藝 yì by Jereme Leung, Raffles Hotel

Quite an entrance by the 'Pale Garden' wouldn't you say? Story is, Jereme's local and has cut his teeth in various prestigious hotels. He's apparently opened more than 9 restaurants throughout the world, has spent the past 17 years in Shanghai and 藝 (#03-02 Raffles Arcade, 328 North Bridge Road) is his first restaurant here. A homecoming opening if you would.

We were told that the chopsticks represented ying (阴) and yang (阳). The black pair was for common use and the cream ones were for individual. Pretty fancy.

The kurobuta char siew was an expensive disappointment. I believe the fat was insufficiently rendered resulting in the texture of the char siew in becoming a little tough and "crunchy". Unless that was the intent of the kitchen! *gasp*. Needed more caramelization too. 

The roasted pineapple was really good though. Sweet, juicy and fragrant.

Har gow with black garlic was nice. It's almost like the shrimp dumpling had balsamic vinegar.

Siew mai weren't one of the better ones we've had. Most of the flavour came from the dried sakura ebi. The rest of the fillings tasted flat and there wasn't much of textures going on considering that there was pork, prawns and mushrooms.

Loved their braised chicken claw in black bean sauce. I'm tempted to say that this was the best of this dish I've had. Solid flavour from the black bean sauce and the extraordinarily tender claws that were slurp off the bone. The taro that came in the dish was so fragrant.

If there was a dish that I would identify as outstanding, it'll be their luffa and pig's stomach peppercorn soup. I'm sure a lot went into the making of the velvety collagen filled broth. Awesome. I would come back just for this alone.

We tried their sautéed Xinjiang styled lamb tenderloin. Because cumin. Because lamb. Because it was something different from the sautéed beef cubes that every other Chinese restaurant seem to be doing. Lamb was nice. Portions of the lamb were dismal. This was dish was mostly fillers.

The server recommended their mushroom buns. It looked like one of the more better made mushroom buns in terms of appearances so kudos to that. I didn't understand the flavour because I tasted taro and was trying too hard to identify the mushrooms that were supposed to be in them.

The last dish we had was stir claypot kailan with prawn paste and Shaoxin. Nicely done if I might say so. I liked how direct it was with just the flavour coming from the wine and the prawn paste pairing with the crunchy sweetness from the vegetable. 

Their satay flavoured ice cream was interesting. It was nutty with some heat that was punctuated by citrus from the pomegranate. 

Was pretty surprised that the Da Li rose ice cream had a rose flavour that was more intense than the satay flavour from the satay ice cream. Not bad.