Celebrate the Year of the Dragon at Mandarin Orchard Singapore with a string of prosperity set menus and festive delicacies that will delight your senses!

The festive menu is available from 13 January to 6 February 2012.

For orders and enquiries, please call 68316285/62 or email mandarincourt.orchard@meritushotels.com

Do read on to find out what we thought of some of the dishes available as part of the Chinese New Year menus.

Salmon & Crispy Fish Skin Prosperity Toss

$68 for 2-4 persons, $108 for 8-10 persons

Highlights of the menu include signature creations such as the Prosperity Salmon Yu Sheng. I enjoyed the lightly battered fish skin that remained crispy despite all the dressing and tossing. Instead of peanut oil or corn oil used typically in Yu Shengs, their rendition comes with extra virgin olive oil and spring onion oil that add fragrance and depth. Other than that, the rest of the ingredients and the overall taste steer close towards the conventional, with a traditional plum sauce.

You may add additional ingredients such as salmon, lobster and abalone at $18, $48 and $68 respectively.

Baby Abalone Fortune Pot

($368 for 5-8 persons, available for takeaway)

The headlining dish would be the Baby Abalone Fortune Pot, filled with an abundance of scrumptious ingredients. Other than the eye-catching abalone, notable co-stars include dried oyster, pig trotter, roasted duck, live prawn, sea cucumber, goose web and drunken chicken, all soaked in a delicious gravy with the accompanying dried scallop, black mushroom, ‘Tientsin’ cabbage, carrot, black dace, gluten puff, black moss, pacific clam, Chinese sausage and shark’s fin. The unembellished bite-sized chunks of yam are something I couldn’t get enough of.

An option of dried scallop in replacement of shark’s fin is offered, and I appreciated the fact that Mandarin Orchard Singapore takes into consideration the sustainability of our natural environment.

Steamed Sea Perch with Yunnan Preserved Vegetable

Served after the Fortune Pot was the Steamed Sea Perch with flaky flesh as white as snow, sitting in a pool of clear broth, and crowned with Yunan Preserved Vegetable. On a positive note, the fish was not overdone and this dish was light on the palate.

‘Typhoon Shelter’ Roasted Chicken with Minced Black-bean, Garlic and Almond Flakes

I enjoyed the crispy skin with crunchy bits of almond flakes, and the aroma from laksa leaves from the ‘Typhoon Shelter’ Roasted Chicken dish. The chicken meat, however fragrant it is, lacked moisture.

Stewed Fish Noodle with Conpoy & Enoki Mushroom

A healthier alternative to carbohydrate-loaded noodle dishes would be the Stewed Fish Noodle with Conpoy and Enoki Mushroom; its ‘noodles’ are made of fish meat – with texture remarkably springy – although it tasted a little bland without the sauce.

Bak Kwa Nian Gao

$50.80, available for takeaway

For someone who avoids Nian Gao for its distinctive sticky texture, Mandarin Orchard offers an ingenious creation of Bak Kwa Nian Gao that impresses. Incorporating bits of tender Bak Kwa, the Nian Gao is further enriched with a light egg batter that coats around the Nian Gao before frying, adding fragrance and textures.

Red Bean Soup with Green Tea Dumplings

The meal comes to a closure with the Red Bean Soup with Green Tea Dumplings. Personally, I’m not a fan of beans, but I enjoyed the rich and sufficiently thick consistency of the soup that isn’t too sweet. The Green Tea Dumplings disappointed me – as I was anticipating some form of fillings within – although I appreciated the inventive infusion of green tea into the dumplings.

The festive menu is available from 13 January to 6 February 2012.

For orders and enquiries, please call 68316285/62 or email mandarincourt.orchard@meritushotels.com

 

Note: This was an invited tasting.