Each time I visit The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands and stroll past this beautiful “floating” restaurant, I always resolve to treat myself to a meal here one day when I’m feeling more extravagant. That day finally came when my husband and I redeemed a complimentary stay at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel (read about that experience here!). Since the stay regrettably did not come with ANY dining perks (yup, not even breakfast), we decided to splurge a little on ourselves given that we spent next to nothing on the room.
The restaurant sits snugly at the bottom of the central atrium with an unobstructed view of the sky above. In the day, the space is well-lit with natural sunlight while at night, the warm lights create a romantic and relaxing ambience. It truly lives up to its name, with rattan plush chairs and flowers along its periphery befitting a garden theme.
When we arrived at around 9pm for dinner, we were surprised to see that it was still relatively crowded as their closing time is 10pm. Nevertheless, we were soon ushered to our seats and handed a menu accompanied by a tea book. As dining here entails a minimum order of one pot of tea per person, this tea book is a really helpful guide for the uninitiated (that’s us) as it gives a short description of every tea option available in the menu. However, as there was a seemingly unending list of possible teas to choose from, we asked the staff attending to us to make some recommendations. I preferred something light and floral while my husband wanted something that went well with milk. She suggested the Sweet France tea and Kilimanjaro Snow tea respectively and wow, she was pretty on-point!
My tea was a burst of flowers with a hint of spice, where the flavours were fully present without being too overpowering. My husband absolutely loved his tea, which was aromatic and full-bodied with a tinge of acidity that was softened with the addition of the milk. Having our tea served in fancy teapots and dainty teacups certainly elevated the experience further. We could tip the teapots over to retrieve every last drop of tea without worrying about the lids slipping off, and the wide-mouth teacups helped cool the tea down quickly enough for us to sip it comfortably. Plus points for this practicality in design (:
The interesting thing about the cuisine here is that they infuse tea into all their recipes in an innovative manner, what a way to stay true to their original product and selling point. For our main courses, we ordered a Wagyu Burger and a Genmaicha Mushroom Linguine. I requested for the burger to be medium rare but it turned out to be medium (which was still perfect for me but I guess the chefs didn’t actually fulfil the brief, oops). It tasted good but not superb. On the other hand, the sauce on the linguine was fantastic! It was creamy and substantial but not the kind that makes you sick of it after a few mouthfuls. This dish was incredibly tasty and well-seasoned, with the umami mushroom flavours and an added dimension from the infused tea leaves coming through with every bite.
Staff were nice and really service-oriented, we were truly impressed by the service here. One of the staff saw us trying to take selfies and offered to help us take a few photos. Another staff manning the pastry trolley saw me taking photos of the desserts in it, so he took the initiative to specially arrange the desserts inside so I could get a better shot. As customers entered and left the restaurant, I observed that the staff were always ready to greet and bid goodbye with a smile. These guys just make you feel so welcome, it’s great 😀
My overall rating of the experience: 5 out of 5 stars. What more can I say? This place has such a beautiful ambience, an insane variety of teas to choose from, pretty solid food options, and a well-trained team of staff delivering impeccable service. The service we received here was akin to that in most fine-dining restaurants where they pushed our chairs in for us, asked how our meal was, cleared our plates promptly and changed out the full set of table linen after every customer. Although the prices here can be considered ever so slightly more expensive than average (especially with that compulsory pot of tea thrown in), I would gladly spend the money as the experience is totally worth it in my opinion. We had a lovely time and just recalling the memory of it makes me really want to be back here again!
Dania Experiences 