Dinner @ Wild Rocket [Revisit] // CLOSED

October 9, 2018 in Asian, Mod Sin

With my meal at Wild Rocket, it certainly would seem I gone Mod-Sin crazy because it’s my 3rd Mod-Sin restaurant within 2 months. The other 2 restaurants being Restaurant Labyrinth and JL Studio. And the reason behind my visit to Wild Rocket was because they are closing permanently by end October. Now… I am not one who succumbs to dine at the restaurant just because they are closing. But I do like to have another meal if my previous meal at the restaurant was memorable or if the restaurant is high on my to-try list. And in the case for Wild Rocket, it’s the former.

The other pull factor was… When news of the closure came up, many started posting of their memorable dishes at Wild Rocket. In particular, Wild Rocket’s laksa pesto which almost everyone was gushing over. Since I didn’t have that dish in my 2015’s visit and I read that Wild Rocket’s menu would be showcasing current and past favourites (including the laksa pesto), I got my IGGF (InstaGram GirlFriend) to head down with me.

Reservation was made through a 3rd party website, Quandoo. And to secure our reservation, I was required to input my credit card details.

My IGGF and I arrived at the restaurant on a Friday night. But imagine our surprised shocked faces when the staff said our reservation couldn’t be found in the system. After a check against the email confirmation that I received from Quandoo, we realised I booked for Saturday instead of Friday. Oh, my, goodness. But thankfully they had a table for us. Phew.

My IGGF and I decided to go with the 9-courses from the menu (pages 1, 2). And with that, we started our 9-courses ($125) dinner with:-

1) Bread, Complimentary (above)

2) Dish #1 (above) – Bah chor mee; Tuna belly negi toro & glass noodles.


3) Dish #2 (above) – Giam chye ar; Duck & mustard green consomme with foie gras tortellini.

4) Dish #3 with options of:-

(A) Pomelo salad (above) – Thai pomelo salad with tiger prawns & frozen coconut dressing.

(B) Kaki fry (above) – Japanese oyster with tom kha gai coconut galangal sauce.

5) Dish #4 (above) – Char kway tiao; Thinly sliced cuttlefish noodles stir fried with kwong who hing sauce.


6) Dish #5 (above) – Salted egg crab; Spanner & blue swimmer crab with salted duck egg.

7) Dish #6 with options of:-

(A) Hokkien mee (above) – Fresh spaghettini, ebi miso, shio konbu & tiger prawns.

(B) Laksa pesto (above) – Laksa leaf pesto linguine, tiger prawns & quail egg. I’m sorry but this was… Average. We couldn’t quite understand the raves unless it’s no longer as what it was previously.

8) Dish #7 with options of:-

(A) Dish #7 (above) – Snapper amok; Red snapper Filipino laing braised taro leaves & Cambodian amok curry.


(B) Dish #8 (above) – Ter kar chor; Black vinegar iberico pork jowl with pickled cabbage & chestnut puree.


  

9) Dish #8 (above) – Lychee; Lychee sorbet with lychee martini gummy, ginger flower, elderflower.

10) Dish #9 (above) – Chendol; Pandan panna cotta, cocout ice-cream, gula melaka honey comb, azuki.

It was a nice dinner, although it wasn’t impressive enough for me to strongly recommend one to quickly snap up the remaining slots that’s left of October. With that said, I still have to give chef-owner Willin Low the due credit and respect; When he first opened Wild Rocket in 2005, it’s almost like he is the father-of-Mod-Sin-cuisine as he was the pioneer.

And should one miss Wild Rocket after it shut down in end October, one could still head over to Relish. Else, one could even have a taste of chef Willin’s Mod-Sin cuisine overseas. He’s opening a casual dining restaurant (Roketto) this December in Hokkaido, Japan, and a Southeast Asian noodle concept bar in Hualien, Taiwan.

WILD ROCKET
10A Upper Wilkie Road, Hangout Hotel, Level 1, Singapore
6339 9448, Website, Facebook
Overall: 7
Opening hours:-
Food/Beverage: 7
Tues– Sat : 12:00 – 15:00 (Lunch)
Ambience: 7
Mon – Sat : 18:30 – 22:30 (Dinner)
Value: 7
Service: 8
* Closed on Sun

Dinner @ Labyrinth

July 21, 2015 in Asian, Mod Sin

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 #1Kaya + 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 sumSquid ink “paella”.

(E) Labyrinth chilli crabChilli 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.

LABYRINTH RESTAURANT
5 Neil Road, Singapore
6223 4098, Website, Facebook
Overall: 8
Opening hours:-
Food/Beverage: 8
Tues – Fri : 12:00 – 14:00 (Lunch)
Ambience: 7
Tues – Sun : 18:30 – 22:30 (Dinner)
Value: 8
* Closed on Mon
Service: 8

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.