Pan Pacific Singapore Staycaytion Review (Harbour Studio with Discovery Black)

👍 Nice, spacious rooms. Good service. Stylish club / lounge with a gorgeous view.
👎 Hmmm. I guess the view is slightly blocked by the Mandarin Oriental?

There are 2 types of people: Those who staycaytion and those who think it's a ridiculous waste of money and therefore don't. The darling and I are the former; We do enjoy the occasional visit to a nice hotel in Singapore, enjoying the service and the change of scenery. Which brings us to today's post, where we check out the Pan Pacific Singapore for a night at their Harbour Studio with access to their gorgeous Pacific Club (Lounge) courtesy of a Discovery Black loyalty membership (more on that at the end of the post).

The Pan Pacific Singapore's got a pretty good location. It's one of the hotels connected to the large Marina Square shopping mall, which means you're walking distance from Marina Bay, Padang, National Gallery, and a bunch of other nearby malls. About the only downside of the location is that the closest MRT station is a bit of a walk away, but with staycaytions that's a pretty inconsequential downside.

We arrived at the hotel at around 12pm. Pan Pacific's lobby is gorgeous, huge, and bright. In our excitement we forgot to take photos ... so you'll have to unfortunately use some imagination 😓


Check in was quick, friendly, and efficient. We initially booked a Panoramic Room, but thanks to Discovery Black, were upgraded to a Harbour Studio with Pacific Club benefits. We were also offered a 6pm late checkout, which we gladly accepted.

Our room was on the 27th floor and was surprisingly spacious (for Singaporean standards). The room is 495sqft, which is literally more than half the size of our entire apartment (915sqft). The King-sized bed and pillows were really comfortable and we had no problems getting a good nights' sleep. The more keen-eyed readers among you might also spot a Herman Miller Aeron chair at the work area.


The mini-bar area has complimentary tea and Nespresso coffee, and the usual range of non-complimentary wine, snacks, drinks, and alcohol.


The washroom is nice, and has separate toilet (with manual bidet seat), shower, and bathtub areas. It might not be too clear from the photo, but the tub can fit two adults with a bit of a squeeze. A full range of amenities are provided so you can pretty much leave all your toiletries at home (except maybe facial wash).


Pan Pacific Singapore also arranged for a pretty nice welcome gift of chocolates and dragonfruit (I'm not sure if this was because of my Discovery Black membership, or if all guests receive it).


The most amazing part of the room was, however, the view. The rooms on this side of the hotel all overlook Singapore's iconic Marina Bay (with Marina Bay Sands out of the camera's field of view over on the left). It's quite nice in the daytime, but absolutely gorgeous at night when the lights come on.


I mentioned earlier that we were provided with Pacific Club (lounge) access thanks to the room upgrade. This comes with:
• Afternoon Tea from 3-5pm (on both check-in and check-out days)
• Champagne Breakfast in the Club, or breakfast at The Edge
• Cocktails & Canapes from 6-8pm (only on the check-in day)


At all other times you're welcome to rest and relax in the pretty stylish lounge. Outside of breakfast, tea, and cocktail hours, there's a small selection of biscuits, crisps and candy bars on offer, but drinks and other food are chargeable.


As the Pacific Club is on the 38th floor, the views are to die for.


For the Afternoon Tea session, the Club provides an assortment of sandwiches and salads, cold cuts, a couple of hot dishes (har gao and glutinous rice for us), and pastries / cakes. As long as you've had a decent (or late) breakfast, the selection of food on offer is more than enough to serve as a late lunch.


Evening canapes & cocktails is pretty similar, except that there's booze and a dress code (smart casual). For the teetotalers among us, fear not! A wide range of soft drinks, fresh juices, and mocktails are available.


For breakfast we decided to skip the lounge and head directly to The Edge (Pan Pacific Singapore's huge buffet restaurant). The buffet spread is HUGE, covering all sorts of international, chinese, and indian cuisine. No photos though -- sorry! (we didn't bring our phones / cameras down with us).

Pan Pacific Singapore also has a decent swimming pool, gym, and spa. As we were only on a 1 night stay we didn't really have the time to explore any of them.


Now just to come back to the upgrades. Discovery Black entitles to you to up to a 2-level space available room upgrade. If you book a room with no Pacific Club benefits, it is possible for you to be upgraded to another room which also has no Club benefits (or to not get upgraded at all). Therefore the only way to guarantee Club access is to book at least a Pacific Room.

Discovery Black membership can be fast-tracked for free and with no strings attached if you are a World Elite Mastercard holder: Check out the details over on Mile Lion.

