Sichuan food’s spicy revival at Shisen Hanten
The 10-year-old Japanese-Chinese restaurant reopens after an extensive renovation
RESTAURANT REVAMP
Shisen Hanten by Chen Kentaro Level 35, Hilton Singapore Orchard 333 Orchard Road Singapore 238867 Tel: 6831-6262 Open for lunch and dinner daily: 12 pm to 3 pm; 6 pm to 10.30 pm
IN 2016, Shisen Hanten was awarded two Michelin stars. That prompted some surprise, and questions by several people. Especially chefs whose restaurants did not get one. There were rumours that some of them even dined there secretly in hopes of divining a formula for success.
But mostly, they went home to cry because they couldn’t figure it out.
Theories abounded. One was that the restaurant is on the 35th floor, and high altitudes interfere with taste receptors and cognitive ability.
Another is the perception that the Michelin inspectors are French, and were overcompensating for the lack of decent mapo tofu in the fifth arrondissement.
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But wait. There was also another theory: That the quasi-Japanese-Sichuan restaurant surpassed every other Chinese eatery in Singapore and was truly worthy of its two-star ranking.
Hmmm. Long pause.
Fast forward to 2024. Shisen Hanten lost one star in 2023, but keeps one. It spent a good five months this year in renovation mode, and recently reopened its doors.
Visually, it’s worth the effort. It is as big as a ballroom and as grand as one should be. The ceiling is covered with a blanket of hanging pearlescent shells, and the carpets a heavy shag of such indeterminate colour that if you drop your siew mai you’ll never find it again.
The service, we will say, is Michelin-star worthy.
Precisely trained, they are attentive to your every need, even before you know you have one. They are personable. They serve you from the right side. That they take so many pains to position wine glasses such that the name of the brand faces you, shows plenty of dedication even when your eyesight is so bad you can’t read it.
Don’t turn up your nose at the condiments already on the table. They can be addictive. One is a Sichuan-style XO sauce without shredded scallops, but just a lot of fried garlic, onion and chilli with tiny little shrimp. The other is spicy preserved mustard greens that you can quite happily nibble on while waiting for your real food.
And that is where the debate begins.
Shisen Hanten literally means Sichuan Restaurant in Japanese because the chef, Chen Kentaro, comes from a line of China-born chefs who settled in Japan two generations ago and opened restaurants serving Sichuan dishes adapted with locally sourced ingredients.
His father also gained fame as one of the country’s top Iron Chefs, and the Shisen Hanten chain grew from there – opening in Singapore in 2013 as Szechwan Fan Dian before taking on its Japanese moniker.
Apart from the name, there is little to link it to Japan now. It’s your garden variety Chinese restaurant in an upscale setting, where the cooking leans towards heavy, punchy flavours and subtlety seems to be an admission of weakness.
Lunch might offer a more varied meal with dim sum, but we’re there for dinner and pick the “exquisite set menu” (S$138), which seems like a safe way to sample more of its signatures without shelling out for a la carte portions.
The appetisers are unremarkable – a platter of sweet-sour jellyfish, a couple of char siew squares filched from the barbecue station, shredded chicken in a bang bang sauce and creamy century egg tofu mousse over a minced shishito pepper paste.
A Hokkaido kombu and sakura pork rib soup sounds more promising than it is – bland despite an attractive milkiness. The a la carte foie gras chawanmushi crab roe soup (S$38) has more character, even if it overacts a little with its heavy thickened broth hiding a wobbly liver-infused egg custard.
If the roast quail had been released from the oven a tad earlier, it would have been good as the skin is relatively crisp and the bird well-seasoned. The breast is dried out, but the thigh is a taste of what it could have been.
Scallop and prawn in chilli sauce and sweet-sour pork in black vinegar sauce seem designed for existential palates that have lost the will to taste.
Both are variations of sweet and sour with an emphasis on sour, and differ only in colour and the no-holds-barred intensity of black vinegar. But the airy fried mantou that comes with the seafood offers welcome relief.
Scorched rice with crabmeat and roe in a claypot (S$38) is a fun choice just to hear the satisfying sizzle of crispy homemade rice wafers as a gooey gravy rich in crab and roe is poured over. Still, we would rather enjoy the rice crackers on their own before they disintegrate in the gravy.
Mapo tofu is still the star of the show, even if its glitter is dulled by the over-zealous salt in the gravy. Silky cubes of tofu slicked in an intense meat gravy with an overload of preserved bean paste has a good kick nonetheless, and needs copious amounts of to go with it.
Finish off with that simple favourite – almond or mango pudding, which restores your palate to its original state.
Without the high expectations, Shisen Hanten acquits itself well as a hotel Chinese restaurant with so-so food that’s still decent enough for a fancy meal out. But once pedestals are involved, it’s a different ball game.
Rating: 6.5
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