Eden Project /Eden

T (April '23)

SCORE: Could have been

ORDER: Crab cakes | Kombucha (Forrest) | Wine

VALUE: Great for the location-$80/head with drinks. I just wish they let you have FOC water with the wine

I ordinarily try not to write about new openings outside of big name projects, as it feels unfair to compare places still finding their mojo. For /Eden restaurant at the Pullman Hotel, I'm going to gloss over training gaps (and also the general lack of service orientation amongst Singaporeans that a capacity constrained workforce is having to try to overcome) that manifested as poor service. Most of the industry is struggling to find staff, from hawkers to hotels, and many are having to train a new generation of potentially short-term front of house. Thomas, who may or may not be a restaurant manager, was doing a gallant job of holding things together and training on the fly, and seems to have built a well-rounded range of events and services to develop the restaurant and draw in clientele. I love this cute Mother's Day package - the combination of prosecco and HIIT calls to me.

Instead, I'm going to focus on the less changeable aspects of the restaurant, which did have a lot going for it. First off, it is beautiful. Too busy on arrival (from HIIT!) to photograph, it has a greenhouse vibe without getting too much glare or uncomfortably warm. If anything, the fans to prevent the heat building up could have done with being directed upwards and away from guests and the food - the need to keep the air moving and chilled led to draughts and cooled the dishes too quickly. What I liked were the chairs, which bring the Pullman Trains to mind (see what they did there?!).

The chairs must have been cast iron or something similar, because they weighed a ton. I had overextended at Barry's and was still quivering, so this was an F for effort for me and I had to ask for help (got there on my own once I got my strength back though!). I did like it a lot because it left me feeling securely positioned where there was a fair amount of foot traffic around us. I'm just one of those malcos who can cause a hazard anywhere, which was evidenced by my next move. Having experienced inadequate stength in adjusting my seat, I over compensated in straightening the table and ended up shunting this into a companion. Heavy chairs, light table, noted.

The tables were high gloss, which meant plates slid around a little and slicing was somewhat tricky. That is my lame excuse for a particularly poor picture of the strongest dish I tried, the crab cake.

I am a crab cake lover but only for those that are, well, crabby. I try to be low carb and so end up a little affronted when dishes pad protein out with potato. This one did not and also had little crunches of bell pepper that added to the texture. It came with a punch in the aioli, not quite mala but definitely spiced. I would have had this again there and then.

The Szechuan T-bone had so much potential. I had a dry rub spice in my imagination, and that probably did exist in some mild form. I was surprised by sweetness in the sauce and pragmatic but dissapointed by a lack of kick. Pragmatically, it is never smart for a hotel bistro to get too aggressive on flavour. Personally, though, I would have liked an option to spice it up. To me, Szechuan implies sweat levels of heat, and so there was a dissonance with what I expected.

Also dissonant were the desserts.

When I read Hokkaido Milk Puff, I had something more /baristart or even /BeardPapa in my mind. The dish was actually more like jian dui - I have a vague memory of cooked-milk jian dui being popular in Hong Kong back in 2011, and this was very reminiscent of those. The pandan tart was good, and my recommendation between these two. For some reason, I hadn't expected a pandan curd. This makes total sense when I think about it, so I'm not sure why I was surprised.

All in, I liked it. The location is good and the positioning has potential. They clearly have someone thinking about attracting footfall from the ground level shoppers who may otherwise stick with Prive. One to watch for sure, and I wish them success.

/eden