Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Shi Quan Shi Mei on SQ First Class

From left to right: beef fillet in barbecue dressing with cucumber julienne, mushroom tofu with soya crumbs in ginger sauce, papaya cup with curried chicken salad, and sliced abalone with black fungus, avocado, and tomato

I'd never flown First Class on SQ before, so I cashed in some miles for an upgrade tonight just to check out the experience. There was some expectedly excess pampering at Changi T3, be it the posh check-in area, the exclusive immigration lines, or even the First Class section of the SilverKris lounge, which featured a notable cheese selection and even some Ipoh hor fun made to order. I wasn't really in the mood to eat in the lounge though - I was waiting for my meal on the plane.

Clockwise from bottom left: stewed pork belly Dong Po style, steamed Chilean bass in ginger sauce, crumbed duck breast with sweet and sour spicy sauce, broccoli with shredded compoy, and double boiled pork soup with conpoy and Brazil wild mushrooms.

Specifically, I was looking for this set meal from Sam Leong of the Tung Lok group called shi quan shi mei, or "a complete and perfect Chinese culinary experience," as the leather-covered menu put it. This basically featured ten little kaiseki-like dishes: four cold starters, four hot dishes, a soup, and a dessert. Even though it produced major dragon breath, I enjoyed the fresh and light taste of nearly everything, all to be washed down with an impressive selection of loose leaf teas.

Satay on SQ

Unfortunately, this plane hadn't been upgraded to the new SQ First Class yet, so it was still the old version where seats sat side by side rather than those gigantic palaces that they've been advertising for the long haul flights. In that sense, UA's new Business Class was better than this with its larger screen and standard AC power outlet. But that's not a fair comparison given the generation differences, and this thing arguably beats UA's old school first class, especially with the latter's antiquated 8mm tape system. And yes, even in First Class, one still gets SQ's Raffles Class satay rather than peanuts after takeoff.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

heya

there a simple way to figure out which SIA plane has the new gigantic seats as advertised.

always check the aircraft type before booking the flight. basically the airbus 380 and boeing 777-300 extended range are all fitted with the new seats.

these planes not only do long haul also medium and regional sectors like hong kong, sydney, narita, melbourne, beijing, delhi, mumbai, etc.

keep a look out next time!

Anonymous said...

Out of curiosity, what route was this served on?

homeladychef said...

Wah....I really envy you, not only can travel in first class or business class, but also can travel around the world like no body business! Fantastic lifestyle. :) Enjoy reading your blog. Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

the rice looks real fluffy !