I recently wrote about my very interesting experience at Resorts World Sentosa's Celebrity Chef Food Safari, where I sampled a six course dinner which was served over 4 different restaurants. I had the opportunity to return to sample the highlight of the RWS Food Hunt which is the RWS Celebrity Chefs Dinner at Ocean Gallery on Sept 18.
The venue is the amazing Ocean Gallery, where the backdrop is provided by a giant window looking into the aquarium.
This event featured a six course dinner prepared by six celebrity chefs, and was limited to 250 pax at $288++ per person, inclusive of the welcome champagne coctail and free flow of the evening's wines.
The quite delicious white and red wines were from Australia's famous Penfolds.
The riesling, was particularly interesting...presented rather dry to the palate than the usual sweet floral accents, and went extremely well with the evening's seafood...
We begin with Le Caviar, prepared by Chef Joel Robuchon
Served in a special Robuchon tin, presented a layer of imperial caviar over crab and coral infusion. The caviar was quite exquisite as was the luxurious crab within.
The second course was a steamed marble goby by Chef Sam Leong.
This was marvellous. The marble goby, or soon hock was steamed very lightly. This is a delicate fish with sublime flavours which is easily destroyed by over cooking or too strong accompaniment sauces. But in this case, Chef Sam managed to control the dish superbly, especially more so considering this is a banquet style event, serving 250pax in one go. The fish was cooked perfectly...very light, done just so. The forest mushroom sauce was a delight and went well.
The third course was a soup...the double boiled cordyceps flower by Chef Li Kwok Leong from Feng Shui Inn.
A hearty, very beautiful soup. Magnificent, but light flavours. And the conch meat was a great delight. The soup also contained a small piece of quail and red dates. Very traditional Cantonese soup with the twist of the conch meat. Quite superb.
Next came the slight disappointment for me for the evening. Cat Cora's slow cooked salmon roulade, Hokkaido scallop and fried octopus
I had a chat with Cat earlier that evening, and she was very excited with the slow cooked salmon . Indeed the salmon was cooked beautifully, but I cannot help but feel that this is not anymore spectacular, as this level of salmon doneness with full flavour and tender, moist meat is quite easily done via the sous vide method. The scallop was a bit overcooked, but what saved the day was the octopus. It was very crisp on the outside, yielding to the bite with a chewy interior which had a nice crunch. The sauce of shellfish emulsion, smoked aioli and sauteed garden peas were able complements to the dish.
A slow cooked beef short rib presented by Chef Douglas Tay from Osia was next
I found this dish to be quite spectacular. I had also spent some time chatting with Douglas earlier that evening...and he expounded on his love for second cuts of meat. He prefers these more difficult cuts to the traditional prime cuts like tenderloin or sirloin, because he believes meat should not melt in the mouth, but should be tender while providing a bite for one to saveur the flavour and texture. Indeed he was successful. The short rib was roasted over 12 hours, and presented as he had intended. Beautiful beefy flavours, with a nice bite while being tender. The crushed macadeamia, with buckwheat, charrd radicchio and Balsamic burnt butter provided an excellent counterpoint to the robust meat. The highlight course for me for that evening.
Dessert was the yuzu mango cremeux, gula melaka streusel, milky lemongrass sorbet prepared by Chef Kenny Kong.
This was the same dessert I had in the Food Safari, and needless to say, it is still as wonderful as the first time I tasted it.
A beautiful plate of petit fours rounded this rather special meal
Decorated with the RWS logo, and made with chocholate...this was quite heavenly. Even the decorative bits in the sculpure behind the petit fours were not only edible but supremely tasty.
Bravo to Resorts World Sentosa for pulling off such a wonderful event. A banquet for 250 guests is already quite a feat, but managing with great excellence a menu pieced together from six chefs with totally divergent cuisines is amazing. Service was superb, with absolutely everything smooth. Thanks to Matt and Khushil from Weber Shandwick for the invitations and Zhi Juan of RWS for hosting this event.
Resorts World Sentosa Celebrity Restaurants
L'Altelier de Joel Robuchon
Osia
Forest
Ocean Restaurant by Cat Cora
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