The restaurant enjoys a spacious, elegant and contemporary dining room, with plenty of natural light filtering through the venetian blinds around its perimeter. The view over the bay makes it a perfect place for an evening dinner, but it's also a relaxing sight over lunch. The deco is simple and modern, with materials such as stone and wood, and a few Indonesian motifs to recall the theme of the menu.
While waiting for the food, we were served an amuse bouche together with some Indonesian chips and the Chef's signature selection of Sambal. Apart from the garlic sambal I enjoyed the rest, in particular the less mashed one, with roughly chopped chillies, ginger and shallots. 
For starters we had a selection of sate. Each one was served with its own sauce, although they didn't actually need extra sauce as they were perfectly flavoured. The Sate Padang Lidah Sapi ($27 for five skewers) was the biggest surprise. I have been familiar with beef tongue since I was a child, as it's commonly eaten in Italy. Having it as Sate was a bit of a novelty. It didn't actually feel like eating tongue and I wouldn't have guessed it if I hadn't been told, but the tender and succulent texture of this skewer was one of the highlights of the lunch. The charcoal grilled Angus Beef ($25) and Sakura Chicken ($22) skewers were also outstanding, although the beef tongue is really what I would come back for.
To clean the palate, we were served a Soto Ayam Lamongan ($15), a spiced chicken soup with shredded chicken. The flavours were clean and delicate, and half way through it I enhanced the flavour by adding a touch of squeezed lime which gave it a tad of sharpness.
Udang Blado Padang ($35) was a fried king prawn with sambal and cherry tomatoes on top of a grilled aubergine. I found this slightly under salted so the flavours didn't really strike my senses as hoped.
I was a lot more excited about the Ayam Sakura Tangkap Aceh Selada Mangga ($19), a green mango salad served with deep fried chicken and herbs. The chicken was crispy on the surface and juicy inside, but the crunchy herbs really added another dimension to it. A well executed classic!
Here comes what in my opinion was the best dish of all, the Ikan Bakar Jimbaran ($35). This fillet of sea bass was cooked sous-vide and brushed with a dark, slightly sweet, intensely flavoured sambal sauce. The roasted cherry tomatoes and pickled cucumber slices completed the range of flavours, freshening up the dish. The thick cut of sea bass was tender and succulent, and there was no unwanted "fishiness" to it. I would highly recommend trying this to any fish lovers!
Next, another surprise from the Chef: Angus Steak Rendang ($35). Instead of the classic beef Rendang, this dish combined a French steak with this well known classic. You can actually ask for the steak to be done to your preference, and it will come cooked to perfection, tossed in a rich Rendang sauce. While I personally prefer a braised cut to go with this kind of sauce, all of my dining mates enjoyed this dish the most for innovation and flavour.
The last savoury dish of the meal was a Confit Sakura Ayam Tuturaga ($33), a confit of succulent chicken cooked in its own fat (all rigorously free range!), served in a sharp curry sauce. This was certainly a beautifully executed combination of French cooking techniques, which brought out the Indonesian flavours while maintaining the natural juiciness of the meat. This would be another one of my recommendations.
Frankly speaking, I am not a big fan of Indonesian desserts, but the dessert is where the Chef could really make use of her French cooking skills to cater to a more international palate, while bringing Indonesian flavours into the equation. The dessert platter came with two creme brulee and one ice cream. I started off with the Gula Melaka ice cream. Perhaps because I like this kind of sugar and I am happy to eat it on its own, this flavour was absolute perfection for me. The wonderful rounded sugary flavour, with mild tones of caramel and licorice, was true heaven. For obvious reasons, I equally enjoyed the Gula Melaka Creme Brulee, which was less intense and less sweet than the ice cream, with the bonus of a light, crispy shell on top of it. I wasn't too keen on the Sri Kaya Creme Brulee ($17), coconut based with pandanus flavour, since it had that "Indonesian dessert flavour" that I usually tend to avoid, but you would surely like it if you are accustomed to that taste.
Chef Alicia Tivey introduced herself and explained some of the techniques and thinking that went into her dishes. It's always wonderful to hear from inspired Chefs who have such dedication and believe in creating an experience for the customer.The Moluccas Room might come across as slightly expensive for an Indonesian restaurant if you simply compare it to other restaurants of the same cuisine, but that wouldn't be a fair comparison. Besides considerations on the location and service, you must acknowledge that the ingredients used are of the finest quality, all selected by the Chef, just as you would find in a fine dining French restaurant. Therefore, this cuisine is positioned at that level both in terms of food quality and price. If you are looking for regular Indonesian food, then this might not be the place to go, but if you are looking for a South-East Asian fine dining experience then this restaurant is really a rare find, and it is guaranteed to deliver to its promise.
