Food with a View

The Marina Bay Sands is now one of the defining landmarks of Singapore.  The three iconic curved towers supports a boat-shaped SkyPark on the top that houses a large infinity pool, restaurants and a garden. As you can imagine, the views from the SkyPark on the 57th level is spectacular. Ku De Ta is one of their several trendy restaurants with a club lounge located right here on the top of the city.



Ku De Ta is a hip place which gets even better in the evenings.  The food is modern Asian.  I was here during lunch hours for a business meeting and we decided to choose the fixed tasting menu.  Our waitress was fairly attentive and the service quality good throughout.



They started us off with bowls of Edamame sprinkled with sea salt and quickly followed up with plates of California rolls and salmon sashimi  The California rolls filled with Alaskan crabmeat, avocado and cucumber were quite tasty.  So was the salmon sashimi which was served with a shishito dressing, mizuna and uni powder.



The ingredients that went into the dishes were clearly top grade. It turns out the sea salt on the edamame was sourced from Maldon Salts in England, a company commonly used by high-end chefs while the shishito, mizuna and uni came from Japan where the peppers, mustard variety and sea urchin derivative are popular ingredients.



Next came the roast Kurobuta pork belly with miso mustard which I loved.  The crispness, fattiness and tastes were perfectly done.  Some who had ordered the salmon roasted over charcoal also found the dish to their liking.  On the side were fried mushrooms with eryngii, shimeji, sake soy, and chili garlic as well as bowls of steamed akitakomachi, organic rice from northern Japan.



We ended with a dessert made of biscotti, ice-cream, jelly and strawberry salad which was not too bad.  However, now that I know the Marina Bay Sands better, I would recommend going down to the excellent coffee and pastry shop at the ground level in Tower 3 called SweetSpot.  I love the sinful eclairs there much more!



On the next day, I had lunch at the wonderful Din Tai Fung, a place I have enthusiastically reviewed before.  Long line as always, but we were seated quickly.  Along with the popular dumplings, we ordered greens, fried rice with egg and prawns, and an interesting dish of green peppers stuffed with minced meat.



We could see the chefs busy making the exquisite dumplings called Xiao Long Bao in their place of origin, Taiwan.  Each is made of a dough that is rolled and cut into precisely weighed pieces.  They are each stuffed with a mix of minced pork, herb and spices before being sealed with a minimum of 18 pleats before being steamed.





This time I had ordered a fusion version of the dumpling which was stuffed with Singapore’s famous chili crab instead of the traditional pork mince.  Turned out to be rather fun, even if I will stick to the original the next time!





The green chilli stuffed with mince was very good with a fusion of sweet, sour and spice on the palate.



Overall, this was a scrumptious meal by any account!  The fried rice and greens were all perfectly made and rounded off our lunch rather nicely.  Din Tai Fung always delights.  It is easy to see why this Taiwanese restaurant has not only survived so long but grown from strength to strength.  Interesting factoid:  Din Tai Fung delicacies can be found in the First and Business Class of Eva Air.