Taste Paradise at Ion Orchard

The husband and I don't go to the Orchard Road area if we can help it - it's not as if there are many good restaurants there that can't be found elsewhere, and it's just way too crowded. However, O, an old friend from uni and my husband's ex-coursemate, was passing through Singapore on her way to San Diego and had requested to try the food at Taste Paradise. So we made a booking the day before we had dinner there, which surprisingly was quite easily done - no fixed seatings, and no hassle at all.

Before going to the food, I have to talk about O, otherwise known as O Xiao Jie, who is this amazing woman married to the most amazing (ok, second most amazing) husband. O was hit by a car that mounted the kerb in the parking lot of a Melbourne hospital after work, and after surgery, rehab and lots of prayer and determination, is able to now walk with crutches. Quite a miraculous outcome considering the initially very bleak diagnosis. Mr O (sorry, J!) has proven to be truly the man of her dreams - taking such good care of her in sickness and in health. They're a wonderful couple and even though it's been a difficult time, their sense of peace and positivity is unbelievable.

Moving on to the food. This place is not cheap, and the servings are not very big. But the food is of very good quality, and the service is excellent. We ordered quite a lot of food, and were quite sad that many of the items were sold out by the time we were there. The waitress explained that everything had to be fresh, and so only limited quantities were prepared each day.

XO sauce - this was quite yummy but a bit too sweet for my liking.

The Kou Shui Ji (口水鸡) was one of the best I have tasted in Singapore, with the right blend of Sichuan pepper and sesame sauce. It's normally too oily and spicy, and Taste Paradise does it just right.

The XO Carrot Cake was very very good. The carrot cake mixture was soft, flavourful and fluffy.

This sea whelk in melon soup was the last one available. And it was a real small melon too! I'll need O to comment because we didn't try it.
The husband and I shared a fish maw double boiled soup. I thoroughly enjoyed this - it had a rich texture without being too herbal.

We ordered a Peking roast duck to share among the 4 of us - the waitress was trying to convince us that a half duck was sufficient. Since that amounted to only 2 pieces of skin per person, we were not convinced. So we had the entire duck.

This was the first time in a long time eating Peking duck in Singapore. So I was curious to know what it would taste like.

One to carve, one to wrap. I thought we would have had to wrap it ourselves.

In the meantime, our roast meat dish arrived - siu yuk and suckling pig combo. They had run out of char siew : (

I didn't think much of the suckling pig skin, but the siu yuk was pretty good. The skin was crispy and the meat not too fatty.

Our 16 pieces of duck skin all wrapped up. Although it was good, there's no way it can beat Da Dong's. It just wasn't as crispy somehow.

Prawns with wasabi mayonaise. This was surprisingly good. The wasabi wasn't too pungent, and the prawns had a nice crispy battered shell.

Spinach with salted, preserved and normal egg. This was very ordinary, but nice nonetheless.

We had the rest of the duck fried with bee hoon. By this time, we were rather full, so we couldn't eat much of it.

On the whole it was a very positive experience - I probably wouldn't return for a normal everyday evening meal, but I would be quite happy to wait for a special occasion (like a bonus!) to go back to try some of the food we wanted to order, eg. fried rice with tobiko. We really enjoyed catching up with O and J : )