Jade Restaurant reaches for the moon

An elegant Mid-Autumn feast to please both traditional and modern palates at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore

While Mid-Autumn is more popularly known for the tradition of mooncakes and lantern walks, there is also its origins as a harvest festival and a time for reunion after the hard work in the fields.

At Jade Restaurant at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, Chinese Executive Chef Leong Chee Yeng goes one step further to imbue symbolic references to the moon in each dish that he has created for the restaurant’s Mid-Autumn menu, which runs from 25 September to 1 October only.

While the dishes will be available a la carte, it is the 6-course Treasures Menu that attracts the gaze and palate.

The first dish, Trio of Moonlight is actually three dishes in one, featuring sautéed sliced duck in Chinese wine and soy sauce (similar to three cup chicken), chilled fresh abalone scented with rose wine, and deep-fried scallop stuffed with shrimp paste and green pear for a refreshing crunch. Up next is a dish that presents a reflection of the moon on a lake, in the form of perfectly clear chicken soup with fine, hand-minced chicken. The moon appears as a slice of carefully carved winter melon stuffed with dried scallop.

The next dish bears a disc of salted egg yolk as the full moon, overlooking a hearty bowl of braised grouper with pan-fried housemade beancurd. The following main course is the prettiest yet, as it uses the plate as a landscape of steamed egg white with prawn, scented with vintage Chinese hua diao wine. The orange moon behind a cloud of sliced mushrooms is made of tasty crab roe.

Wok-fried rice with honey-glazed pork char siew and preserved olives round off the savouries, as dessert arrives in the form of pineapple and coconut ice cream dotted with osmanthus jelly, paired with a cute rabbit-shaped egg white cake.

If you haven’t tasted them yet, now is a good time as the restaurant serves up samples of baked and snowskin mooncakes from this year’s signatures collection.

From 25 September to 1 October, a la carte and 6-course set menu ($98 per person, one dines free with every four persons). Jade, 1 Fullerton Square. Tel: 6877 8911 / 8912