beef from the Kamichiku farm in Kagoshima, Japan, which is enough for at least two persons. Packed into a disposable aluminium dish, what you see is only a fraction of the beef as most of it is covered by vegetables, such as hakusai (napa cabbage) and negi (green onion), as well as konjac noodles and tofu.
The aluminium dish can be used for cooking over the stove or hotplate, as well as serving. If you have a portable stove, you can cook it at the table, and dispose of everything afterwards.
The set comes with sukiyaki sauce plus eggs that are used as a dip for the cooked beef. I usually find sukiyaki too sweet, but the sauce here is seasoned just right with a good balance of savoury and sweet.
If you are going to the shop, also get an order of Gyu Katsu Sando (from $32) while you are there. The A5 wagyu steak deep-fried in panko and sandwiched between slices of lightly toasted milk bread is very good. But eat it there because it will not survive the journey home well.
Where: 01-03 Guoco Tower, 7 Wallich Street
MRT: Tanjong Pagar
Open: 11.30am to 3pm, 5 to 9pm daily
Tel: 8313-6633
