Okay, so, ummm, it has been four months since these pictures were taken, and yes, it has been that long.
We were here at Marina Bay Sands Shoppes during the Lunar New Year season because my companion had gone on the annual Peking Duck hunt and had heard that the Duck here at Mott 32 was exceptionally good.
No kidding, it was.
So it might be that I don't have the culinary expertise to determine just what makes a good Peking Duck, but it's not everywhere that I get to have a duck that's been Apple Wood roasted, so I guess that makes for an unusual one?
The website of Mott 32 says that their duck is carved using a technique that locks in all the juices "making it fit for royalty", which, I tell you, is absolutely true.
How it's done- I don't know- hungry (and distracted) me I wasn't paying much attention to the gentleman working his knives over the duck- but the skin, crisp as it was, had all the flavors of roasted duck, plus the melty goodness of its fat, and more.
You know how it is when you take your first bite of an oven-hot, crisp piece of roast duck skin and the distinctive taste of the duck fat underneath the skin just oozes out and into your mouth?
There have been places where the duck was skinnier than we hoped it to be.
There also have been places where the skin, though with a layer of fat underneath it, turned out to be oilier and greasier than we expected classic style Peking Duck to be.
Mott 32 here was none of these.
I didn't have the icky aftertaste of oil lingering in the mouth even after the duck skin was cooled.
Neither was there a piece of hard (and dry) skin on my chopsticks when the duck had almost been finished.
Everything was good.
Mention must be made of the very, very thin crepes (pancakes), the fresh, cold sliced cucumbers and the scallions that make up what defines the dish of Peking Duck.
But special mention must be made of the sauce, and the raw sugar.
The sauce is supposed to be some sort of a hoisin sauce (as their site says) but I think we got a taste of sesame, or something, that at once elevated the typical sweet (plum) sauce to that of savory, creamy yet still sweet.
I loved how they'd done the swirls.
It just added the slight element of fun to the otherwise regal meal.
It wasn't just the duck that we had this evening.
What with it being Lunar New Year, we also decided to go for Xiao Long Bao, a dish of Sweet Sour Pork, and the Szechuan style La Zi Ji.
The Xiao Long Bao came in the cutest form of bamboo holder I'd ever seen.
And the taste- a blend of scallop and prawn in Suan La (hot and sour) soup was perfect.
I've also always been a fan of Sweet Sour Pork.
Whether it be at restaurants, whether it be at cafes or whether it be at the local chap cai png stall, this dish- with all its bulk, its shine and its anticipatory sweetness, is one of my favorites.
There're varying standards, of course, as is to be expected, which is why I've become more discerning now, but oy, there's no question about quality here at Mott 32.
There was a bit of chew in each piece of sweet sour pork, yet not the chew that comes from (hard to swallow) tendons, but from fat that collapses once you have it on your mouth, and which disappears with the happy sense of taste and sweet on your tongue.
Something pretty cool about their choice of fruit here was the dragon fruit.
I've been too used to pineapple.
The La Zi Ji, made out of peppercorns and dried chilies too didn't disappoint.
We had been afraid that there might be an over-proportionate amount of dried chilies, but thankfully no, there was in fact more meat, with the right dose of numb to stimulate your nose and tongue and throat.
I've been privileged to have also tried another Peking Duck at another Mott 32 in another country, but this one here at Marina Bay Sands remains special- not so much for the luxe, luxe feeling one gets at upscale restaurants like these, but for the fact that it embraces your yearning, reminds you that there can always be good food out there, and that, for a reasonable price, you can have what you crave for, you can have what you want.