Food review: Yan

SINGAPORE — Unlike a painting or installation, a restaurant located in an art gallery has to cater not only to one’s sense of sight, but also taste and texture. That’s a tall order, but the newly opened Yan rises to the occasion very adequately.

Fans of the Park Palace restaurant (formerly located at Grand Park City Hall) will be glad to know that Yan is its shiny new incarnation. The fine-dining Cantonese restaurant is one of three restaurant and bar options to choose from at the National Gallery of Singapore. Its new digs is an airy, elegant space on the Gallery’s rooftop, with light woods, fabric-dressed walls and silk screens separating booths.

Service here is also much more attentive and appropriately subtle. There is an afternoon tea service, with a selection of dim sum, available on weekends too.

The man who helmed the kitchen at park palace, Chef Chan Kung Lai, is also dishing out his popular favourites here, including suckling pig and steamed crab claw with Chinese wine and essence of chicken.

The signature crispy roast suckling pig (S$124 for half a pig; S$248 for a full pig), which requires a day’s advanced order, remains faultlessly executed and served in three ways: Crispy skin resting lightly on tiny, steamed, petaled pancakes; carved shoulder; and filleted and baked with lemongrass. The herbed pork is tender, juicy and has an uplifting fragrance you probably won’t find anywhere else. In fact, the lemongrass makes it possible to inhale more meat than you realise.

Another winner is the double-boiled chicken soup (S$22) served in a young coconut. It’s nothing less than what you’d expect from expert Cantonese cuisine, which prides itself on its deceptively simple but solid soups. This version is bright and clear, sweetened with clams and dates, perfumed with a broad hint of coconut and served with a crispy fried breadstick on the side.

Give the fried live prawns with crispy noodle ball in consomme (S$12) a miss if you will, but don’t pass on the pan-fried crab meat with egg white and bean sprouts (S$32). This is not on the menu, but is available on request. This springy white mess, wrapped up in a lettuce leaf and best eaten with your hands, is crisp, light and refreshing, yet shot through with the flavour of the wok.

Salted egg yolk custard buns are de rigeur, but it’s not often you find a deep-fried version (S$6 for three). If you ask us, these crispy golden orbs are the rock stars of liu sha. Sure, the custard itself could be a little richer — isn’t it always the case? — but nothing is as satisfying as crunching through fluffy dough to an explosion of creamy salted egg.

As a dessert, the buns pair perfectly with the hot almond cream (S$8), which, unlike the synthetic versions out there, is made from freshly ground almonds.

Just as a painting gains something when it’s hung in a gallery, the right setting helps when it comes to gastronomic experiences, too. This meal, then, can certainly be called a work of art. May Seah

Yan

Where: #05-02 National Gallery Singapore, 1 St. Andrew’s Road

Telephone: 6384 5585

Opening hours: Lunch 11.30am to 2.30pm, Mon to Sun, Afternoon tea 2.30pm to 5pm, Sat and Sun, Dinner 6pm to 10.30pm, Mon to Sun

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