My girlfriends and I were off to Marina Bay Sands as one (of my girlfriends) wanted to visit the exhibition on DreamWorks Animation. And thus, we decided to check out High Society before going for the exhibition. Well, that was the only café that came up in our Google search for ‘cafes in MBS’. And thus, reservation was made for 8 for a Sunday since we were a big group.

However, the restaurant was pretty empty during the course of our lunch. Although I always say it doesn’t hurt to be a little kiasu. Ha!

And from the menu (pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), we ordered:-

1) Seasonal set menu, $68 comprised of:-

(A) Choice of starter (above) – And between ‘feta cheese & tomato brushcetta’ and ‘poached scallops salad’, we went with the former (since we were getting a salad from the a-la carte menu). Balsamic glaze, toasted baguette.

(B) Soup of the day (above) – We were told the soup of the day was tomato and chicken. However, this tasted like minestrone soup. Canned minestrone soup.

(C) Choice of main (above) – Between ‘norwegian poached salmon’ and ‘pork ribs’, we went with the former. Mashed potato, market vegetables, mushroom cream sauce. Unfortunately, this fared worse than what one could easily pull off at home. We certainly were not impressed.

(D) Desserts (above) – With a choice of cupcake, we went with raspberry red velvet cupcake. Otherwise priced at $6 each if bought a-la carte. And this was too dry.

(E) Drink -With a choice of a glass of red wine, white wine, tea or coffee, we went with peppermint tea.

2) Truffle aioli fries, $12 (above) – Truffle oil, parmesan, mayonnaise.

3) Crab cesar salad, $23 (above) – Romaine lettuce, anchovies dressing, herbs, croutons, cherry tomatoes, shaved parmesan. At $23, this was hugely overpriced. And the crab was not fresh as there was a strong fishy taste.

4) Seared foie gras, $26 (above) – Caramelised apple in cognac, butter. Did not really like this. I guess some stuff are better when it’s treated less. Or less treated. Foie gras are better pan-seared. The caramelised apple made the entire dish too soggy.

5) Breakfast galore, $23 (above) – Bacon, ham, veal sausages, cherry tomatoes, house salad, toast, scrambled eggs.

6) Duck confit, $28 (above) – Mashed potato, market vegetables, mushroom cream sauce. Well… On the same duck leg, certain portion were moist while certain portion was dry. However, this was consistently salty.

7) Seafood laksa, $27 (above) – Scallops, baby tiger prawns, spiced laksa sauce. I could only say this was overpriced. We had actually expected more.

8) Blueberry cheese cake, $9 (above)

9) Casanova, $12 (above) – And of all the dishes we tried, this would be my favourite. Made mostly of dark chocolate mousse.

Will I recommend High Society? I am sorry but no. A strong no, in fact. We were very disappointed. While much effort were put into the (posh) interior decoration, the food just failed to deliver. I won’t say the food was horrible or inedible. Rather, the food was way overpriced. When I dine out, I at least expect to be getting our money worth. They could have fared better in presentation / plating and quality of the food. One could easily pull together the dishes at home and yet fare better than what was served at High Society. I kid not.

Service was bad too. We were not informed by the staff that water was chargeable. We only reaalised it when when we were paying and saw it on the receipt. And of course, it was then did it finally made sense to me as to why the staff was going through the hassle of topping up our glasses with those small pots instead from a big jug. And although the restaurant was pretty empty, it was very difficult to get the attention of the staff. Even with the buttons on the table which we could press to call for the service staff.

The only consolation my girlfriends and I had was that we had some Groupon coupon to use. Unfortunately, we did not save much cause we couldn’t use the coupon to offset the set menu.

Related posts:

High tea @ Lime High tea @ Anti:dote High tea @ The Clifford Pier High tea @ Axis Bar and Lounge High tea @ Chihuly Lounge