Food Review: Ban Heng @ Orchard Central

On the roof of the tallest mall in Singapore lies several restaurants and one of them is Ban Heng. They serve up a Chinese a-la-carte styled buffet dinner with 51 different dishes ranging from their special one serve Chef’s Recommendations to desserts. They have a pretty modern interior with the wood walls and brick stage. However, they still keep the traditional long table cloths and clothed chairs to go with it.

Once we were seated, we immediately ordered the seven items on the Chef’s Recommendations since they can be only ordered once.

Scallop

My personal favorite out of the seven items is the Steamed Half Shell Clam (which is actually scallop) with Vermicelli & Garlic. The moment you put the scallop into your mouth, flavours start bursting out – it had the right amount of garlic and saltiness from the sauce. It is such a shame we could not order another plate.

crab

For the crab, we decided to go for the cold crab. Essentially, it has been steamed then chilled. It is served cold and I must say the crab was very fresh! It was very sweet and still had some of the salty seawater taste. The crab meat was intact and did not become mushy, which happens sometimes when the crabs are not fresh or have been overcooked. In addition to that, the amount of crab roe inside was A LOT. That was my favourite part! 😍

Duck

After going through the menu, something on the Poultry & Meat section really caught our eyes: the Braised Goose Meat in Teochew Style. So out of curiosity of what the goose meat would actually taste like, we ordered it. I would say that the taste is very similar to the braised duck. However, the texture of the meat is smoother. It does not break apart as easily whilst still being quite tender.

The table was pretty divided on the Wok-fried Spare Ribs with Coffee Sauce. I liked it as the coffee sauce had quite a strong coffee taste. But I would not complain if it was stronger. The meat was tender and tasty. I definitely enjoyed this dish!

For a vegetable dish, we decided on the Stir-fried Baby Kai Lan with Garlic. Vegetables are really good to clear the palette and helps elevate the meal. They were very tasty and had quite a lot of flavour from the garlic.

We also tried other dishes like the Jelly Fish in Thai Style. It was quite spicy but nice if you want to have a change in flavours. Other dishes that I would recommend is the Wok-fried Venison with Japanese Teriyaki Sauce, and the Fish Maw Soup with Seafood.

Fish