The Chef Has Risen
I’ve always been a big fan of owner-operated restaurants. And one of the best in Singapore is Restaurant Ember. Owned by Chef Sebastian Ng and his always cheerful wife Sabrina, this small restaurant on the ground floor of the Hotel 1929 serves up delicious fusion food at moderate prices. We visited Ember this week to celebrate my wife’s baker friend’s birthday. As usual, the restaurant was packed.
I started my meal with a half dozen deep fried oysters paired with an equal number of sauces. My favourites were the wasabi mayo, the orange sauce and the sweet chilli sauce. For a main I had a slow roasted rack of lamb with melted leeks, potato fondant and lamb jus. My wife had the pan roasted US pork tenderloin with garlic and a mixed herb crust, creamed corn and natural jus (pictured at the start of the post). Both were excellent. For dessert, my wife and a couple of the other gals shared a big dessert platter, which looked really, really good.
If you haven’t yet been to Ember, I totally recommend it. The prices, as I said, are great (especially the S$38 set dinner), as is the food. Oh, on a final note, I should congratulate Chef Sebastian. It was announced during the World Gourmet Summit here last month that he’s won Best Rising Chef for the second time. Maybe next time the judges will realize that he’s already risen!
Restaurant Ember
50 Keong Saik Rd
Tel: 6347 1928
Email: restaurantember@hotel1929.com
About Aun Koh
Aun has always loved food and travel, passions passed down to him from his parents. This foundation, plus a background in media, pushed him to start Chubby Hubby in 2005. He loves that this site allows him to write about the things he adores--food, style, travel, his wife and his three kids!
🙂 hey aun great pictures as usual.. um, can you tell me how you manage to get such great shots in dim restaurant settings? (or was your visit during the day?)
For the Ember shots, I was shooting at night. I used my D70, which allows me to manually control my settings (of course, I did ask permission–using a DSLR in a restaurant is hardly inconspicuous). I was shooting at 800 iso, using a preset white balance that I set up for typical indoor light situations, and used my fave lens, a 50mm that f-stops open to 1.4, which is what I was shooting at. When I use my Contax, I shoot at 400 iso (which is the fastest for this camera), use a preset white balance, and usually shoot on the macro mode. Basically, being able to set a fast iso helps tremendously and the ability to set the white balance is really useful. Hope this helps.
…oh, I should add that I do play a little with the brightness/contrast and the color balance of some of these pix using Photoshop.
mm okay thanks! 🙂
Did you enjoy the feast turned out for the dinner between the warring in-laws 2be in Meet the Fockers?
Did you enjoy the feast turned out for the dinner between the warring in-laws 2be in Meet the Fockers?