Chinese Fine Dining in the CBD at Paradise Pavilion.

The Paradise group is one of the more ubiquitous Chinese restaurant chains around town - with a dozen different concepts spread around the island. The flagship - Paradise Pavilion - is an upmarket, fine dining restaurant in the CBD. It's reputed to serve up one of the best Peking Ducks in town, so the darling and I pay a dinner visit to the 2nd floor of the Marina Bay Link Mall to try it out.

We arrive at the immaculately designed and decorated restaurant, complete with plush chairs and furnishings, and sadly find out that the Peking Duck isn't served in quarter or half portions. We felt like an entire duck would have been too much for just two people so we order off the ala-carte menu instead - starting off with the Two BBQ Combination Meat ($20) - Roast (烧肉) and BBQ Pork (叉烧). The Roast Pork is pretty good, with just the right balance between fat and lean meat, and crispy, crackling skin. But the BBQ Pork is a tad bit on the fatty side - and not charred enough.


On recommendation of the chef we order the Double Boiled Chicken with Morel Mushroom Soup ($12). We thought the soup was pretty nice, hearty and full of chicken flavour - almost tasting like bottled chicken essence.


We then move on to a trio of 'modern Chinese appetizers' of Pan-Fried foie gras, prawn with wasabi mayo and watermelon, and japanese scallop ($22). I normally really like foie gras but this rendition was sub par: not as fatty or buttery as usual, and not flavored properly. We do like the prawn and scallop though.


For our "main course" we choose one each of the Pan Fried Cod with Honey Sauce ($16) and Pan Fried Cod with Miso Sauce ($18). We're not sure what exact variety of cod this is, but the fish itself was juicy, oily (in a good way) and well cooked. We enjoyed the miso sauce rendition more than the honey sauce one, which we thought had a borderline unpleasant alcohol aftertaste.


For the 'stomach filler' course we try the Ee-fu Noodles in XO Sauce with Japanese Scallops ($26), which were pretty par for the course among noodle dishes in other Chinese restaurants.


After service charge and taxes, we're handed a final bill of $183.14 for two - which in our opinion is really, really pricey. The food's pretty good overall, and the presentation is great, but the quality of the cuisine wasn't really that much different from other Chinese restaurants around town.

Having said that, we will still definitely come back again with reinforcements to try out the Peking Duck - stay tuned for that review sometime in the future!

Apologies for the quality of photographs in this post as all photos were taken with mobile phones.