Andre Chiang serves souped-up hotpot at Raffles City
Bon Broth is the famed Taiwanese chef’s Singapore homecoming venture
NEW RESTAURANT
Bon Broth #03-01 Raffles City 252 North Bridge Road Singapore 179103 Tel: 8380-7434 Open daily from 11 am to 10 pm.
BON Broth is steamboat for the instant-gratification crowd. Patience is passe. To think we were brought up to believe the joy of hotpot was in the wait – that magical moment when vapid broth morphs into a heady essence of meat and seafood carefully fed into it – and the satisfaction of tasting the soup of our labour.
But now, many fish balls later, maverick chef Andre Chiang comes along and tells us we’ve been doing it wrong all these years. Why go through so much hassle when you can get that ambrosial brew right from the start? And in multiple flavours? Soup that’s good enough to drink on its own, and anything you put in benefits from it, not the other way around?
And lo, we have this temple to soup in Raffles City, where a large copper pot said to hold the mother broth is displayed like an idol of worship under a giant light installation-exhaust. Devotees, oops, diners, sit around it at a circular counter fitted with individual induction hobs.
The restaurant itself is elegant chic with an Asian accent, like a Chinese apothecary married to an Aesop store. Think tasteful, mood-lit wood and copper tones. The servers dress like pharmacists and dispense the double-boiled philosophy of Chiang, along with perfume store-like scent strips that indicate your chosen broth.
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Take your seat and wait your turn to be called to the consultation counter aka broth bar. There, a bubbly young lady reels off the qualities of the eight broths on offer in the way a TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) master might explain the issues afflicting your liver.
She details the intricacies of each broth – the French techniques of sauteeing and deglazing, and hours of brewing to develop flavours along spicy, milky and herbal lines. There’s mala and laksa; creamy Hokkaido milk and miso, black truffle and Taiwanese satay sauce; sauerkraut, herbal mushroom and figs, and Sichuan green pepper.
She offers you a taste, but only two per person. Between two people you get to try four and we settle on Sichuan green pepper and Hokkaido.
On their own, the broths stand out. Lovingly brewed, with lots of roots, herbs, spices and bones as proof of the effort. But that is both its strength and weakness. Too much of a good thing quickly sets in when the buttery sweet Hokkaido becomes cloying, not to mention the predictability of eating milky miso-cooked everything. There ought to be the option for dual pots for this very reason.
Chiang’s signature broth – Sichuan green pepper – isn’t his signature for nothing. It fares the best with a balance of depth, acidity and numbing heat that takes you through the whole meal.
Still, eating here feels like a mukbang session. There’s an a la carte menu, but everyone seems to go for the sets: deluxe at S$110 and premium at S$138. For an extra S$28 you get fresh rock lobster and abalone over mussels and squid, and better quality meat cuts, which feels like a better deal. Either way, expect a mountain of ingredients including vegetables and tofu that – depending on your world view – is bang for your buck or an unnecessary waste.
One set could conceivably serve two, especially at lunch time. No quibbles about the ingredient quality – the lobster, tiger prawns and abalone are good stuff – but it’s hard to appreciate the natural taste of each one when it’s fighting with the broth. There’s also no carbo, and no dips, the idea being that the depth of the broth is all the flavour you need. But what we really want is variety.
Also, the irony is that for all the attention to decor and concept, little is spent on your dining comfort.
The counter setup means only your elbow separates you from your neighbour. By the time the individual soup pot is in place with the multiple trays of ingredients, the only place left for your own bowl is on your lap. You’re forced to eat sideways or in shifts, quickly finishing one tray at a time so you can manoeuvre things around.
Dessert isn’t included but you can get a very decent ABC ice kacang (S$12) – almost the real McCoy that gets its milkiness from ice cream, with mango mousse for a twist. Sichuan ice jelly (S$12) cools you down with clear jelly in melon juice topped with a smidgen of rice wine lees and grated citrus peel.
Bon Broth takes a welcome fresh look at hotpot but at the end of the day, soup is soup. A few good ones will bring us in, but moderation and variety are key for us to stay.
Rating: 6.5
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