Restaurant Week Recon - Hakka-Sad :(

I have been waiting to try Hakkasan ever since it opened, and finally got my chance to do so this Restaurant Week, without blowing a hole in my pocket. I was super excited to try a sampling of their menu offerings, and starved myself all day in eager anticipation.

The ambience of Hakkasan can be summed up in one word – it was very BLUE. I was honestly a little jarred by the electric blue lighting, which in an attempt to be trendy, felt a bit like a (very expensive) fishtank. The lounge-y music didn't do much for the dinner experience either, it was too loud and thumping. I’ll grant that service was very professional and just what you’d expect from a schmancy place like this.

Electric blue Hakkasan

Before coming here, I’d read what the menu was going to be and must confess that I was more than slightly disappointed with their selection. Sure, I’m a huge fan of dim sums and fried rice, but I expected a little something more creative from here. Anyway, we decided to give it a go.

The hot and sour vegetable soup I started with was very tasty. A little on the gelatinous side, but felt good on the throat. The sweet corn chicken soup however, tasted just a little tooooo sweet. They'd overdone the corn bit, so it was more like corn soup. It was decent, but nothing special.

Vegetarian Hot and Sour Soup, Sweet Corn Chicken Soup

Our starters consisted of chicken shu mai, chicken xiao xing, and crystal dumplings. Each was served with a cute little bowl of very delicious red chilli oil. The shu mai was good, but no different from what you'd get at Royal China or anywhere else. The caviar it was topped with was overpowered by the taste of the chicken.

Chicken Shu Mai with Chilli Oil

The aptly named almost transparent crystal dumplings were exquisitely prepared. It made for a good light bite, and went well with the chilli oil.

Crystal Dumplings

The xiao xing was the clear winner - crispy on the outside, tender and mildly flavoured on the inside, with a special brown sauce that brought out the flavour very well. This dish was clearly the highlight of the meal for me.

Xiao Xing Chicke

I was frankly disappointed with the main course. Egg fried rice and hakka noodles? It’s hard to innovate with something so standard. Anyway, the fried rice was whatever - I mean, how different can it possibly be? They had used a lot of egg yolk in it, which made it a little yellower, but otherwise, it was no different from anywhere. And the hakka noodles were pretty "meh" too. In fact, I thought it was a little too dry.

    

The San Pei claypot chicken was very well flavoured, however, very tasty, in a sweet soya like sauce and lots of red chilli.

San Pei chicken clay pot

The steamed snapper was delicious, too and had a very interesting sauce- spicy yet not mouth burning, very flavourful. A good one, though we had to fight a little for a slightly larger portion!

Red snapper in Assam sauce

Dessert was excellent. The strawberry and dark chocolate sorbets were fantastic, but the peanut butter one was delicious too. Their white chocolate mousse is a must try- airy and not oversweet.

White chocolate mousse

I'm going to go out on a limb here say my experience here was lukewarm. While the food was good, it was definitely not excellent. I wonder if their specialty menu is any better – I sincerely hope so, because I do want to give them a second chance. Service was very good and polite, but unfortunately a smiling waiter doth not a Michelin Star experience make.

Restaurant Week Recon - Oriental Twist

Having been to Koh once before in my life, I knew that this would be a prime opportunity to get the same great experience I’d had here the last time- except maybe a bit cheaper!

The ambience is everything you’d expect from a classy hotel like the Intercon- purple funk – dim lighting, trendy music, a private dining section. Service was a little impersonal, but polite beyond reproach. It was also VERY efficient, like the most efficient I’ve seen in a long time!

Koh, at the Intercontinental Hotel

It was another 10 ‘o’ clock seating, so we were justifiably starving. The menu was exciting and had a lot of variety. We began with an amuse bouche (French – Amuse the Mouth) – a spinach leaf “dumpling” stuffed with assorted steamed vegetables and soaking in a light soya sauce. It was steaming hot and very delicious. Our “bouches” were indeed amused.

What accompanied the dumpling, however, was infinitely more interesting. Served in a tiny little cup, a hot steaming tom kha soup, which had been exquisitely flavoured with corn and the mild taste of coconut. It was absolutely delicious, and a very nice, light start to the meal. A good combination, the soup and the dumpling.

Spinach dumpling and coconut and corn tom kha

 We were pleasantly surprised when our server told us, while ordering our main course, that we did not have to choose from their non vegetarian and vegetarian choices– each individual dish on those lists was in fact part of an entire meal that included about four “sub dishes”. We were very happy to order one veg, one non-veg, and one laksa meal.

Each course was served to us almost immediately, which I was very thankful for. Both the vegetarian and non vegetarian meals offered raw papaya salad, green curry and jasmine rice. The difference was the non vegetarian meal had as its showstopper a poached fillet of sea perch soaked in lime and chilli oil, whereas the vegetarian meal had the the rather ordinary spicy stir fried vegetables.

Green curry with chicken

The rice was artfully packed into a leaf, served with a generous portion of the green curry. The sour-sweet raw papaya salad was fresh and delicious, and went well with the smooth, mild flavoured curry. The genius of the menu planning was evident – all the flavours brought out the best in each other and were delicate, rather than overpowering, which I find to be the case with a lot of Pan Asian places.

Jasmine rice and raw papaya salad

Even the laksa - which I'll be honest here, was more like kaukswe- was delicious! Not overly peanut-ty, served with a variety of condiments, and a large bowl full. Very tasty.

Chicken Laksa with condiments

The sea perch was fantastic- I think some might have complained that it was a little too sour, but I love the taste of lemon, and relished every bite. The portions were just about perfect – we managed to polish everything off without feeling hungry, but yet with enough place left for dessert!

Sea perch with lemon and chilli oil

And oh, what a dessert it was. Fruitoffee, a non conventional take on banoffee pie – which was much like a sundae, except warm. The bottom of the glass was a mixture of condensed milk and extremely salty peanut and caramel crunch. Topped off with a dollop of whipped cream and assorted fruits – this was a heavenly end to the meal, and different from the usual sorbet – ice cream, chocolate cake situation. Absolutely fabulous!

Fruinoffee sundae

Koh definitely topped my charts this restaurant week. I hope they offer us brand new awesomeness the next time round, but even if they don’t they’ve definitely got one reservation in me!