Peach Blossoms: elegance and sleight in crafting the perfect modern Chinese flavours
Traditional Chinese cuisine is often looked upon with reverence here. An irrefragably dignified art. A time-honoured canon that is consistently refined and comforting. It’s regarded as a salient part of our proud heritage which, unfortunately, also stales the sea of ideas. But not at Peach Blossoms.
Found on the fifth floor of Park Royal Collection Marina Bay, the apertured screen doors and majestic wood-overlayed facade tell a story of a prim-and-proper Cantonese-style hotel restaurant experience.
Deeper into its compound, gilded arches connect the rooms, while familiarly vintage textures and patterns are contrasted against a splendorous view of Marina Bay Sands — equally as conservative, save for the view.
Looks can, however, be deceiving. As conventional as this hotel Chinese restaurant’s dining room may appear in its demeanour and furnishing, a bodacious ambition is baking inside its kitchen.
The flames are fanned by Chef Edward Chong —the Executive Chef of Peach Blossoms— whose forward-looking maverick streak is used as the guiding force behind a myriad of creative modern inflexions found in the restaurant’s patented style of Chinese cuisine.
Most aptly put: it’s a style of Chinese cuisine that seeks to challenge the paradigm while staying faithful to tradition.
Start with a creative spark
Chef Edward’s spark for reshaping trusted recipes flickers to life immediately with the first course of the 6-course Gastronomic ($188) menu — an arrestingly plated Peach Blossoms’ signature Deep-fried ‘Cigar’ Roll, spring rolls stout with snow crab, prawn, foie gras mousse, and black truffle.
Clamping your teeth on the tip, the delicate wrapper of crunchy skin obligingly acquiesces, shooting out a whiff of luxuriating umami, demurely perfumed by truffle and ending with gentle smoke. To truly relish the dish, remember to allow a splash of tangy Peking duck sauce to pierce through the heft.
Its ensuing act then steered the conversation towards orthodoxy: the Nourishing ‘Jeju Abalone’ Soup naturally assumed the role of the wholesome soup demanded by a holistic Chinese feast, but translated to modern context through ingredient curation.
As the top note, it brims with sweet scallop richness while the overall profile enjoys a stunning transparency in flavour. Beneath all that, it’s the velvety and collagen-flushed body that soothes the soul, along with the plush crunch of the fish maw and in-season Yunan mushrooms that elevate the ensemble.
More intricacies are introduced towards the tail-end of each sip as a medley of ginger florals and mellow burn emerge to contrast against the soup’s lightness — simply a supremely well-balanced soup.
The following glistening Caramelised Smoked Jamón Iberico Pork Belly also keeps intimacy with familiar flavours but accentuates them with technique and sleight, using exquisite Iberico pork belly as the base.
Essentially, charsiew at Peach Blossoms is superlatively decadent. Glorious streaks of fat lead the charge, along with a beautiful blast of applewood smoke to blitz the palate.
Sections of the meat are kept felicitously fatty or tender, while everything is crowned with a layer of caramelisation that crackles rambunctiously while imbuing a sweet lustre to the savoury base, almost akin to creme brulee.
Finish with modern splendour
Edging towards the meal’s climax, Peach Blossoms proffered another enthralling modern reinterpretation. This time, it’s the Carrot Cake, a silky Cantonese-style creature comfort imbued with the gratuity of an XO-sauce-esque from Chef’s gan hiang sauce recipe.
With each scoop, the mild but dreamily silken carrot cake elegantly spreads through the mouth before the vigour of the umami gan hiang sauce sets in, along with a pinch of heat to add depth.
On the side, the embellishing lobster is indubitably excellent too but the luxe component surprisingly loses out to the more humble carrot cake dish, which stole the show.
Even with the wealth of gastronomical ingenuity and stellar flavour combinations, one dish stood atop all as the piece de resistance at Peach Blossoms — the Braised Mung Bean Noodles in Crab Roe Collagen, lavishly introduced with a hail of shaved crab roe.
A lone crab claw is cast as the protagonist with a hidden side, where one side is exceptionally luscious crab meat and the reverse side is embedded with a silky yong-tau-fu-esque amalgam of crab and prawn paste.
But the real essence of the dish exists as an ocean of flavour, where bursts of ambrosial seafood richness come rushing out from every morsel of stock, chicly elevated with pops of acidity from vinegar pearls.
It’s not a standalone act, however, and requires fishing for the blissfully silky and bouncy sheets of mung bean noodles which, when coated with the stock, become stupendously sumptuous.
Ending with grandeur, Peach Blossoms then serves up a Chilled Peach Resin and Snow Lotus, served in a carved-up French Charentais Melon. It’s vibrant, it’s milky, and it’s wholesomely sweet without being saccharine — a perfectly balanced end to the meal.
As I already foresaw from the first cigar dish, I was blown away by the wealth of ideas and theatrics that were added to many familiar Chinese staples. The cooking steers away from avant-garde experimentation but remains persuasively modern.
If Peach Blossoms looks like a conventional Chinese restaurant to you, it’ll not take long before you are convinced by the modern flair that Chef Edward instils with finesse.
You can also make a reservation before visiting Peach Blossoms.
Peach Blossoms
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- Address: 6 Raffles Blvd, Level 5 Park Royal Collection Marina Bay, Singapore 039594
- Hours: (Mon–Fri) 12pm–3 pm, 6:30pm–10:30 pm, (Sat–Sun) 11 am–3 pm, 6:30pm–10:30 pm
*This was an invited tasting.