Usher in Chinese New Year with Amara Singapore [Media Tasting]

With Chinese New Year around the corner, are you still looking for a place to have your reunion dinner? With awesome packages ranging from $68 to $138 per pax for both CNY Reunion Dinner on 4th February and CNY Set Menus running from 21st January to 19th February, you can usher in the year of the Pig in style with Silk Road Amara Singapore!

And here's a few dishes you can expect from their 2019 CNY Reunion Dinner & set menus!
(Dishes available on ala carte menu shall be tagged with prices)

Eight Treasures Prosperity Yu Sheng (with Salmon) - $88 (S) , $118 (L)

This definitely earned ALOT of oohs and aahs for the night. Isn't it cute to have the sliced veggies in the form of a cute little piggie? 

The yu sheng set comes with salmon, and you can also get additional toppings of both salmon, abalone and also crispy fish skin to add more dimension to the taste and texture of your yu sheng. Also included in the yu sheng set are jellyfish, ikura (salmon roe) and tobikko (flying fish roe) and Amara Hotel's special housemade Spicy Sze Chuan dressing, which gave the yu sheng a rather unique, mildly spicy & savoury aftertaste.

Before dinner was served, we were all mingling around in the ballroom, getting excited over the pretty cakes at the dessert buffet table and also getting awed by watching the chef hand-making some dumplings, which is one of the lucky food to eat during CNY for it signifies wealth. 

Love these dumplings, for the skin isn't too thick and doughy nor too thin and flimsy. Every bite is a good ratio of the dumpling skin to flavourful filling, and of course the special dumpling sauce that tasted remotely like some garlic soy sauce vinaigrette added a beautiful final touch to the dish. 

Traditional Beijing Roast Duck - $68

Frankly speaking, I'm hardly a beijing roast duck person as I typically do not eat skins. 

GIVE ME MEAT, PLEASE! >.<"

Pardon my messy eating, but I just have to show off the meat!

Unlike some other Beijing Roast Duck I've tried elsewhere, the chef at Amara Hotel has very generously sliced off a good amount of the meat along with the skin, which added a lot more flavour and texture to the rolls. 

Braised Golden Pumpkin Soup with Superior Fish Maw - $20

Isn't this so pretty? It looks like a pot of gold! 

This soup is like a unique blend of east meets west, a rather rich and creamy thick pumpkin soup base (almost like cream of pumpkin) served chinese style with a generous serving of ingredients like mushrooms, dried scallop and fish maw. A very satiating soup to start the meal indeed, with a well balanced flavour of the pumpkin sweetness with the distinctive savoury taste of fish maw and dried scallops. 

Braised Pork Ribs in Black Beer

I know, this looks rather funky with the jet black colour, but it really tasted a lot better than it looks. Don't judge the pork by its colour, guys. >.<

I shan't deny that I'm hardly a fan of pork in general, and absolutely dislike is exceptionally sensitive to the very distinctive pork smell.

The slightly sweet braising sauce has hardly any alcoholic taste (so even if you absolutely cannot take beer, do not worry about it), and is rather pleasing on my tastebuds, but unfortunately it failed to mask the strong pork smell from the pork ribs. The meat is also a little more on the chewy side and definitely not the literally falling off the bones kind of tender. 

I know, if you're a pork lover, you will be scratching your heads right now and wondering, what's wrong with pork having pork smell? 

So I can't only say, sorry pork ribs, it's not you, it's me. 

Soy Baked Sea Perch with Spinach in Bonito Sauce (bottom left)

Can some fish expert tell me what's the local name for Sea Perch? 

And I'm elated to find not just spinach, but edamame (my love) and cherry tomatoes in my Sea Perch! Tasting almost exactly like Codfish, but less of the rich and heavy oily-fatty taste, the Sea Perch was definitely one of the most loved dish at the table. With an exceptionally tender, melt-in-your-mouth texture and paired with the savoury bonito sauce, I could probably eat the entire fish if we weren't being served single portions. 

Fragrant Rice with Chinese Sausage & Mushrooms

I'm a huge fan of lotus leaf rice in general, but always prefer mine with a more peppery and savoury taste. With a rather generous serving of chinese sausage (lap cheong), the rice tasted a lot more sweeter than I would have enjoyed in a lotus leaf rice. 

But no doubt, this will be a good choice if you're a fan of a sweeter tasting lotus leaf rice.

And now, over to the dessert buffet table!

This section is totally a lady's heaven, packed full of exquisitely crafted pretty looking dessert that also aced the taste factor. 

Lychee Charlotte Cake 

This tasted rather like a tiramisu, but with a lychee twist. Overall a rather mild and not so sweet kind of cake, it's refreshing to find that the addition of lychee helps to cut down the surfeiting (jerlak-ness) richness of the cheese-cream. 

Gold Ingot Fruit Cake (1kg) - $78

If I didn't tell you it's a fruit cake, you probably wouldn't have guessed it, right? The sheer outlook of this cake is worth every single cent of that $78. Enough said. HAHA!

If you're not a big fan of fondant, like yours truly, you can easily peel the fondant layer away and just enjoy the fruit cake inside that has its cinnamon flavour going strong. 

Cherry Blossom Sugee Cake (900g) - $68

Seriously, this is not a cake. IT'S A PIECE OF ART. 

I'm not even exaggerating to say that my heart screamed "NOoooo" as the chef sliced through the cake right over the bunch of cherry blossoms. Also fondant covered, I find that the fondant layer for this sugee cake is much thinner and easier to eat as compared to that of the fruit cake. And also, as sugee cake itself is a very basic and mild-tasting cake, having a thin layer of sugar paste also helped to add more sweetness to the cake, which is literally the icing on top (no puns intended). 

So, are you ready to roll for this year's CNY feasting with Amara Singapore? 

For more information of their 2019 CNY menus and packages, check out their website HERE

HUAT AH!

Till then,

Mia Foo