A Chinese chef proves his worth with...an omelette?!?!

To set the right tone for my time in Singapore, Jenika has planned a great dinner for the first night. We will eat a tasting menu at Summer Palace, a very good Chinese place at the Regent Four Seasons. Heading more or less straight there from the flight, I splash some water on my face, put on my one nice-ish shirt, and we head to the restaurant.

They know how to prepare the table. At each setting, there was a large cup of tea; three types of sauce, among them XO sauce, chilli sauce, and chopped chillies; soy sauce; and both Western and Chinese cutlery. The XO sauce was a local specialty, with dried scallops and dried shrimp combined with chillies.

First up to whet our appetites was an amuse of roast duck. One bite of roast duck, skin on, served over cucumbers with pickled ginger and a light sweet sauce. Excellent, just excellent. The roast duck was cold but not slimy, with several different textures in the bite.

Next was the Chinese appetizer medley. From left to right: sweet and sour prawn, peking duck pancake, scallop and bird's nest dumpling, and deep-fried soft shell crab with chicken floss. All quite good. The standouts were the soft-shell crab, with the light and fluffy chicken floss a great compliment to the crunchier crab. Also, chicken floss is cooked until the individual strands of meat can be separated, which are then cooked on their own - an amazing preparation. The prawn, too, was superb. I wasn't expecting much from a single prawn but it had amazing bite to it, with the meat retaining some crunchiness and not turning to relative mush like most prawns would.

The soup course was a sweet and sour soup. An old standard, but this was nothing like the sweet and syrupy junk we get in the States. It was rich but still soupy, with an amazing assortment of seafood, especially crab. The most remarkable part of this dish was the lingering heat from some chilies that were an after-after-taste, and slowly built as I ate the dish so it wasn't too repetitive.

It was so good I requested that my sister take an action shot of me.

And on to the mains, sticking with seafood to start, namely pan-fried cod with light soy and steamed egg whites. They're very hard to make out in the picture, but the bottom of the bowl was covered in a thin layer of steamed egg whites, perfectly done. This dish was stunning, I almost want to invent new adjectives for it. It was clearly the favorite of the table and the other dishes were quite good. The cod was cooked, well, perfectly, fluffy and not fishy in the least. The egg whites were like clouds and gave the dish added flavor without adding any weight to it. The whole thing was effortless to eat yet so striking and memorable. Wow.

How to follow the cod? With stir-fried crocodile and celery, of course! Small, bite-sized pieces of crocodile meat mixed in with celery. It was a surprisingly effective combination, with the celery providing a nice refreshing contrast to the meat. This crocodile tasted a bit like a cross between chicken and pork, with a definite flavor to it on its own.

The final meat course was thinly-sliced lamb over chinese vegetables. The lamb was rich and delicious, like pork belly infused with lamb flavor. The greens below were excellent at cleansing the palate in between bites.

The final savory course was a small bowl of fried noodles. These were nice and easy on the palate. The scallions were sliced into matchstick long segments and retained a very nice crunch.

This wonderful meal ended with a Chinese dessert medley. While it was the least impressive course, it was still tasty, with, from left to right: a bean-filled puff pastry; rock melon [nee cantalope] pudding; and tropical fruit and jellies, including mango, lychee, and dragonfruit seeds.

But that wasn't all! You may have noticed I haven't talked about eggs at all, yet that is what the title of this post is all about. Well! As a bonus, Anshul took me into the kitchen, where I met Chef Liu. He then made one of the best (and coolest) omelettes I've ever seen, with just four ingredients: eggs, scallions, crab, and caviar. He did it by separating the yolk from the whites. Then, he cooked the yolk in the wok, in about 25 seconds. He then cooked the whites, using incredible wok control and quick flicks of the wrist to fling out a thin layer of whites that would instantly cook, which he would scrape off. Finally, he constructed the omelette with egg yolk, crab, egg whites, and caviar. One bite and I was in heaven! And, luckily, I caught it all on video!

By the end of the meal, both Sahana (who received an amazing chocolate sundae) and I were very happy campers.