With summer just around the corner in Chennai, late February is not the best month to launch an open air restaurant. But, like most other businesses in the world, Mr Ong saw its well-planned calendar careened off-track by two years of intermittent lockdowns - and like most other businesses in the world, Mr Ong had to improvise.
These improvisations came in big ways, as well as small. The small touches, at this newly opened Singaporean restaurant at Park Hyatt Chennai, include a slew of East-inspired cocktails like cherry blossom martini and watermelon soju that are well-iced, albeit more watered-down than diners would like.
A much larger innovation, by in-house executive chef Balaji Natarajan and team, was their online training. Balaji and team spent hours everyday before a projector screen, with a Singaporean food consultant on live video call to demonstrate techniques and watch them practise. “She could see how I was chopping the ingredients, and check things like texture. But for smell and taste, we had to depend on our descriptions. She was supposed to fly down and spend weeks with us. But once airports shut down, we had to think of some other way,” says the chef during a five-minute respite from Mr Ong’s open kitchen, flanked by the little pool-facing bar and wood-and-wicker seats that comprise the restaurant.
Then the food arrives, in heartily filling portions. The Malacca laksa is large enough and laden enough to serve as a quick solo meal. Creamy yet light, with a slight hint of tang, the soup has generous chunks of broccoli, chicken and prawn. The Singaporean style chilli mud crab comes with generous chunks of meat swimming in the sweet and tangy gravy. Both the crab and the mild sichuan tofu come in portions enough for four. They are served with a combination of steamed and fried mantau: spongy little dumplings that are mildly sweet and add to the overall bursts of flavour.
If you want something less sweet, go for the fragrant jasmine sticky rice instead of the mantau. If you want a bit of everything, play around with a string of permutations and combinations listed under their ‘make your own wok’ section. Or avoid tough decisions altogther with the classic nasi goreng: mildly spiced rice, tossed with vegetables and meat, topped with a crisp fried egg and served with a side of grilled meat, which simply does its job without blowing your mind.
What the dessert section lacks in choice, however, it makes up for in creativity. The mango sago and the choices of homemade ice cream are equally alluring, but the latter has the added attraction of six separate toppings, each complementing the base flavour in a different way. Our coconut ice cream, for instance, comes with a sesame brittle, roasted cashews and crisp little coconut rolls among other things, making sure we wrap up our meal mindful of all the thought that went into planning it.
