LÈ Restaurant and Bar

it is friday night (soon)! and I hope you have a nice one planned, but if not — maybe you could pop over here for a drink or two. just maybe not stay for the whole night though — it feels like the sort of place you come for a quick mandatory post-​work drink for which you don’t want to linger.
not that the place isn’t pretty or the food bad — just that it’s rather pricey, and seems geographically mislocated. let’s discuss.
this is actually the newest addition to the paradise group stable — and it’s marked out to be posh fine-​dining chinese food. it looks that way — reminds me of the dark glamour of hakkasan in london (one of my favorite chinese restaurants) — you enter a cozily-​lit bar area lined with chillers of expensive-​looking alchoholic beverages, and walk through to arrive at the more cavernous and even more exclusive-​looking dining area. it’s all dark, romantic lighting, glam furnishing, and snobby staff.
it’s a good start: I’m already a big fan of the paradise group’s efforts — they churn out consistently and reliably good food throughout. add to that a gorgeous dining space and the whole luxurious feel, and they’ve got me.
just that I wasn’t quite as impressed with the offerings here. we eschewed the more traditional proper dining menu to take tapas at the bar area since it was a friday, but I expected the same quality of execution as they usually bring — and didn’t really get it.
the tapas dishes are a new-​age take on chinese dishes, like a dish of drunken chicken in chilli sauce, topped with century egg. or foie gras diced-​and-​fried into fritters alongside a chilli bean paste. or our order of chilli crab kueh pie tee that had shelled meat atop micro-​green sprouts in the traditional case.
I can see where they were going with it all — but the flavors didn’t meld for me. the microgreens in that pie tee were too grass-​green and loose to hold the moistness of the toppings, the foie gras too rich for deep-​frying, and so on. ultimately, the weakest point of the dishes wasn’t a lack of flavor — a quality they had in abundance — but the different components didn’t form a cohesive product.
and to finish — my partner and I were really baffled: why was this place located in suntec city? for one, the mall is swarmed by children-​totting families and is blindingly lit — which doesn’t make it amenable to the sort of pleasant post-​drink tipsyness you hope for after a successful friday night; and two, suntec city isn’t the sort of place you wear a suit or cocktail dress to (whereas the restaurant is posh enough to warrant it).
it’s a pity then — because I think this place would do so well in the glitzy marina bay sands. but as it stands — I’m not quite sure what to recommend: post dinner drinks, or a posher type dinner with the in-​laws perhaps?

I thought I was quite crazy to bring my Ah Ma to an all new Chinese fusion restaurant for dinner but I was attracted by the 30 per cent discount offer since the pricing of the dishes are quite high.
But fortunately, the menu is still dominated by classic Chinese food that are similar to that of many fine-​dining Chinese Restaurant. The menu is divided into Live Seafood/​Fresh Seafood/​Soup/​Meat/​Poultry/​Tofu etc… But we did order few item from «Small Eats and Salad» section – the Szechuan style poached chicken $ 12 四川口水鸡. The folks, who have been trying this dish whenever it is available, claimed it to be the best so far in Singapore. Unlike the version drenched in chlli oil and topped with crunchy peanuts at Paradise Dynasty, this one is crowded with flavours from the sweet-​salty peanut sauce, some fiery blackish-​red chilli and diced century eggs.
Meanwhile, we also gave unequivocal thumbs up to the Char Grilled Pork Collar with Lemongrass 炭烧猪颈肉 $ 22. The pork was skilfully sliced to nearly the thickness of paper that we could barely distinguish between the fat and meat. Besides the accompanying Thai sweet chilli sauce, there was a slice of juicy caramelized pineapple which imbued this classic Thai grill dish with another dimension of sweetness.
It seems like the Crunchy Jellyfish with Thai Mango Salad $ 18 allows Chinese and Thai food fans to have the best of both world but the Thai Mango Salad was a bit of let down – sweet but lack the spice.
The Cream of Bak Kut Teh 特色肉骨茶 comes at an astonishing price of $ 12 per person. It is the Western counterpart of our Bak Kut Teh, and a huge relief that it does not taste much different from the usual hawker version. There are strong accents of herbs and cubes of vegetables. Part of the price tag definitely goes into the crispy slice of Italian Serrano Ham. I guessed this dish counts as rather gimmicky, but a successful one.
The Dirty Duck – braised for at least 6 hours then fried – is the restaurant’s signature dish. ($ 38 half/​$ 68 for whole) Like how a Beijing roasted duck would usually be served, the servers wraps them in pale green handmade scallion crêpe with condiments in front of diners.
The prove of crispy, blistered skin is ascertained before we put the warm roll into our mouths as crackling sounds are heard when the servers sliced through the duck. This is one fantastic dish that one should not miss at this restaurant. Half a duck can make up till around 11 servings.
Besides the duck, my favourite dish of the day was this Braised Wa Wa Cabbage with Supreme Broth $ 26. Attention has been paid to the yellow stock, for it was rich and flavourful, unlike the diluted watered-​down sauce which I chanced upon quite often in some Chinese restaurants or zi char places.
Desserts are not the restaurant’s strongest suits – but would still be suitable for those inclined to close their meals with something sweet.
The Sweet Temptation ($ 13) was a trio of dessert shooters which we had previously at Taste Paradise Ion. Sitting along with the familiar mango sago and avocado cream, the Yakult pudding in strips of black and white seems like an innovative creation but it was a let down because it had no traces of Yakult at all.
The custard lava bun which one usually get during dim sum hours at Paradise Group restaurants are deep fried and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream at $ 9. Nothing much out of the world so I would stick to the standard steam version for dim sum. Afterall, the latter is more value for money.
Step in this place and you feel that this is a chi-​chi restaurant with a glowing Buddha Statue over watching the open kitchen (feng shui, maybe?) Service was caught up in a traffic when there was rarely a free seat during peak weekend dining hours but the waiters understood the meals they served. And surprisingly, one of the servers who attended to us was from Ukraine!
Overall, the food was not too far off the mark but the price is still a little too steep without the discount.