Grilled Summer Mushroom Steak on "Pu Ye" Hot Stone - most thoughtful and deserving item to be in fine-dining:) hard to master ingredient to cook: monkey head mushroom :) good fragrance from the leaf.
Marinated watermelon with dill mustard dressing & memoji seaweed topped with pine nuts ❌ nope didn’t work for me
Gratinated Champignon with Mozzarella (vegetarian escargot)
Slow braised Bailing mushroom served on paper hot pot💯💗
Lemongrass ice blended 💯
vegetable skewer
salmon sashimi (vegetarian)
raspberry puree
Joie was such an amazing vegetarian experience, was so unique I could not recommend it enough! It was great, felt like such an experience with so many different flavours and it was all meat free!
Picking something light and refreshing to end the meal. The poached pear may not come with strong alcoholic kicks, but still pretty nice. Lime sorbet was a tad overpowering here, so I suggest having them separately. Nothing to shout about but still enjoying it.
Love how on point the truffle flavour and fragrant turns out- probably because they’re using black truffle instead of truffle-infused oil. Rice could have more bites, but still decent. Japanese croquette is surprisingly good— creamy and sweet. I also enjoy the edamame more than I thought I would. It definitely adds some crunchiness to the soft texture of the rice grains and croquette.
The salmon sashimi is similar to what I had for the appetizer, which, then again, was pretty impressive. While the sliced coconut (middle) was mediocre and underwhelming, the rest of the items are interesting. My favourite is the right-most item: huai san (waiter said it was bamboo shoot tho). Regardless, the sliced huai san came with slight crunchiness and savoury-tangy kick that is very appetising. The red jelly on the back was aloe vera immersed in what I guess was rose syrup— a refreshing break from other savoury flavour. Oyster leaf shot was another bold flavour that I love, letting me forget that it’s not even oyster to begin with!
Slowly braised Bailing mushroom served with some Japanese style paper hotpot albeit its flavour leaning more towards Chinese cuisine. Was told to slice the mushroom so it can slowly soak up the sauce, but it’s pretty tricky to do that on a paper hot pot. Nothing to shout about but still enjoy the simple, honest flavour from the mushroom and sauce.
Chef’s selection assorted platter consisted of seaweed cracker (left), “salmon sashimi” (middle), and a droplet of berry (right). Seaweed cracker left the least impression on me, though it’s undoubtedly crispy. Salmon sashimi was an eye-opener because the texture and colour were pretty similar, thanks to the combination of konjac and carrot. My favourite of the lot is the droplet of berry. Nothing surprising, but loves the tangy burst of berry.
Veggies are the new “fetch”. At Joie, an assortment of vegetables are beautifully plated and carefully crafted to create an exciting 6 course set lunch menu.
Started off with a cup of cheese sticks that much resembled raw spaghetti 🍝 to munch on while we waited for the other dishes 🤓. We were then told to cleanse our palettes with a shot of their refreshing juice nestled in a bed of crushed ice * boujEee* 🥃.
Petit Fours included faux sashimi (not a fan of actual raw fish so this was great), a very random cracker and a droplet bursting with pomegranate juice YUM!
Made the idiot decision of ordering Charcoal Coated Tempura — super uninteresting, should’ve gone with the Baby Root on truffled mash. Had AN AMAZING bowl of mushroom soup but it was SO tiny 😞
Had the Gnocchi which had mushroom sauce poured over. Pretty good. My friend had the Duo Ravioli platter which was delicious too. I want to lament about the portion but I have to remind myself that this is “fine dining” 😂.
Went with the Red Wine Poach Pear with Lime Sorbet (tad too sour) which I thought could’ve been presented better... pear 🍐 looks bludgeoned to death. Drinks were super average tending to diabetically bad. Could barely finish my Hawaiian Blue mocktail aka my blue artificial colouring and syrup water.
Hoping for more consistent quality throughout the courses. Would still come back to try their other creative takes and for the tranquil view of the Orchard Central rooftop garden (MUST ask for the seat with the view!!!). Joie is perfect for occasions and heading towards that meat-free lifestyle 🌳 🙌🙌🙌
Fine-dining dessert lol. The centrepiece was red beans in yam paste separated by pastry. It was rather underwhelming and I believe the fanciness merely helped to mask that fact. Came with an ingot of ice cream.
Mallow flowers, apple juice, guava juice. This was unreal good. If anything, it taught me that apple and guava are bedfellows. It was so refreshing. Came with cut apple.
Some food is elegantly plated, but this struck me as my first time meeting food as art. The huge bowl, the pebbles, the hot stone and the leaf. Not nice also frozen by the ornament. And they served a culinary purpose. The hot stone supposedly keeps the "steak" warm while the leaf, apparently specially imported, supposedly imparts a flavour to the "steak". With all said, it was mediocre. The grilled monkey head mushroom, although unusual, was meh. So were the deep-fried enoki mushrooms. So was the truffle mash.
Below the crisp is salt-baked celery root too. I favoured its novelty over their signature cepes mushroom soup. You should not.
Tempura consisted of yam, eggplant, apple and banana (goreng pisang). Paired with Japanese sesame dressing. Straightforward.
The "sashimi" impressed me. Instead of salmon, it's made with carrot and konjac, creating an orange-colour jelly mimicking sashimi. On the left is an unknown cracker and on the right is an unknown fruity mousse on an unknown cracker.
