Looks like I'm the first reviewer since their big renovation.
The website is now different - same thing but .com instead. FYI.
The previous place sold it to a new owner, who is apparently a chef from Vietnam who also has restaurants in Malaysia and Singapore. So the waitress told me. They took over this business a few months ago and fully renovated it. They now serve a viet menu, as well as a new Singaporean menu.
Personally I was very excited about this place. Singaporean staples like Chili Crab are next to impossible to find in metro Vancouver. Ive been to Singapore multiple times, had chili crab at many different places, and its easily one of my favourite Singaporean dishes. So expectations were high.
When you walk into this restaurant, the exterior is very unassuming like the previous place, on a nondescript strip of Kingsway. Somewhat of a rundown neighborhood too. The restaurant itself however, was renovated to look like a movie set for a colonial era British museum. Like a place to have British afternoon tea in Las Vegas. Theres an artificial vibe to it. The waitresses are dressed like flight attendants with the hat and all. The waiters are dressed more typically. Background music was a loop of acoustic versions of popular songs. Place was clean for sure, but the vibe was super weird.
All the food is served in over-the-top "fancy" dishware.
In terms of service, they try to deliver fine-dining level service. keyword is "try" but it's clear they are new at this. They try to be attentive (kind of hard not to be when theres only 2 tables dining) but they constantly interrupt the meal at bad times. like when your mouth is full, hands are dirty, and ask you how the food is. They bring you a little basket of napkins. Just a pile of regular napkins you'd get at any fast food stand, but independently folded into triangles actually giving you more work to do to open it up to use it. They also heavily pushed the Singaporean chili crab, apparently their house special, and won some kind of award in Vietnam. so the menu said. There was a promo on since they're still new, and they discounted everything off the Singaporean menu.
Ok now for the food. The chili crab. They served local Dungeness crab, which is fine. Crab was about 2 pounds, so on the small side, but tasted fresh. Classically in Singapore you would eat mud crabs but ppl love Dungeness there too. The waitress said they were in the process of importing mudcrabs from vietnam and dont have them quite yet.
The key to chili crab is of course the sauce. And this is the problem. As a crab dish in itself, its not bad. But calling it Singaporean chili crab to someone who is very familiar with authentic versions of this dish, well it doesnt work. It's at best, Singaporean-inspired chili crab. Its a lot spicier (which is fine) but lacked a lot of the flavour, umami, and sweetness in the sauce I expected. Very one-dimensional sauce which was the biggest let down. And its not a cheap dish, even with a discount. There are lots of variations to Singaporean chili crab sauce, but this is an outlier. I have a hard time believing this dish sells well at the chef's Singapore restaurant, especially if its priced like this.
I also ordered the Kang Kong Sambal. Another one of my favourites throughout Singapore and Malaysia. Basically its water spinach/On choy stirfried in Sambal. Again, the problem is the seasoning/sauce. Just salty, lacks that fermented shrimp flavour and umami it needs to have. To their credit, they only served the soft younger shoots which was nice.
We also ordered a viet noodle dish, which was fine. Not much to talk about there.
Prices for everything were very high, portions were smaller, and made you feel like the food is overpriced to cover their renovation expenses and costumes.
I asked to take home some leftovers, and they brought a container so I can pack it myself. Bit weird if you're trying to be more of an upscale place but whatever. The promo discount for the Singaporean menu does make the prices easier to accept. IMO this should be the regular pricing.
TLDR: If youve never had singaporean food, especially chili crab since its near impossible to find here, then this place is a rough approximation at very high prices with a weird "fancy" vibe. If you want authentic Singaporean food, this is not the place. If you want viet food, its fine, but there are much cheaper places in town to get that for just as good or better. read more