To conclude, the darling and I really enjoyed our short staycaytion at the Pan Pacific Singapore. The rooms are nice and spacious, service at the Pacific Club was very good, and the hotel's location right above Marina Square means that it's easy to fill in the time between meals with some window shopping or to just take a stroll. In fact we might go as far as to say that this hotel is our favourite price / performance staycaytion spot in the city at the moment (as long as you get lucky with the Club access, of course)!

Look See Eat

Modern, Creative, Fancy Chinese (Cantonese) Cuisine at Kai Garden, Marina Sqaure.

Chinese restaurants can be a bit indistinguishable, sometimes, with different restaurants across different chains and cuisine types sharing many similar menu items. So it was quite refreshing to hear that Chef Fung Chi Keung, formerly from Mandarin Orchard and the Paradise Group, has struck out on his own and established Kai Garden restaurant in an attempt to put a few modern, creative twists on traditional Cantonese Cuisine. Suitably armed with an excuse to spend (i.e., a special occasion), we paid the restaurant a visit last weekend to sample Chef's cuisine.


The creativity starts off with one of Chef Fung's signature appetizers - Chilled Cherry Foie Gras ($24): Chilled balls of foie gras pâté shaped to resemble cherries. It's a very amusing and playful start to the dinner, but your enjoyment would really depend a lot on whether you like pâté in the first place. The darling and I are huge fans of pan-seared foie, but not the minced variety, so this was taste-wise a bit "meh" for us.


We move on, then to the Crispy Whole Peking Duck ($88). The duck itself is superb, with crispy, fragrant skin clinging on to just the right amount of fat underneath. What's unique about the rendition here at Kai Garden are multi-coloured pancakes (the different colours coming naturally from adding charcoal, beetroot, lettuce and pumpkin respectively), and a variety of different dipping/spreading sauces.

If you're a traditionalist you'd probably stick to flavouring your pancakes with the regular sweet & tangy peking duck sauce, but if you're up for some experimenting, there are mixed, black pepper, sesame and seafood (with crab meat) sauces as well.



Did I mention that the skin of the duck is oh-so-crispy? Definitely one of the better peking ducks in town.


Next up - the Live Garoupa in Lobster Soup. This is by far the most well presented (Chinese cuisine) fish dish I've ever been served. The fish is brought to the table with its fillets pre-sliced and still raw, poached in the umami lobster broth, and immediately served in individual portions.


The lobster broth is a just-right, perfect accompaniment to the delicate, perfectly-cooked fish slices. It's just the right consistency (it's a soup/broth and not a bisque), and is just flavourful enough to accompany, and not overpower, the fish. The dish tastes just as amazing as it looks.


The rest of the fish - bones, head, etc - is then taken away and cooked with salt & pepper so as not to go to waste. This sort of excellence doesn't come cheap, though - the fish is "seasonal price" on the menu; during our visit it was a staggering $20/100gm (this 1kg fish alone cost more than all the other dishes combined).


Another of chef's creative takes on traditional Chinese/Cantonese dishes: the Sweet and Sour Pork on The Rocks ($22). Yes ... this is essentially fancy gu lou yuk (咕噜肉). Nevertheless the meatball is delicious, with an interesting core of fresh milk and coconut milk, surrounded by minced pork with a crispy honey shell. I don't really understand what the ice is for, though.


Just to check off the food pyramid checklist - the Wok Fried Hong Kong Kai Lan ($20), which had quite a bit of oomph on the flavour department thanks to the umami from the anchovies.


A final tummy filler: the meat from the peking duck, stir-fried with mee sua ($18). Competent and well-executed, if a little bland / normal compared to the rest of the menu.


Additional costs to the bill: Chinese Tea & tid-bits ($17.40 for 6 pax), service charge and GST, which pushed us up to $450 for 6 people. Other than the Garoupa, I would say that Kai Garden's menu items are good value for money, considering the taste, quality, and effort involved to prepare and present.

The Garoupa, on the other hand ... it was a very accomplished dish, and one of the better fish renditions I've had in a long while, but it is pricey as hell.

In any case, overall my family and I were thoroughly impressed with the effort Chef Fung is taking to try and revitalize / modernize Cantonese dishes, without departing too far from how they are expected to taste, and would not hesitate to recommend the restaurant.

Kai Garden is on the third floor of the Marina Square mall (same wing as the food court). Open for lunch and dinner seven days a week. Non-halal.

"Modern Pacific Cuisine" at Tao's Restaurant - PoMo

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If you advertise a set meal as a "6-course" or "7-course" set meal, and one of those courses is a choice of drink ... does it really count? I'll leave that for you to decide, though, as we bring you our thoughts on the 7-course set dinner at Tao's Modern Pacific Cuisine Restaurant for a very, very attractive price of just SGD29.90.

