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In all honesty, the Dining Room at the Tanjong Beach Club in Sentosa is a restaurant that I would come back week-after-week; The service, the ambience and most importantly, the unique proposition of being located on Tanjong Beach are all ingredients for such a restaurant.
Led by Executive Chef Craig Schantz who has worked in the kitchens of Momofuku and Oceana in New York, his kitchen team serves up lunch, dinner and weekend brunch, offering a fresh take on coastal dining.
For the record, this was an invited tasting session that I attended with a friend for dinner. As of this posting, there is a post found on another food blog detailing his Weekend Brunch experience – here.
In my humble opinion, yes, the meal that we had that day had its fair share of hits and misses – that I’m not going to lie. But even the misses, were what I would categorically describe as diamonds in the rough. One hit for sure, has got to be the Maine Lobster Pot Pie which I recommend. Read on to find out more!
The meal started off with an amuse bouché of sorts – pineapple juice served in a shot glass. Nothing to shout about though. But I suppose, it fits into the theme perfectly – being a restaurant by the beach and with the intense heat in Singapore these days.
To start off our dinner proper, we ordered 2 Raw Oysters each. Accompanied by a delicious Champagne Mignoette, each oyster was plump and tasted as it should be – of the sea! At S$7 each with a minimum order of 3 pieces, these are definitely not your average orders, but trust me, they are worth every cent!
Between the two of us, we shared 2 appetizers. First up, the Warm Octopus Salad (S$19++) came highly recommended from the Filipino waitress.
Consisting of rocket, fennel, radish, cherry tomatoes and smoked paprika in a light garlic vinaigrette, this sounded better on paper than it tasted. But, you can’t expect too much of salads, now can you? That said, I quite liked having the octopus there.
The other appetizer that we shared (which was again, by recommendation from the waitress) was the Bean Salad (S$19++).
I thought that this salad, made up of market beans, cucumber, fennel, cherry tomatoes, candied walnuts, tofu vinaigrette was much better than the warm octopus salad. Perhaps, it’s just me but I like the texture and sweetness of the candied walnuts and the crunch of the market beans.
On hindsight, I guess we should have gone more adventurous with our appetizer orders instead of having 2 salads for the evening. I guess we were feeling healthy that night!
My friend had the Red Snapper Fillet (S$29++) which came served with prawns, clams, beurre blanc, chili.
HisFoodBlog raved about his serve of fish but to both my friend and myself, we thought that it was a slightly-above-average dish. By the way, what was annoying was the fact that the fish fillet had bones in them and to me, that is a big NO, NO for a restaurant to serve fish with bones. But bones aside, my friend commented that she would prefer a crispier sear on the skin.
Served table side, I had the Maine Lobster Pot Pie (S$58) which definitely gets my vote of confidence.
I loved the abundance of lobster meat in this dish and the buttery, creamy, lobster bisque-like flavours of this dish. Infused with cognac, it was no surprise then, that it reminded me of a good lobster bisque.
The moment the dish was served, the aroma of the dish permeates through the air and heightens your savoury senses. The cooking timing on the lobster was well controlled – the result being fork tender, non-rubbery pieces of meat. And the pastry (home made or not) soaked in all that wonderful flavours! *ooooooh*
I’m not sure about you, but this dish was a good fit for me. It felt like, for lack of a better description, a “me-dish”.
Seeing that we were rather full from dinner, we opted to go easy on the desserts and ordered 2 seemingly lighter desserts. We were spot-on with one, the other, well……. let’s just leave it at that.
The first dessert that we shared was the Mixed Berry Bowl (S$14++) The elements of the dessert included a raspberry lemongrass coulis, and yogurt ice cream.
We were spot on about getting this light dessert, unfortunately, the flavours of the dessert somehow did not augur well with either my friend’s or my tastebuds. A pity, it looks so good! This reminds me of the dessert that I had at Balthazar!
The Chocolate Ganache Tart (S$16++) was really really really good! It was rich, decadent and indulgent and if you’re like me (a.k.a. a dark chocolate lover), you’re bound to fall in love with this warm dessert offering! And trust me that you’ll want to order a pot of tea along for dessert!
Dining Room at Tanjong Beach Club
120 Tanjong Beach Walk, Tanjong Beach Club, Sentosa, Singapore
Tel: +65 6270 1355
Website: http://www.tanjongbeachclub.com/
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