Kam's Roast, Pacific Plaza

This would be the much hyped about Kam's Roast (#01-04/05/06/07 Pacific Plaza, 9 Scotts Road), offshoot of the Michelin starred Kam's Roast Goose in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. Obviously, the name of the restaurant doesn't have the word 'goose' because the AVA does not allow the geese from China they are using to be imported. Geese has been replaced with duck here.

We happened to be in the vicinity looking for dinner and I decided to walk over to see if there was a crowd. It happened that there wasn't a queue so I thought I'd lay my notions of this place to rest.

By the way, I'd advise anyone interested in their shrimp roe noodles to give them a pass. If I had to make comparisons knowing where these guys came from, this was just pathetically embarrassing. Even the local Imperial Treasure beats this hands down. The portion of the roe was just sad and it wasn't worth half of the $7.80 that they charged.

So in Singapore, it's Kam's roast duck. It is understandably not in the same league as the roast goose in Hong Kong which was fattier and more flavourful. While this was a nicely done roast with tender meat, the same could be said for a number of other roast ducks in town as well. Thus the decision to use ducks might have reduced Kam's allure since we are pretty sure that we can find something similar as good elsewhere and sometimes, without paying as much. 

Kam's wanton mee was Crystal Jade standard. By that, I had meant that it wasn't on par with the ones that one can quite easily get in Hong Kong. Not the texture of those noodles nor the wanton which were not very flavourful. And the funny thing is, I hear that the noodles are imported. Hong Kong Wanton Noodle makes better wanton mee.

What was outstanding (and rather pricey) was their toro char siew. A belly cut of barbecued pork where the most of it was actually fat - the type that disintegrates in your mouth diffusing its meaty aroma along with the sticky caramelized sweetness from the glaze. One must love fat and pork to enjoy this.

I had inadvertently looked back at Kam's in Hong Kong feeling that this local shop is a 'trying to be' rather than an 'is'. For all the publicity and their unabashed eagerness to exploit the Michelin branding, I had expected better.