This dinner was to celebrate Dad's birthday earlier in the month. KopiKosongGirl and I have been tempted by photos of food there and thought we shall make a trip "up to the mountain" to try it.
Talk about mountains and hills in Singapore, it's probably the only county in the world that has quite a few "mountains" and yet each "mount" is lower than the famous Bukit Timah Hill!
The food at Wild Rocket is like a fusion or rojak of all things we locals like to eat 'campur' the European, Japanese, Thai, Filipino etc style of food. Chef calls it 'Modern Singaporean'.
All these mixing and campuring taste rather good! Wondered how long his team experimented with the tastes.
It's always nice to start with some warm bread.
Our parents decided to order from the ala carte menu, while the two of us decided to order the set menu. We were tempted by the different things that we could try from the set menu.
From the ala-carte menu:
Blue Swimmer Crab Congee Soup with Egg Emulsion. ($16.50)
Dad ordered this I think he saw the word crab. It's a congee, the watery type that most of us grew up eating. The porridge has settled below. The stock was very rich though with a hint of porridge. The blue swimmer crab and prawns in it were nice. We wished for more crab though. ;-)
Mum ordered a mesclun salad but did not arrive but we did not ask about it because we were busy tasting each other's starter. We only realised it half way through the meal.
Iberico Pork Char Siew with Shanghai Kao Cai and Quinoa ($38)
From a list of dishes from the Mains, mum chose this. She would usually choose fish, but we were surprised she ordered this instead.
The dish came covered with a piece of soften rice paper. So unexpected and so 'fun'! You get to unwrap your dish!
The chef has used Iberico Pork to make delicious Char Siew. They certainly made good use of the fine ingredients and this was very good. It was very fragrant. Does not really taste like the char siu we would expect from the regular 'shao la' stall, but there's something in it that was quite addictive.
How interesting to serve it with quinoa too!
300 day grain-fed Black Angus Ribeye with pioppino mushrooms and truffle sabayon. ($45.80)
We were not surprised that Dad will order this. He always order beef and we know he can't 'tahan' not eating it. Dad loved it and he thinks it's worth it too.
It's interesting how they serve the steak. Totally hidden below was I think the mash potato.
From the Set Menu:
The set menu has 2 choices each for the Starters, Pasta, Main and Sweets. Since there were two of us ordering the set menu, we got to try everything! Woo hoo! We tried Chef Willin's 4 Course Menu that was $65.80 each.
Starters:
Adobo duck with onsen-style quail egg, truffle mash and baby spinach.
Very interesting starter isn't it? A hint of Filipino cuisine in starter. The adobo has been cooked till all the vinegar that was used have evaporated till there was no hint of vinegar. KopiKosongGirl liked it.
Soft centred quail eggs and truffle mash. Quite a delicious appetizer it was!
Bombil 'tofu' fish tempura with japanese curry and pickle.
Bombil is also known as Bombay Duck which is not a duck! It's a small lizardfish. Don't ask me what is that, I just know I have never tasted it and this was fried till crispy and I can eat the whole thing!
The plating is interesting with lil dots everywhere.
We were quite intrigued by the little flower plant on top! So delicately done!
The curry sauce is very familiar, just thicker and the yellow cubes are the familiar yellow pickles.
Taste wise, think of McNuggets with Curry Sauce, but push it up 10 levels!
Pasta:
Nori tsukudani spaghettini with arabian white prawns
KopiKosongGirl remembered the aroma that filled the air when the dish came out. The prawns was so fragrant. A clever use of nori that has been simmered in mirin, sake, shoyu and sugar. It's not that salty and it goes so well with the skinny spaghetti.
A bit like furikake over rice. We would want to replicate some of this at home so that when we are hungry we can just boil some pasta and mix it all in. Yummy!
Chicken and pumpkin thai curry ravioli
It's like eating flat wanton with pumpkin thai curry over it. Not very spectacular, probably because the spaghetti was way much nicer.
Main:
roast red snapper with otak otak sauce and baby brussels sprouts
The fish was nicely done and the sauce below tasted just like otak otak! KopiKosongGirl did not waste a bit of the sauce and polished it off.
They seem to like to hide things below their protein ya? LOL
quail with 'tom kha' style coconut cream and black rice.
It's probably the smallest poultry drum stick ever. It's like that in other restaurants too. Quails are so small! I am quite surprise that the was meat to bite in this quail. Usually they are dry and almost meatless.
The quail was resting over a pool of galangal infused coconut cream. On the side was a jelly cube that if I remembered correctly green tea.
