Visited No Signboard Resturant recently after a long hiatus from visting any restaurants. It was kind of for a celebration for my mummy’s birthday. Kind of a celebration for me as well because our birthdays are really close together.
Anyhow, we went to the branch newly opened in Central Clarke Quay at around 3+ and it was completely isolated apart from another table.
So do visit that branch if you prefer a quieter atmosphere during the weekdays. The decor of the place was really nice, they had like chandeliars hanging over every table. It was a fusion of Chinese Asian decor and had also very westernised elements.
During Christmas, they had a Christmas tree filled with crab shells, which was really kind of cool and creative on their part! (:
We went for the Set Menu for 2 people, even though we had 3 people because the serving there is ridiculously huge.
Appetiser: Lobster Salad
The lobster salad was very well done. There were pieces of lobster in it with alot of like a special mayo sauce lathered on top together with several diced cubes of fruit. I believe there was honeydew inside. Not really sure what were the fruits.
And there was also peeled oranges at the side. The slight sourness of the oranges actually helped make the dish perfect because otherwise the mayo would have gotten really sickeningly sweet.
And of course, very nice decor by the chef.
Braised Shark’s Fin with Crab Meat.
I don’t really know how you can criticise much about shark’s fin. It is what it is. Stewed for very long so the shark’s fin is extremely soft.
Tasty as per all sharks fin. Extremely generous with the shark’s fin, egg, crab meat. A little too thick for my liking, like they added abit too much cornstarch but these kinds of things vary from a day to day basis so its hard to tell.
Garlic Fried Broccolli
A very simple dish, just brocolli stir fried with garlic. Done very well, brocolli wasn’t over or under done.
It was a pleasant addition in the set menu to take of the heaviness of the lobster salad’s mayo sauce or the vinegar in the shark’s fin.
It sort of soothed your senses a little bit so it was a good addition and served at the right time.
Small Serving of Drunken Prawn (not included in the set menu but additionally ordered)
We decided to order our favourite dish from No signboard, apart from the infamous crabs, drunken prawn.
Though its not a chef recommendation, it has been our personal recommendation to anyone visiting the restuarant.
We were disappointed this time round though because the soup didn’t seem to have been boiled for hours allowing the herbs to soak in the water together with the prawns.
The soup didn’t have enough sweetness of the prawn, nor the bitterness of the herbs.
It was kind of like drinking a very very weak version of the first version we ever tasted.
So its not a dish I would recommend you order from this branch. At least not for now.
The highlight of the set menu and the real reason for our trip to No signboard.
WHITE PEPPER CRAB!!
Its one of the chefs recommendations and obviously I couldn’t wait to lay my hands on these fine tasting crabs.
The crab itself wasn’t a disappointment. The crab was extremely fresh (you could practically taste the freshness!), the meat was extremely solid, not lumpy like a crab that had died for a long time and they decided to cook it anyways.
It had alot of egg roe (MY FAVOURITE!!) and I ate the egg roe till I nearly died from all of it.
However, the white pepper sauce wasn’t to my expectations.
Maybe they did it to suit a more general popultion of Singapore which is why it wasn’t spicy enough.
But I personally didn’t think the sauce was tasty at all.
I felt like I was just eating the crab meat by itself because even dunking it in the sauce didn’t really help its cause.
Dessert: Mango Sago with fresh peeled Pomelo and Almond Beancurd with Longan
Not a big fan of the almond beancurd, so I decided to change one of the dessert to mango sago to suit my taste.
In the end I didn’t really like the dessert because I have an extremely sweet tooth and the dessert wasn’t sweet enough for me. The pomelo made it worse because it was sour. It took away even more of the sweetness of the dessert.
However they were extremely generous with the portion of mango cubes inside.
As for the almond beancurd, my daddy and mummy liked it so I think it was pretty ok.
I do think they should widen the selection of desserts because even though they specialise in seafood, desserts are often the ones that leave the last and most important impression. So yea, some work to be done on the desserts.
All in all, I think I’ll give the place 3/5.
It wasn’t nearly as good as the last time I visited No signboard but that was a different branch so it could be a contributing factor.
Its still a nice place to visit for the occasional craving of good food and relatively good ambience and also relatively good service.
However, if you’re looking for extremely good food that tantalises your tastebuds to the maximum then this may not be the perfect choice for you.
The view is very nice though.
The restuarant gave us a seat that overlooked clarke quay and the Singapore river so it wasn’t a bad view at all.
Mummy looking extremely happy waiting for the serving of delicious food.
And ending off with a picture of me showing that I desperately need to comb my hair and get a new dye job.
This colour has turned way too dull for comfort.
Adios. Hope you enjoyed my post. (:
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