The Moluccas Room
Address: The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, 2 Bayfront Avenue, L1-81
Tel: 6688 7367 (10am – 10pm)
Website: www.themoluccasroom.com
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The setting is minimalistic and sober, just like the presentation of André's dishes. We were accompanied to our table, located on the upper floor. The lower floor seemed to be closed for lunchtime. The dining room is spacious, divided into two areas, one of which overlooks the courtyard and the olive tree that stands out in the middle of it.
The menu was printed onto semi-opaque sheets, which were placed on the table like mini table cloths. We were served an amouse bouche of crispies flavoured with onion and porcini mushrooms. It felt like having a "French onion soup" crystallized onto these crispy textures. An interesting start.
The starter was a "decomposed salad" of tomatoes and smoked salmon. Everything on the plate was of good quality, although this dish failed to impress me. It was a refreshing starter, but it lacked of that extra something to make sense of it all. Perhaps that something was meant to be the basil flower sorbet, but I didn't quite get it.
Next was a sharp and clean kaffir lime consommé with a pan seared scallop, cured fish and mini baby leek ravioli. Everything was really mignon in this dish, visually exciting, but despite the homeopathic portions you could clearly taste all the different components and they all worked really well in combination.
Next, the foie gras mousse with black truffle. It seemed like every dish that we were served was more exciting, in a crescendo of flavour. I am not a huge foie gras fan, not that I don't like it, but because it tends to become a bit monotonous. Whenever a menu wants to look expensive, it seems that it must include pan fried foie gras paired with some fruit or jam. But this dish was really something different. The pairing of two delicacies such as foie gras and truffle, striking the right balance between the two aromas, lightening up the richness of the foie gras in a custard-like texture. This little bowl was packed with seductive flavour.
I was at that point eager to get onto the main course, as the meal kept getting more interesting at every subsequent dish. And I must say that the short ribs didn't fail to exceed my expectations. The sous-vide short rib was incredibly tender, juicy, rich of thin layers of fat, and incredibly flavoursome. Eating that just makes me wonder "why doesn't mine taste like this?". But the polenta bianca with wild mushrooms was not any less impressive. It was rich and packed with mushroom aromas, a bit runny, unlike classic polenta. I found this really inspiring, and I think I will soon open a pack of polenta bianca which I have been keeping in storage for the last 3 months or so. This is a dish I would come back for, and I would be happy to have it exactly the same.
I was always impressed by André's desserts when he used to work at Jaan. Thje indication on the menu that we would end up with a concert of chocolate got me excited. I couldn't reconcile what was on the plate with the description on the menu: "Tarte au chocolat" with milk pudding and ice cream "Milk marmalade". However, this was exactly the kind of dessert I was hoping for! The chocolate ball was only tepid outside, but once squashed, it oozed out a beautifully warm chocolate ganache. I enjoyed biting into that squishy textured shell while warm, rich chocolate kept oozing out! I loved the pairing of ice cream with crunchy cocoa nibble-like sand. I am never impressed by light sponges, which are so popular in modern desserts, but I did like the caramel jelly that came on top of it.
I seasoned the meat with a sprinkle of pepper and generous salt, then vacuum packed it together with a herb sachet containing rosemary, sage, thyme and a clove of garlic sliced into two. I then put the bags into the water bath for a continuous 72 hours. I recommend that no matter what, but especially if you are in Singapore, when you cook sous-vide over such long periods using an immersion circulator, you observe the following:
After 3 days of wait, I was eager to extract the bags from the water bath and unveil the beauty of these slabs of meat. Pictured above, what the ribs looked like after I extracted them from their own envelope and drained the juices (set aside to make the sauce).
Now, time to make the outside crispy, seal the flavours and create a tasty Maillard reaction all around this gourmet cut of meat. I blow-torched the short ribs from every side, making sure that the outer layer of fat crisped up, sweating out some of its oil.
While slicing, the meat fell off the bone and really didn't take much effort to cut through! The slices revealed the fairly thick inner marbling which was already well visible before the cooking (see first photo on top). The meat, despite being perfectly pink as a "medium" would look like if you cooked a steak, actually tasted like a "medium-rare" throughout. 
This is without a doubt a result that you would never achieve without sous-vide: the meat was tender, incredibly juicy, and felt almost like raw meat. Marbled with melting fat, crispy outside, but most importantly packed with flavour throughout! In actual fact, it didn't need any sauce since the natural beef flavour was enhanced by the balanced aromas released by the herbs.
I followed the recipe on Thomas Keller's cookbook, so I started from seasoning the meat with salt and pepper, then I seared it on all sides for about 7-8 minutes, until nicely browned.
