TREASURE Court may be a new restaurant, but its name and menu reflects Old World China. According to the restaurant, the dishes were devised according to the literal translation of the Chinese saying - shan zhen hai wei - or treasures from the mountain and flavours from the sea.
Given owner Liza Wang's touch - there is nonetheless a contemporary touch to this Cantonese eatery. Treasure Court is Ms Wang's second venture after Mushroom Pot, a concept restaurant devoted to mushrooms. With this restaurant, the Hong Kong native can now go back to her roots.
Raised in the US, Ms Wang - whose father owned a dim sum restaurant and who always wanted to open her own place - has roped in executive chef Suen Chi Keung, a Hong Kong chef who's been in the industry for 27 years. 'What we wanted to do was to preserve the old values of Chinese cooking that will settle well with Singaporean's taste buds,' says Ms Wang, who moved to Singapore with her family over five years ago.
A sampling of dishes showed that chef Suan does a good job with the classics, and is not averse to experimenting with new ideas. The Peking duck skin for instance, was thin and crispy ($48 for a whole duck) and the double-boiled shark's bone and fish maw soup ($10 per portion) was deeply flavourful and comforting, without being too gummy.
Some exclusive dishes were easy to take to, such as the cold cut wild mushroom wrapped with beancurd skin ($8). Looking like popiah, the flavour of mushrooms filling was subtle,and could well pass off as mock ngoh hiang in a vegetarian restaurant. Another twist to a contemporary favourite was the monkey head mushroom and prawn with wasabi prawn sauce ($24). With its crunchy coating, the mushroom was a good foil to the sweetish-sharp wasabi sauce.
The baked king prawn with cheese and potato mousse was the most surprising dish, at $10 per portion, but also quite Hong Kong-like in its cheese mixed with savoury food combination. The prawn is halved in its shell, and layered with a fluffy potato mousse on top before being smothered with a mild cheese and baked to achieve a golden veneer. The result is a creamy mousse with moist, sweet prawn meat.
The beef cubes with black pepper sauce ($20) showed off chef Suen's balanced touch in blending flavours. The sauteed wild mushrooms with scallops and sliced asparagus ($24) was a mild, delicate dish. We finished with Treasure Court's variation of comfort food - fried rice covered with a thick assorted seafood gravy ($18) with enhanced richness from the use of superior seafood stock. Tasty, although we found that a good dollop of XO chilli sauce gave it more of a kick.
With its menu and set-up, it's no wonder Treasure Court draws executive diners during the week, and families during the weekend. For the quality and execution, a meal there is certainly-better than-average value and it'll give restaurants like Golden Peony a run for their money. The only thing it doesn't have is a dim sum menu. Not yet, anyway. Lunch menu sets for four start at $55++, dinner menu sets for four start at $68++.
Treasure Court #01-06/10 Millenia Walk
Tel: 6338 1160
Rating: 6.5/10
