Wok Palace 玉品轩 (Fusionopolis)

I was not a big fan of the wasabi prawns at Wok Master and did not expect much from Wok Palace's specialty pineapple prawns.

However, I found myself enjoying this dish. The sauce was thoroughly enjoyable and tasted like a thick creamy mango sauce. I also liked the chunks of pineapple in the sauce.

As with its sister restaurant, Wok Palace's tzichar dishes may not be exciting to the palate but they are always well executed. Whilst I always found the service at their City Square Mall outlet to be warm and friendly, the service at the Fusionopolis outlet was rather lacklustre. The restaurant wasn't too packed on a weekday evening and it did not appear understuffed. Yet, they never checked or refilled our teapots. Hopefully this is just be a one off because we were seated in a rather remote corner.

P.S. As always a big thank you to the folks at Burpple and Wok Palace for hosting us!

According to one of my fellow #burpplers at the #eatup, each of the Wok Master group restaurants has a signature dish which is only served in that particular restaurant.

For Wok Palace at Fusionopolis, it is the signature classic roast duck. The duck meat was soft and tender and the braising sauce was tantalisingly aromatic with a strong hint of angelica sinesis.

This was the most popular dish amongst the Burrplers at the eatup but for the common complaint that the duck was rather lean and more of skin and bones. I also felt that the flavours of the braising sauce did not permeate the duck completely as you don't get dangui flavours in the duck meat unless it is dipped in the braising sauce.

For my fellow Burpplers on #burpplebeyond, Wok Palace offers a nice 1-for-1 deal for mains below $28.

Golden Tofu with Crab Meat is one of the dishes which feature under the Burpple promo. This dish features a deep fried tofu triangles in a golden yellow pumpkin sauce and topped with crab meat.

The sauce is quite tasty. Smooth and sweet with a slight nutty flavour. The only problem though is that all you can taste is the pumpkin sauce and the crab meat flavour is totally lost.

I think this dish suffers from the same problem as the mini yam rings with scallop. A more pricey ingredient is used to zhng the dish but it is kinda lost in translation as the flavours are totally overwhelmed by another component of the dish.

I don't usually enjoy yam rings because the yam usually turns out hard and lumpy and the batter crusty.

I did enjoy Wok Palace's mini yam rings though as the yam was lusciousy smooth, mildly sweet and earthy. The batter too was shattering crisp.

However, the pairing of yam with the scallops did not really click for me . I only noticed the scallop because I broke my yam ring up into smaller pieces. If you had eaten the mini yam ring in a mouthful, you would probably not notice the scallop due to the strong creamy and earthy flavours of the yam.

I think this dish would work better if the yam ring was served separately or without the scallop.

I could smell the strong earthy and nutty aroma of truffle oil even before this claypot dish was served!

I may be in the minority but I loved the gravy stock which the vegetables were served in. It was silky smooth, subtly sweet yet so rich and savoury. It would have been perfect paired with rice.

This dish also came with luffa, mushrooms and what I initially thought was fish maw but is instead a rather peculiar ingredient known as bamboo fungus mushroom! The mushroom's scientific name is phallus indusiatus and if you are wondering why, you just have to google videos of this *ahem* interesting looking fungus. It is also known as basket stinkhorn and the veiled lady due to its stinky smell and the "basket skirt" which emerged when the fungus matures.

The membrane-like skirt really does remind me of the texture of fish maw and absorbs the flavours of the gravy broth. It does however lack the collagen "bounce" of fish maw but is a great substitute for our vegetarian friends!

If you are near the one-north area, this is one decent place to consider for a more upscale dining experience. We had a selection of dishes and here are my favourites:

Signature Classic Roast Duck (whole - $58.80): I can see why this is their signature, as the sauce here was fantastic. It had a nice blend of sweet and savoury flavours, coupled with strong herbal notes. This is one sauce I wanna mop up with rice! The duck itself was tender, the skin was crispy but my only gripe was that it was rather skinny, so most parts didn't have much meat.

Speciality Pineapple Prawns ($32): it came with a nice presentation and it tasted as good as it looked. The plump prawns were drenched in a sweet sauce that was pretty refreshing!

Dual Style Hor Fun ($16.80): the hor fun noodles were silky smooth and had a nice bite! Loved that it had the wok hei flavour too. The fried hor fun noodles were also fresh and the crispy texture went so well with the silky noodles.

The rest of the dishes were decent at best. Thank you @burpple for inviting and thank you @wokpalacesg for the food!