New Majestic Restaurant, Singapore

The highlight of my trip to Singapore was dinner at the New Majestic Restaurant, a newly refurbished restaurant serving modern Chinese cuisine.

We had the degustation menu:

1. Salmon tartare with sake sauce.

The best way to describe this would be chopped up sashimi in a sake sauce. This was served in a small glass dish surrounded by chipped ice, accessorised with an elaborate leafy plume.

2. Sharks' fin soup with crab meat.

Very few restaurants in Singapore serve sharks' fin soup as a thick broth nowadays. More commonly found are the clear double boiled versions - perhaps to emphasise the authenticity of the soup. But this was served the way I like it, thick, starchy, yet smooth and exquisite, and chalked full of crab meat!

3. Braised tofu with seaweed

This dish seems very popular in restaurants in Singapore nowadays. This would be the third time I've eaten braised tofu with seaweed on this trip. Again, very well done.

4. Wasabi prawns + peking duck with foie gras.

By far the most memorable dish. Wasabi prawns, too, seem to have taken over restaurant menus, as with salted ducks' egg yolk prawns. This was served with a singular prawn topped with a creamy mild wasabi sauce.

Accompanying it was the coup d'etre of the night: peking duck with foie gras. I love the shine of a perfectly roasted duck - so rich and moisturizing and lovingly oily. This was served a single sliver of duck skin on top of a slice of pan fried foie gras. It was the perfect combination: the crunch of the crispy duck skin melting into soft bed of foie gras - I think my tongue went a bit crazy for a while. And to balance out the oiliness, a little cluster of jelly fish had been thoughtfully hidden underneath this divine concoction. Perfect!

5. Braised lamb chop with chinese carrot cake.

This was an unusual combination. Chinese carrot cake (or chai tow kuay) is hawker food, usually found in markets or homemade, but not typically served in restaurants. Chubby Hubby (below) had waxed lyrical about this chinese carrot cake, so I was quite looking forward to this course. However, as it turned out, the carrot cake tasted like mum's carrot cake, and I found the combination of braised lamb and carrot cake a tad strange - I'm not sure what was the thought process behind this marriage frankly. But taken individually, very well done indeed.

6. Mango pudding with bubur hitam.

Conclusion:

There were obviously a few stars of the night, but generally not spectacular although every dish was consistently well done. So what really stayed in the memory was a) the chef's culinary perfection, and b) the modern chinese fine dining experience.

Chubby Hubby also has a great review of the New Majestic Restaurant, with excellent photos, here: http://www.chubbyhubby.net/2006/02/majestic-restaurant.html