The Singapore Forum

Last night we went to Neil Perry's newish Chinese restaurant, Spice Temple.

http://www.rockpool.com.au/sydney/spice-temple/

It's in the basement underneath Rockpool, through a very confusing main door (which is essentially a video screen) and down some carpark-like stairs - achingly minimalist pale wood and brick bar, dark and exotic restaurant that reminded me of 1827 Thai place in Singapore's Old Parliament.

The cocktail list included special Chinese Zodiac cocktails but we'd already started on bubbles so decided to give them a miss.

We ordered the banquet so we could try quite a few dishes.

http://www.rockpool.com.au/sydney/spice ... t-Menu.pdf

although we were served "Steamed shredded chicken with garlic and spring onion oil" instead of the already infamous "Hot and numbing white cut chicken".

The items in red are meant to be HOT but, having lived in Asia, I thought the earlier dishes were quite mild. The "Beef in Firewater" however looked so evil that we ate the beef - which was melt-in-the-mouth sublime - but not the sauce. I strongly suspect that most people do the same. Unless they're fruitloops.

After the hype, I was worried that dishes were going to be hot for the sake of it, but they really were most excellent.

Highly recommended.

http://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/spic ... review.htm

Neil Perry is the person responsible for the Qantas menu and should be shot.

Yep, I have to admit that everything I have been served as a "Neil Perry" special dish on Qantas has been disgusting, the other dishes are way better (if that is possible with airline food).

Good to hear that the food is good at the restaurant as I would have been put off by his previous ventures.

I don't know why any chef would want to get involved with airline food

I must confess I've always been a bit "so what?" about Neil Perry after watching his TV programmes, and I'm not sure what Rockpool Bar & Grill can add to the Sydney restaurant scene, but this one piqued my interest.

Good Chinese food (how authentic? I'm not qualified to judge) in comfortable - dare I say family-unfriendly - surroundings is always fine by me.

Rockpool, in it's original form of fine dining, was one the best restaurants in Sydney and definitely deserved of the praise it got both locally and internationally. It vwas innovative, food and service were faultless and it had the wow factor.

Unfortunately, as with a lot of "tv chefs" they seem to take on more and more ventures with numerous restauarants, tv shows, airline menus, cookbooks, etc (think Gordon Ramsay) and inevitably something suffers. In this case the decision to change the original to Rockpool Fish - less of a top class restaurant but with broadly similar prices, woeful service mentality just doesn't cut it. I've been a few times in the last year and I wouldn't recommend it.

Neil Perry is no doubt a talented chef and maybe Spice Temple will be a winner for him again.