Ms Skinnyfat

I'm appreciating chinese food a lot more these days (maybe it's an age thing) and i was thoroughly wowed by Chef Tony Wun, new Executive Chinese Chef of The St. Regis Singapore, when i sampled his exquisite 8 course set menu at Yan Ting ($168/pax). It was dish after dish of Cantonese food deliciousness which brought Chinese fine dining to the next level.

We had the Shanghai style smoked fish which had a char siew smell to it and even tasted a little like pork with that nice char on the outside. 

The other 2 appetizers were on the bland side but i guess they paved the way to heavier tasting dishes. Here's the cucumber with olive oil and the marinated jelly fish with scallion oil.

Next, the nutritious Double-boiled sea whelk soup with black garlic served in teapot ($28/portion). The soup was so sweet and full of goodness from the black garlic. I've never tasted a garlic this sweet before. And i loved the presentation of this one!

Available on the a la carte menu as well is the Macau-style oven baked pork ribs and barbecued pork neck ($14/portion), a lightly spiced umami morsel. It's a pity we had so little of this.

The pork neck was slightly crispy and had this char siew sweetness that penetrated the meat. It left me wondering how the full flavor was infused without the typical dark honey soy crust appearance. I do prefer this cut of pork as it wasn't too fatty and had a nice bite to it.  

I prefer my fish in fillet form as i find whole fish rather intimidating. However, once i had a taste of the Steamed yellow fish with preserved vegetables and minced ginger, i momentarily forgot my fear and disgust and cleaned the meat off the bones. Fresh fish should always be steamed to retain its sweetness and then lightly flavored with a ginger sesame sauce. The preserved vegetables (mei cai) was a perfect match for the seasoning as well.

Another dish included in the Signature Creations set is the pan-fried lobster and scallops in teriyaki sauce but we didn't get to taste that. Instead, we had the Cantonese style stir fried Australian Wagyu Beef ($68/portion). The crust appeared deceivingly dry and the meat turned out to be super tender with a bulgogi flavor to it.

We were all looking forward to the Sea urchin fried rice with fish roe but found a pittance of dryish nuggets of uni. Boo. :( The uni flavor wasn't strong as well and i could detect a hint ammonia (what i would associate with low grade uni). The fried rice was actually pretty good discounting the uni issue. It would do well as a scallop fried rice as there was plenty of the shellfish. In fact, even the crunchy bits you see are deep fried scallop! Throw in that XO chili paste and you'll have a great scallop fried rice.

Another dish that blew my mind was the Braised mushroom with dried scallop. Just look at that amazing presentation! Honestly, if a blind taste test were done on this one, most people would think that it's an abalone. Oh and that sauce was ZOMGWTFBBQ good. 

To end the meal, we had the Ginger milk pudding ($12, waiting time of 20mins). I checked with Chef on the difference between 炖奶 and 撞奶 (the one we had was the latter). 炖奶 or those sold at Yee Shun, and Australian Milk Company is steamed/double boiled until the pudding sets. 撞奶 however, uses a setting agent to achieve that curdy texture. Of course 炖奶 has higher nutritional content and the texture is a lot softer, silkier and smoother but it's also very tedious to make. Well, anyway, the pudding was very yummy still. Think of it as a ginger panna cotta. I liked that it's not too sweet but it could certainly do with a little more ginger.

What can i say? I think i've found my favorite Cantonese chef in Singapore. <3 

Yan Ting

The St. Regis Singapore. Level 1U. 

29 Tanglin Road, Singapore 247911

Tel: +65 6506 6887