Singapore - Hits & Misses at The Royal Mail, Raffles Place

[klyeoh]

Two things I liked about Royal Mail's food: its huge, moist, very tasty gougeres, and its delightful dessert: the Eton Mess. consisting of strawberries, salted caramel, hazelnut crunch, Devon cream and meringue.

The other items at this neither-here-nor-there "English" restaurant fell into the following categories:

AVERAGE:
- Caesar salad, which consisted of pretty fresh romaine lettuce heart, bacon, shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano, poached egg (chilled!) and the dressing which seemed to be missing something (anchovies?)
- Blue swimmer crab and avocado salad, topped with trout caviar. The whole concoction seemed to be prepared beforehand and kept chilled, and came across as pretty stodgy.
- Roasted spring chicken with herbed butter, roasted new potatoes & baby carrots. I only liked the baby carrots :-(
- English roast beef with Yorkshire pudding (tasted cold & hard here, very probably cooked way beforehand and stored somewhere before being served), garlic mash, and a mix of mushy oeas and creamed corn which were pretty unimaginative.

AWFUL:
- the side of creamed spinach, topped with a sunny-side egg. This was, in one word, TERRIBLE! I failed to understand why a simple fried egg (a VERY over-fried one) had to be cooked beforehand, left till cold, before being plonked atop an overly-creamy mush. Across Marina Bay, CUT by Wolfgang Puck showed *how* this dish should be served.

Based on the overall meal experience, I'd never come back to this place again. But the gougeres and Eton Mess were really, really good. What a pity.

Address details
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The Royal Mail Restaurant & Bar
Ascott Raffles Place Singapore
2 Finlayson Green
Singapore 049247
Tel: [phone]

[Julian Teoh]

And when the hors d'oeuvres and desserts are the best parts of the meal, you know something is dreadfully wrong.

[klyeoh]

I was really, really hoping that it will turn out to be good - having a *good* British restaurant in Singapore made sense, because of our historical links - and also because London these days seemed a much more exciting culinary destination than Paris! :-)