See! More hiding! The black rice below the breast portion of the quail. It's or chok bee!
Interesting taste and texture. Or chok bee was a little 'liab liab'. Hehe.
Sweets:
Sugee cake with burnt gula melaka and coconut ice cream.
I don't remember eating any sugee cake since a little kid. I would say I can't appreciate it. Maybe because I am not Eurasian. I think Eurasians love their sugee cakes!
Interesting how our tastebuds have travelled all over! Look at the list of ingredients and the various styles of cooking!
White chocolate lychee martini tart with brandied cherry
The wife's kind of dessert. She loves alcohol laced food! The brandied cherry looks quite cool eh?
I think this is worth a try if you come here.
More desserts:
We also ordered other desserts. We saw on the menu dark lava chocolate gateau. It comes with either banana flambe or milk ice cream. We had the banana flambe.
Dark lava chocoalte gateau with banana flambe. ($13.50)
If you are wondering why the cake and banana is at the corner of the plate, see the full picture below.
Plating lah.
We suddenly remembered what cooking teachers always tell us. Put a cake on plate, a big fancy one, then dust come chocolate or sugar over it, you can charge more for it and no one will complain. LOL!
The lava flows... yummy.....
Wild rocket chendol ($13.80)
OK, the most expensive chendol we have ever tasted. It's quite yummy and addictive though. Served in a tall big glass, the 4 of us had our long spoons digging and digging the different layers.
When KopiKosongGirl booked the table for 4 over the Internet, she asked if she could order any special dessert. There was no reply, but we asked via Instagram to the chef if they can make black forest cake.
It was just for fun and guess what? Chef Willin is super. He asked his pastry chef to make these special black forest cakes!
This was really delicious black forest cake. Cherries that was soaked in brandy that Dad and the wife says so so shiok. All the ingredients of a true black forest cake but just a different 'assembly'.
We think they should permanently place this in their menu! Don't you feel like having some now?
Most of us have been to to the various top restaurants in Singapore. If you are a resident of Singapore or visiting Singapore, you should try this 'modern Singaporean' food at least once. The service here is also quite good, very personalised.
Wild Rocket @ Mount Emily
Hangout Hotel
10A Upper Wilkie Road
Singapore 228119
Tel: +65 6339 9448
Hours: check them at: http://www.wildrocket.com.sg/reservations.html
Talk about mountains and hills in Singapore, it's probably the only county in the world that has quite a few "mountains" and yet each "mount" is lower than the famous Bukit Timah Hill!
The food at Wild Rocket is like a fusion or rojak of all things we locals like to eat 'campur' the European, Japanese, Thai, Filipino etc style of food. Chef calls it 'Modern Singaporean'.
All these mixing and campuring taste rather good! Wondered how long his team experimented with the tastes.
It's always nice to start with some warm bread.
Our parents decided to order from the ala carte menu, while the two of us decided to order the set menu. We were tempted by the different things that we could try from the set menu.
From the ala-carte menu:
Blue Swimmer Crab Congee Soup with Egg Emulsion. ($16.50)
Dad ordered this I think he saw the word crab. It's a congee, the watery type that most of us grew up eating. The porridge has settled below. The stock was very rich though with a hint of porridge. The blue swimmer crab and prawns in it were nice. We wished for more crab though. ;-)
Mum ordered a mesclun salad but did not arrive but we did not ask about it because we were busy tasting each other's starter. We only realised it half way through the meal.
Iberico Pork Char Siew with Shanghai Kao Cai and Quinoa ($38)
From a list of dishes from the Mains, mum chose this. She would usually choose fish, but we were surprised she ordered this instead.
The dish came covered with a piece of soften rice paper. So unexpected and so 'fun'! You get to unwrap your dish!
The chef has used Iberico Pork to make delicious Char Siew. They certainly made good use of the fine ingredients and this was very good. It was very fragrant. Does not really taste like the char siu we would expect from the regular 'shao la' stall, but there's something in it that was quite addictive.
How interesting to serve it with quinoa too!
300 day grain-fed Black Angus Ribeye with pioppino mushrooms and truffle sabayon. ($45.80)
We were not surprised that Dad will order this. He always order beef and we know he can't 'tahan' not eating it. Dad loved it and he thinks it's worth it too.
It's interesting how they serve the steak. Totally hidden below was I think the mash potato.
From the Set Menu:
The set menu has 2 choices each for the Starters, Pasta, Main and Sweets. Since there were two of us ordering the set menu, we got to try everything! Woo hoo! We tried Chef Willin's 4 Course Menu that was $65.80 each.
