WHEN lawyer-turned-chef Willin Low first started Wild Rocket, it was generally seen as an eatery serving a contemporary Western menu with Asian accents. There were a handful of East-West fusion dishes, notably the laksa pesto and crab linguini in a chilli tomato cream, which really got him noticed.

Two successful years into the restaurant scene, and with spin-offs like Relish which is a gourmet hamburger joint, chef Low is steering Wild Rocket more confidently in his self-described 'modern Singaporean' track.

So much so that the new dishes he's added to the menu are distinctly Singaporean-Asian in nature and flavour. He definitely has a knack of creating fusion flavours that work, and the new dishes are very appealing, for sure, to the Asian palate - even if they are a tad on the sweet side.

Among the creations, one of the more innovative dishes was the starter of salmon carpaccio with wasabi oil and ebiko ($11.50). Thin slices of salmon lined the round plate, decorated with pencil-line squeezes of mayonnaise and sprinkled with the Japanese seasoning of sesame seeds and seaweed. My dining companion and I weren't big on salmon, but we scraped the plate clean in this instance since the blend of tastes and textures were spot on.

Two of the new main dishes were also good, but sweet. The rigatone with slow-braised dark soya pork ragout ($22) had thick, tubular pasta well coated with a creamy pork ragout although the sweet dark sauce was the predominant flavour. For a perkier option, the spicy conpoy and dried shrimp spaghetti with baby scallops ($22) can well be called 'hae bee spaghettini' for short. The extra-thin spaghetti was thoroughly mixed with a spicy dried shrimp paste, which wasn't unlike a hae bee-filled XO sauce. If you're a hae bee hiam person, it's a dish that's guaranteed to have you making repeat visits to Wild Rocket.

Meanwhile, for those who want to try something that's less robust, there's the roasted Chilean seabass, sitting on a bed of congee, and appetisingly topped - like chwee kueh - with chai poh confit ($32). The diced and sauteed chai poh (preserved salted radish) jazzed up the white fish and light porridge. The dish's concept does work very much like the popular breakfast fare as the main ingredient is white and soft, providing a comforting foil for the sweet-savoury crunch of radish.

Fans of chef Low's duck leg confit will be happy to know that he's been persuaded to retain that dish, serving the duck with a bed of yam cake instead, and accompanied with dashes of pommery mustard sauce ($28). It is rich - because the yam cake is also panfried - so a full serving of the dish could be overwhelming, we thought.

As for dessert, it was yam paste 'orh nee' style ($9.50), though a much lighter version of the Teochew version, which we quite enjoyed, especially as it was layered with flaky pastry. It was well-matched with coconut ice cream. Another remake of favourite local desserts is the roasted black sesame 'soup' topped with vanilla ice cream ($8). Here, the black sesame is finely blended and grainy, although - again - a touch too sweet.

Wild Rocket is a modern Singaporean restaurant that gets fusion right, and it has amassed a loyal following of diners in the process - a nifty accomplishment indeed for a non-formally trained chef.

Wild Rocket
10A Upper Wilkie Road
(S) 228119
Tel: 6339-9448
Rating: 6.5/10

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