Restaurant Review: Sky on 57 Lunch Review
Long overdue post here. For some reason, I was suddenly quite busy with life. So here is the post before I totally forgot about the experience. I mentioned in the review of Jin Shan that there were hotel guest priviledges at quite a few of the restaurants and we tried to visit those as priority since we will not be guests probably for some time to come… But since it is our anniversary, we decided to give Sky a shot anyway. Honestly, dinner is not something we are comfortable paying for, especially after hearing a few friends telling us that they find it over priced. So we decided to be conservative and try the lunch first. So here is a Sky on 57 Lunch Review!
First, making a reservation was a real pain. I tried reserving online but did not receive any confirmation. So I tried to call over 2 days and only managed to get through 2 hours before our supposed appointment only to find that my reservation did not get through. Luckily, being a week day, they were not packed so we got our slot.
Service was professional with a touch of warmth although the introduction that came with each dish was rushed and a bit inaudible for some dishes and we did not want to put the server on the spot by getting him to repeat, so we resorted to looking at the online menu ourselves to refresh our memory and figure out what was what. In any case, service was attentive and unobtrusive.
They have an a la carte lunch menu with main courses like Singapore King Prawn Laksa for $25 to Maine Lobster at $75. Since we are not tourists, we feel no urge to try “atas” local food here. Prestige set lunch menu consisting of 5 courses costs $98 and an additional $60 for 3 wine pairings. Not too bad, but we don’t eat a lot…
So next, we looked at their Business luncheon menu starts at $55++ for 3 course or $65 for 4 with certain options that require top up for example for beef striploin and lamb rack for additional $8 and East Ocean for additional $6. And lastly, a seasonal set lunch menu at $50 for 3 course. Did not look as appealing, so we decided to go for the Business Luncheon. You can have a full review of their menu online.
Ed had the Organic Egg, Beef and Green tea for dessert. I had Jerusalem Artichoke Veloute (as opposed to Tomyum infused Veloute for the tom yum fan in me), East Ocean (as opposed to duck confit – yawn….) and Berries for dessert. I was quite torn between a few choices for starter and main and these were recommended by the server and I was quite happy with the recommendations.
STARTERS
The meal started with unlimited servings of bread with 4 types to choose from. Furiakake, Basil and herb, Mini Baguette and sorry, we forgot the last one. The furiakake was really interesting and inspired me to try baking with the loads of furiakake I have at home left over from hiking trips. Anyway, the breads were decent, but not amazing. 6.5/10.
The first dish served was the Jerusalem Artichoke Veloute. A veloute is a French soup traditionally thickened with eggs, cream and butter, basically more commonly known as a “cream soup”. I was a little surprised that the soup was not green but a mellow brown because I thought artichoke is green right… A quick search shows that Jerusalem Artichoke is a brown tuber (as per below) that looks like ginger but is actually from a species of sunflower and is starchy and a great substitute of potatoes for diabetics. Haha.. Educational!
The dish was really delicious and well seasoned and very flavourful with nutty notes of probably from the Jerusalem artichoke. But I did not taste any notes of truffle which was a little disappointing. 8/10
Next came the Organic Egg. This is one of our favourite dishes that day. The dish was extremely flavourful with layers of flavours and textures. The first sensations that hit you was the savoury flavours of the bacon on top and the light crunch of the “rice pop” like bits on top. Then the slow cooked Iberico Pork Belly was cooked to melt in the mouth perfection. This was complimented perfectly by the slightly pungent sweet braised leek, creamy mashed potato and soft silky egg cooked to perfect runniness by bursts of flavours from the Iberico pork belly, the mellow notes of the truffle. Every bite was a perfect balance of flavours. A comfort dish delivered in an elegant manner. 9/10
At this point, we were generally happy with the meal and were looking forward to our mains. The Australian Angus Beef Striploin came first. Very pretty presentation with fresh bursts of colour. The beef was cereal crusted and the texture and taste was a good balance of crunch from the fragrance of the cereal. Ed was intrigued on how the cereal crust was made and he really enjoyed the edamame in the salad. Notice the salad was made up of crunchy vegetables with delicate sweet flavours to complement the slight spiciness of the sauce. 9/10
My East Ocean was served with a sea urchin yuzu foam but I could not pick out the yuzu notes. Maybe it was to offset the fishy note of the sea urchin. In any case, it was pretty rich and tastes like a lobster bisque foam but a little more delicate. In the middle of the little tower was short grained rice topped with braised daikon and an array of seafood and a mini coloured carrots and microgreens. The Hokkaido scallop stole the show for this dish. The rest was actually pretty standard. The scallop was cooked to perfection with a nice crust outside while the flesh within was firm and sweet but not rubbery. The octopus was a tad rubbery and the rest were just expected. Not much surprises here and in fact, a tad flat. It would probably be more interesting if they had added some more fresh notes or zest of the yuzu. 6.5/10
I guess it helped that we were in a nice environment so I did not feel the effect of the slightly disappointing food as strongly. I had honestly expected all dishes to be 8/10 but so far, Ed’s dishes had hit the mark, but my main dish was slightly short of expectations, but my mood was still pretty good. Happy mood helped too I guess.
By now, we were filling pretty stuffed. Surprising considering the food portions were rather delicate. Thus, when dessert came, we both really appreciated the refreshing taste profile of Berries.
This was a very interesting dessert because we spent half the time trying to figure out how they freeze dried or prepared the desiccated berry sponge that looked like corals and tasted like FD strawberries but less tart. The very refreshing yoghurt panna cotta held this dish together very nicely and the berries were all sweet, even the lingon berries which I always end up having sour ones. Another highlight was the fragrant oatmeal crisps at the base of the panna cotta that added another dimension in terms of taste and texture, grounding the tartness of this dessert with nutty notes. 8/10
Ed’s dessert although delicious was a tad too sweet and rich to end this meal. There were too many sweet notes making the dessert slightly flat in taste thought still interesting in texture. It was a very green and earthy dessert with sweet and nutty notes from the macadamia and red bean. The rice crisps were the only thing not sweet on this plate. If part of an afternoon tea with coffee or tea only, this dessert would probably have fared better. 7/10
CONCLUSION
If you notice, there was no photograph of the view. After all, we are at a restaurant on top of the world on Level 57! That was in part because it was a gloomy rainy day with heavy downpour half way through the meal. In part also because the view we had was of the port at Pasir Panjang with cranes in view. Though you can see Sentosa and St John Island (I got grilled on the specks of land we see…) it was generally not a great day for photographs nor a fantastic view as compared to what can be enjoyed on the rest of the deck.
Nevertheless, it was a pleasant experience for 2 much in love and in a happy mood. Food was pretty decent with the highlights overshadowing the little pitfalls. I guess as with most places, you just need to order the right dishes. We decided that we do not mind coming back for lunch again (when the menu changes) but probably not impressive enough for us to come back for dinner unless we hear really raving reviews from people we trust… LOL…
This review was done solely from our personal experience and we only speak for our ourselves based on this experience or what we remember of it. We hope this Review of Sky on 57’s lunch menu will be useful in helping you enjoy your meal.