Starters:
Adobo duck with onsen-style quail egg, truffle mash and baby spinach.
Very interesting starter isn't it? A hint of Filipino cuisine in starter. The adobo has been cooked till all the vinegar that was used have evaporated till there was no hint of vinegar. KopiKosongGirl liked it.
Soft centred quail eggs and truffle mash. Quite a delicious appetizer it was!
Bombil 'tofu' fish tempura with japanese curry and pickle.
Bombil is also known as Bombay Duck which is not a duck! It's a small lizardfish. Don't ask me what is that, I just know I have never tasted it and this was fried till crispy and I can eat the whole thing!
The plating is interesting with lil dots everywhere.
We were quite intrigued by the little flower plant on top! So delicately done!
The curry sauce is very familiar, just thicker and the yellow cubes are the familiar yellow pickles.
Taste wise, think of McNuggets with Curry Sauce, but push it up 10 levels!
Pasta:
Nori tsukudani spaghettini with arabian white prawns
KopiKosongGirl remembered the aroma that filled the air when the dish came out. The prawns was so fragrant. A clever use of nori that has been simmered in mirin, sake, shoyu and sugar. It's not that salty and it goes so well with the skinny spaghetti.
A bit like furikake over rice. We would want to replicate some of this at home so that when we are hungry we can just boil some pasta and mix it all in. Yummy!
Chicken and pumpkin thai curry ravioli
It's like eating flat wanton with pumpkin thai curry over it. Not very spectacular, probably because the spaghetti was way much nicer.
Main:
roast red snapper with otak otak sauce and baby brussels sprouts
The fish was nicely done and the sauce below tasted just like otak otak! KopiKosongGirl did not waste a bit of the sauce and polished it off.
They seem to like to hide things below their protein ya? LOL
quail with 'tom kha' style coconut cream and black rice.
It's probably the smallest poultry drum stick ever. It's like that in other restaurants too. Quails are so small! I am quite surprise that the was meat to bite in this quail. Usually they are dry and almost meatless.
The quail was resting over a pool of galangal infused coconut cream. On the side was a jelly cube that if I remembered correctly green tea.
See! More hiding! The black rice below the breast portion of the quail. It's or chok bee!
Interesting taste and texture. Or chok bee was a little 'liab liab'. Hehe.
Sweets:
Sugee cake with burnt gula melaka and coconut ice cream.
I don't remember eating any sugee cake since a little kid. I would say I can't appreciate it. Maybe because I am not Eurasian. I think Eurasians love their sugee cakes!
Interesting how our tastebuds have travelled all over! Look at the list of ingredients and the various styles of cooking!
White chocolate lychee martini tart with brandied cherry
The wife's kind of dessert. She loves alcohol laced food! The brandied cherry looks quite cool eh?
I think this is worth a try if you come here.
More desserts:
We also ordered other desserts. We saw on the menu dark lava chocolate gateau. It comes with either banana flambe or milk ice cream. We had the banana flambe.
Dark lava chocoalte gateau with banana flambe. ($13.50)
If you are wondering why the cake and banana is at the corner of the plate, see the full picture below.
Plating lah.
We suddenly remembered what cooking teachers always tell us. Put a cake on plate, a big fancy one, then dust come chocolate or sugar over it, you can charge more for it and no one will complain. LOL!
The lava flows... yummy.....
Wild rocket chendol ($13.80)
OK, the most expensive chendol we have ever tasted. It's quite yummy and addictive though. Served in a tall big glass, the 4 of us had our long spoons digging and digging the different layers.
When KopiKosongGirl booked the table for 4 over the Internet, she asked if she could order any special dessert. There was no reply, but we asked via Instagram to the chef if they can make black forest cake.
It was just for fun and guess what? Chef Willin is super. He asked his pastry chef to make these special black forest cakes!
This was really delicious black forest cake. Cherries that was soaked in brandy that Dad and the wife says so so shiok. All the ingredients of a true black forest cake but just a different 'assembly'.
We think they should permanently place this in their menu! Don't you feel like having some now?
Most of us have been to to the various top restaurants in Singapore. If you are a resident of Singapore or visiting Singapore, you should try this 'modern Singaporean' food at least once. The service here is also quite good, very personalised.
Wild Rocket @ Mount Emily
Hangout Hotel
10A Upper Wilkie Road
Singapore 228119
Tel: +65 6339 9448
Hours: check them at: http://www.wildrocket.com.sg/reservations.html
