Old-school fare at Antoinette

If you associate Antoinette solely with dessert, then you’ve only experienced half of chef Pang Kok Keong’s brilliance. Through his newly-introduced heritage dishes, Pang's inventive flair is on fine display from the get-go. Accompanying the bread basket ($5) are Lego bricks of butter in four flavours: rempah, crispy shallot, pickled radish (chye poh) and fermented beancurd (fu ru). He taps on his Hakka roots to create a colourful gnocchi version of abacus seeds (suan pan zi), enriched by foie gras and morels ($24). As an impressive final act, his pandan dessert ($14) juxtoposes a chunk of kaya-slicked toast with its deconstructed cousin – an elaborate arrangement of pandan ice cream, pandan caviar, coconut crumble and a large bread crisp made to look like a coral sponge. 30 Penhas Road. Tel: 6293 3121