Modern Singapore stalwart, Wild Rocket, is refreshing its menu offerings. Instead of serving up a trio of menus (set, omakase and a la carte), chef-owner Willin Low is consolidating the set and omakase into a series of prix fixe menus.
At lunch, you have a choice four courses (S$38++) or five (S$48++). Dinner is a decidedly extravagant affair with a choice of five (S$76++), seven (S$98++) or nine (S$123++) courses.
The lunch menu of Starter, Second Course, Main and Sweet is fairly straight-forward but the dinner menu, which comes with five categories of Cold Starter, Warm Starter, Fresh Pasta, Main and Sweet, is slightly more complex to navigate.
At dinner only, those opting for five courses are given an option from each of the five categories (supplementary charges apply for dishes indicated with an * only for those opting for five courses). Those who pick seven courses will be served all four cold and warm starters; this is followed by a choice of Fresh Pasta, Main and Sweet. If you’re here for the full monty, i.e. the nine-course menu, you will pretty much have almost everything on the menu, except that you get to choose only an item from Fresh Pasta and two out of three items from Sweet.
For Cold Starter, chopped negitoro (tuna belly with spring onions) is a luxurious opening dish served with a dose of Singapore prata nostalgia. The chopped-up fish belly is dressed in a Thai-inspired cocktail of lime and chillies and served with a topping of caviar on scallion oil-fragranced deep-fried roti prata dough “taco”. Like what you would expect of a well-made prata, the “taco” is aptly crisp and well counterpointed by the fatty tuna belly.
On the Warm Starter side of things, ravioli packed with a trio of mushrooms (shiitake, oyster and button) served in a mellow and robust shitake kombu dashi broth is sheer delight. In fact, it is the meal’s biggest highlight.
For Fresh Pasta, we’d highly recommend Wild Rocket’s all-time favourite dish of seafood crustacean oil spaghettini with tiger prawn. But if you wish to try something offbeat, the buah keluak, beef and sambal-stuffed ravioli served in a sauce prepped with ginger and spring onion is interesting, although not necessarily as umami-packed as the spaghettini.
We are not usually a fan of vinegar braised pig’s trotter but Low’s modern rendition is surprisingly alluring. Instead of pig’s trotter, Low serves pork jowl that has been barbecued. He plates it with a vinegared braising liquid presented in two different ways (a disc of gel and sauce) alongside French chestnut puree and pickled cabbage. It’s worth noting how tender the pork jowl is and how its smoky accent lifts the flavour of the pork.
The main of red snapper in a thick broth of pureed sayur lodeh is a potential talking point, mainly because sayur lodeh (mixed vegetables in coconut milk-scented curry) is not usually served with fish. But Low makes the dish uniquely Wild Rocket’s by giving the sayur lodeh a healthy blitz with the vegetables so that it comes thick, aromatic and full-on-flavour, with an intense spice kick that beautifully coats the fish.
You should be convinced by now to put this modern Singapore menu on your radar but should you need another nudge, be reminded that Wild Rocket’s nine-course menu will cost you no more than S$150 nett (after taxes and service charge) and that’s inclusive of two desserts, one of which is an ethereal floral-themed sweet featuring butterfly pea flower, elderflower and ginger flower) with lychee sorbet.
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BIBIK GOURMAND 