It’s probably the feeling that I haven’t had (non Japanese) fine dining recently that I suggested to my friend to head to Labyrinth for dinner. And I first learnt about Labyrinth fromt watching Foodporn’s Episode 5 on clicknetwork.tv.

I called twice on a Wednesday to make reservation for Thursday night. However, I was left feeling a little sad when no one picked up my call. But thankfully, the staff returned my call 30 minutes later. All (busy) restaurants should have phones with caller ID display!

And on the day we were to have our dinner, the staff called to confirm my reservation. And it’s nice that they took the initiative to ask for our dietary restriction and if the dinner was for any special occasion. To which, I was impressed that they actually paid attention to our dietary restriction. Some restaurants ask but don’t take any action. We were at the restaurant ready to have our orders taken when the staff mentioned first that the chef would replace the beef dish to fish for us. Nice.

And from the menu (pages 1, 2, 3), we ordered:-

1) Heritage, $148 comprised of:-

(A) Snack #1 (above) – Kaya + butter, rojak. And we served kaya toast with unsalted butter, you zha kway (rojak) with shrimp paste within. And I really liked the latter. Just a small piece, but it had the ‘full package’ in terms of (rojak) taste.

(B) Snack #2 (above, right) – “Sashimi”. What looked like raw fish was in fact watermelon. Served with (shredded) honeydew ‘vegetable’, rock melon ‘caviar’ and basil cream for the ‘wasabi’. Interesting.

(C) Laksa (above) – Coconut noodles, grilled oyster. Instead of a soup dish, the broth was presented in the form of powder. Which was actually presented as ‘laksa snow’ by the staff. Interesting. But I did not like the texture of the coconut noodles. It felt kinda weird. My friend thought the dish was not too bad, although it did not quite work for me, especially since I don’t like oyster.

  

(D) Duo of dim sum (above) – Squid ink “paella”. What looked like our Chinese dim sum of lo mai gai (糯米鸡) and zhu chang fen (猪肠粉) was in fact glutinous rice with squid ink, red pepper sauce and sliced squid with crab in a rich broth. And we were told to have the 3 components together. This was pretty good.

(E) Labyrinth chilli crab (above) – Chilli crab ice cream, tempura soft shell crab. This being their signature dish, we were not disappointed. We were told the plate was to represent the sea, man tou (馒头) crumbs for the sand and chilli crab ice cream as sea shells (on the beach).

(F) Siew yoke fan (above) – Roast pork roulade, “ramen” risotto. The roast pork was so good! Crispy skin with oh-so-tender meat.

(G) Fish (above) – As we don’t take beef, it was replaced with a beautifully pan-seared barramundi fish, topped with sambal and dehydrated kang kong. I felt it was their take on our local dish of BBQ sambal stingray.

(H) Palate cleanser (above) – Lime and cucumber sorbet.

(I) Hainanese curry rice (above) – Curry quinoa, chicken mousseline, coriander sponge. And within the truffle scented (black) ‘rocks’ were chicken (left) and potato (right). And this was really good. We were impressed.

(J) Palate cleanser (above) – Since this set had no pineapple rice, we were given a smaller version of it as palate cleanser.

(K) Pisang goreng (above) – Rajah banana cream. And we were told ripe bananas were mashed, mixed with gelatin, moulded back into a banana shape, coated with wheat flour before it’s deep fried.

  

(L) Local breakfast (above) – Panna cotta, mango puree, sweet balsamic sauce. And I definitely have to give it to the chef for the creativity! The creme brulee looked so much like teh tarik that I picked the cup up to drink when the staff had clearly said we would need our spoons (for the creme brulee). I had my ‘oops’ moment there. Haha.

2) Signature, $108 comprised of:-

(A) Snack #1 – Kaya + butter, rojak.

(B) Snack #2 – “Sashimi”.

(C) Pineapple fried rice (above) – Pineapple sorbet, rice crispy, turmeric custard. And we were told this Thai dish was inspired by the chef’s grandmother. And to properly enjoy the dish, we were told to mess everything up! Oh my.

(D) Duo of dim sum – Squid ink “paella”.

(E) Labyrinth chilli crab – Chilli crab ice cream, tempura soft shell crab.

(F) Palate cleanser – Lime and cucumber sorbet.

(G) Siew yoke fan or Hainanese curry rice

(H) Palate cleanser (above) – As we were served pineapple rice for the Heritage set, we were given a palate cleanser of yogurt with chocolate. Really good.

(I) Chendol XLB (above) – Gula jawa icicle, coconut & red bean soup, har gow skin.

(J) Reese’s chocolate (above) – Peanut butter ice cream, cocoa peanut “ash”.

We totally enjoyed our dinner at Labyrinth. It was an interesting experience. What one see on the plate isn’t necessary what one will be tasting. And if one come in pairs and wishes to try all the dishes, the restaurant can customise the menu. ‘Heritage menu’ consists of 8 courses while the ‘signature menu’ comprises of 6 courses. And to allow for both to have the meal at the same pace, Order for 2 sets of ‘Heritage menu’ will be placed, with the first dish and desserts replaced with that from ‘Signature menu’ for 1 of the 2 sets ordered.

And we were told they would be moving to their new premises at Esplanade in August 15 where the space would be bigger, a closed kitchen and easier parking. Which I think is a good idea. We came on a quieter night and it wasn’t very nice to be hearing the staff chit-chatting from our counter seats.

UPDATE 1: Restaurant has moved to 8 Raffles Avenue, Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, #02-23.
UPDATE 2: Restaurant was awarded 1 Michelin star by Michelin Guide Singapore 2017.
UPDATE 3: Restaurant was awarded 1 Michelin star by Michelin Guide Singapore 2018.

Related posts:

Dinner @ Restaurant Labyrinth [Revisit] Dinner @ Candlenut Dinner @ Wild Rocket [Revisit] // CLOSED Dinner @ Wild Rocket // CLOSED Dinner @ JL Studio (Taichung, Taiwan)