I then let the meat to rest for a few minutes, cooled it in some zip-lock bags that I immersed in water to speed up the cooling process, and finally placed the meat into the refrigerator to cool it for a few hours.
In the meantime, I prepared some herb sachets by wrapping 3 slices of garlic, and some sprigs of thyme and rosemary. I cut a few millimeters of the corners of the bags to create openings that the liquid could circulate through.
I vacuumed packed the chilled briskets in individual packs, together with the herb sachets.
Finally, I placed them into a water bath at 64C degrees for 48 hours. It is a long process indeed...
As I mentioned earlier, I got different results out of the two times that I attempted this. Since the process was exactly identical, the conclusion is that the meat was quite different. I noticed that the briskets I used for second batch had substantially less marbling and were more uniformly red. I t was quite visible when the meat was raw, and it resulted into a pinker meat with less fat, and therefore drier when cooked.
At the end of the day, this is all common sense which applies to sous-vide as much as it does to other more traditional cooking techniques. It just means I will pay much more attention to the cuts of meat I will be given from now on!
To finish off the dish, I drained the juice from the vacuum bags while the meat was still warm, reduced them to a half and added a teaspoon of cream and one of horseradish to make the sauce. I sliced the briskets, slightly coated them in flour on the pink sides which I briefly pan-roasted. I finally served the slices on a bed of parsnips puree' and radicchio rosso on the side.
The amouse bouche was a creme fraiche with apple and walnuts. It's the kind of dish that will be appreciated by dairy products lovers.
The Seared Tuna with red peppers and "sauce vierge" was tender and tasty, and offered a good contrast of sweet and sour. On the other hand, I didn't particularly appreciate the Raw Hokkaido Scallops, perhaps due to the fact that I prefer my scallops all in one piece. I find that once they are sliced into thin slices, they tend to lose their most attractive textural qualities.
The Ocean Trout was accompanied by a garlic soil, a sea lettuce foam and a "salsify puree'". A pleasant melangee of flavours that enhanced the rich, tender and chunky trout meat. I didn't find that the garlic soil added much to the dish, besides its ornamental aspect, so I just left it aside.
I was surprised by the Wagyu Cheek, which was unexpectedly chopped into cubes on a bed of diced vegetables (a sort of cooked vegetables salad). A good combination of flavours, where the crab on top of the meat didn't seem to emerge and was a little wasted.
The Kurobuta Pork Cheek was the best dish of the night. The cheek was cooked sous-vide and texturally unprecedented. This is where flavour, textures and presentation really came together at their best.
After a selection of 3 French cheeses, I was served a Lavender Sorbet topped by a slice of gelatin, which washed my palate quite nicely
The final dessert, an Apple Cake, was the second best dish of the night. I really loved slurping the apple cinnamon spaghetti, but the highlight was the bit in the middle, which was a caramelised hazelnut with some fresh raspberry. The apple Bavarois was excellent both in texture and flavour, and the lemongrass ice cream was a wonderful palate cleanser.
I have never actually cooked rhubarb before, so this would be my first experience with it. I quickly did some research to find a recipe, and I found 
As in the recipe, I mixed some natural vanilla pods, about 130g rhubarb and 25g of sugar in a bag and vacuumed it dry. I only cooked it for 30 minutes, since 
The result was very tasty, especially with that natural and smooth vanilla flavour lingering in the background. Next time, I would try to cook it for 45 minutes, since I could tell that it would have tasted even better if softened a bit further.
I used pork belly on the bone, and I brined it for a couple of hours in a solution of 1l of water, 80gr salt and 30gr of sugar. It would have been better to brine it overnight, but I didn't have the time and I decided to take that shortcut this time. At least next time, when I will be doing it the proper way, I will know the difference. After brining the pork, I quickly washed and vacuum packed it together with a "herb sachet" containing black peppercorns and thyme.
Finally, I slow-cooked the pork at 180F (82.2C) for 12 hours, then removed it from the water bath, chilled it and refrigerated. At the time of serving, I opened the pack and set aside the gelatin surrounding the meat (this forms during the slow cooking process followed by refrigeration). I removed the skin from each piece of belly and crisped it on a non-stick pan, skin side down (no added oil necessary) on high-heat. At the same time, on a normal stick metal pan, I browned each piece of pork on a thin film of canola oil. Once browned, I removed the pork and deglazed with a splash of Marsala wine (the Italian touch that does magic with pork!), and once the alcohol evaporated I added the gelatin and another 40ml of chicken stock. I reduced the sauce over 4-5 minutes, then served it with the pork bellies, topped with their own crispy skin.
