Wan Hao, Marriott Hotel

I had been hearing aplenty about this Wan Hao from friends.

The food on the whole is not bad. Service was lousy. That's as simple as it can described. From the reception to the delivery of menu, it started off on a bad foot. Yeap, a bad foot. The manager at the reception didn't look interested and we were ushered in with the Golden 60s menu with the waitress at the border of confusion when I asked about the a la carte menu. To someone who is visiting the restaurant for the first time, it would appear that the Golden 60s menu is all they have. While I understood that it happened to be the current promotion for the restaurant, haven't they heard of options? Maybe it's just me.

sliced Yunan ham enveloped in vegetable wrap topped with crab meat and roe in egg white gravy

a close up

Seriously hard pressed to find the sliced Yunan ham in this one. This dish was expensive and unremarkable. It tastes exactly as it looks.

wok fried egg with shredded fish maw, crab meat, dried scallops and bean sprouts topped with crispy dried scallops

deep fried spare ribs with fresh strawberries & Grand Marnier sauce

The fried ribs were not too bad. Not excessively greasy and I could taste the strawberries from the sauce. Nothing from the Grand Marnier though. On the other hand the sauce also looked and tasted suspiciously like jam. Pretty sweet.

stir fried bean curd sheet with fresh mangoes, pineapples and mixed capsicums

crispy boneless chicken coated with almond slices in a light tempura batter with orange liqueur sauce

This was very fried chicken crusted with the sliced almonds. The supposed light tempura batter tasted like regular fried chicken batter. Perhaps I wasn't discerning enough to tell otherwise. The orange liqueur sauce was refreshing - came with diced orange pieces. There was citrus tanginess that I liked. This dish did also appear to be, an upmarket variant fried lemon chicken. Not saying that it is. Just that parallels can obviously be drawn if you strip away the almond slices and replace orange sauce.

cashew nut paste with peanut tang yuan

This was pretty good. Portions are pretty damn small too. Not one of the better cashew paste I've had though. Pretty sure the $2 ones in Chinatown tastes as good if not better. Comes in larger portions than this too. Hotel restaurants.

chilled black glutinous rice with soursop ice cream

The combination was actually not bad. Whom would have thought, black glutinous rice and soursop ice cream.

some lotus paste pastry

This was possibly one of the worse desserts I've had. No appeal to this for me at all as dessert.

There's a whole lot more options from the menu which we haven't tried. I'm also of the opinion that the mark of a good Chinese restaurant does not have to stem from sharks fin, expensive fishes and abalone. This first visit definitely left me with little desire to come back again. I'm not saying that's definite. I could just give it another chance and try something else different from the menu. For now, this was one unanimous agreement at the table on a mediocre dining experience. Shame on that.