The concept is such. You pay one price, and there are 7 courses (or 6 food courses and a choice of drink). Some of these courses are fixed; others have several choices to choose from. Regardless of your choice, we're presented with an amuse-bouche-ish starter of something like a passion fruit granite.


1st Course (starter): Bacon and Mushroom Gratin, served with bread to lap up the saucy bacon-mushroom mixture.


2nd Course (salads): Fruit Salad and Prawn Roll & Pork Floss. I'm very disappointed in my fruit salad. It's got a mixture of mango, apple, and other fruits, but strangely topped by chopped minced crab fillet (i.e. crab-flavored fish fillet), which in my opinion just doesn't work. The darling's Prawn Roll looks something like a popiah and is much better, although I do feel it could have done with more generous proportions of filling.



3rd Course: Grilled King Oyster Mushroom & Sorbet. Google tells me that oyster mushrooms are so named because they "look, smell and taste like oysters." Really? I can't eat oysters at all but I had no problems polishing down this dish. If you like mushrooms you'll love this ... if you don't, well, I'm sure one of your dining companions will gladly take it off your hands.


4th Course (drinks): Iced rose apple tea and Iced summer peach tea. Both of these teas were delightful. Apple tea was a little on the sweet side (perfect if you've got a sweet tooth) though, and I'm not sure why the drinks only came halfway through our meal.


5th Course (soup): Japanese Fish Consomme and Cream of Mushroom. The Consomme was nice and clear, if a bit lacking in any sort of fish flavor. Cream of mushroom: again, depends if you like mushrooms or not. It's very strong on the 'mushroom' and very weak on the 'cream,' which is great, no Campbell's mushroom-flavored-cream here!



6th Course (main entrees): Slow Cooked Pork Back Ribs and Marinated Rack of Lamb. I totally loved my ribs. Tender, juicy, and with a great tangy sauce. Top marks. Lamb was also nice and flavorful but I prefer my red meats to be medium-rare or medium; this one came almost well done.



7th Course (desserts): Tiramisu and Crème Brûlée. Nothing spectacular for either of these desserts, to be honest. The Tiramisu is run-of-the-mill and suffers a bit from being non-alcoholic, and we thought the crème brûlée tasted a bit off. The caramelized sugar coating was thick and hard, too!



Conclusion, there were a few good dishes and a few mediocre ones. I wouldn't classify the dishes as particularly gourmet or fine-dining level, but the low price scores it top marks for value for money - where else can you get a 7-course degustation-like menu for SGD30? Worth at least a try so you can decide if this cuisine is for you.

Tao is in PoMo, which is 'behind' the Cathay cineplex near Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. Reservations are needed for weeknights.

Authentic Indonesian Cuisine in Singapore at Warung Lele Restaurant.

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If you've been following us, you'll know that a while ago I went to visit the Yahoo! SEA Office in Singapore for a short one-day editorial training. For lunch we all walked a couple of blocks over to an Indonesian restaurant named Warung Lele.

The restaurant claims to offer authentic Indonesian cuisine, but as I'm no expert I can't judge :) I can say, though, that Indonesian joints seem to serve the best appetizer crackers. Especially with that chili/lime dip - need to control otherwise you end up eating too much and getting stuffed :)


We go for the Four Pax Set B (SGD75.00), which starts off with Gurame Sambal. Gurame is a type of carp - I'm not sure if there's an exact equivalent english name. I liked the taste and the kick of the sambal, but the fish itself was deep fried and hence ended up with very little meat.


Udang Bi'jian (Cereal prawns) is up next. It's somewhat similar to the Chinese 'butter-style' prawns with some crushed cereal added in to the mix. Sadly the cooking was let down by the prawns which were clammy and lacking in freshness. The best chef in the world couldn't have saved these prawns.


Moving on to my favorite dish of the afternoon - Ayam Bakar (BBQ chicken with special sauce). The gravy/sauce makes this dish. If you find yourself here definitely give this a try.


Tahu Fantasi (Palembang prawn beancurd) was a bit forgettable. It tasted remarkably like something you'd get at a HK-style dimsum place. Like an oversized prawn siew mai.


Other than what's above, the set lunch includes rice, dessert, and Kangkong Taucu (Kangkong belacan with bean sauce). Didn't feel that the belacan had enough kick, both taste-wise and chili/spiciness-wise.


Overall the restaurant has some interesting flavors but is let down a little by the (lack of) freshness of the ingredients. Reservations are recommended for lunch as the place gets very, very full. Open Lunch and Dinner, Mondays to Saturdays (closed Sundays).


Warung Lele Restaurant
8 SHENTON WAY, #01-16 & #01-19
(Opposite MAS Building & CPF Building, if coming by Tanjong Pagar MRT use exit D)
Tel: +65 6423 1552