Time passes so fast and before we know it, Sunshine and I have been married for a year now! Happy 1st Wedding Anniversary to Us! <3
To celebrate our first wedding anniversary, I told Sunshine I wanted to experience sky dining/dining with a view. After some research (Sunshine complained that I should also help to research since wedding anniversary was something both parties could contribute), I decided on Dusk Restaurant & Bar at Mount Faber Peak. I chose it mainly for its stunning view at dusk especially (what an apt name for the restaurant. Lol).
Sunshine made a reservation for 2 pax online and request for a seat with good views as it was to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We cabbed up Mt Faber and was lost momentarily as we tried to find the restaurant, which had to be reached after passing through the Mt Faber gift shop. Alternatively, one could also board the cable cars at Harbourfront Centre towards Mt Faber ($18 for Adults).
Food
They happened to have a promotion now for a 4-course wine pairing meal at $78++ per pax. While the food was tempting for both Sunshine and myself, as we cannot really drink, we gave it a miss and ordered ala carte. I wished there were non-alcoholic set meals for us though as I felt that it would be more value-for-money. Nevertheless, for starters, I was deciding between Chorizo with Marble Potatoes and Forest Mushrooms with Sherry and Sunshine decided on the latter since it was a chef’s recommendation.
I had the popular Tiger Prawn Capellini (the tables to the left and right of us all had this as well) with Passionfruit juice while Sunshine ordered the Cilantro Pesto Halibut with a Hot Chocolate, a surprising choice as Sunshine rarely ever orders a hot drink if there were cold drinks offered.
For the Forest Mushrooms, initially, I thought its description, “Sherry cream sauce” meant that it would be something like carbonara and I was not exactly looking forward to something heavy (cream) as a starter as I thought it would make me full faster. Haha. When the dish came, I thought the sauce was still quite light and I liked the sauteed taste of the mushrooms. However, Sunshine’s first comment for the Forest Mushrooms was that it tasted like cream of mushrooms. Lol. Like most of my food, I enjoyed it better when it was hot. Similarly, for this dish, I found it to be quite salty after it had cooled.
From the pictures I saw online, I had imagined the Tiger Prawn Capellini to be somewhat similar to Saveur’s Original Saveur Pasta. However, unlike the latter which I found to be a tad oily (but nevertheless tasty), I found the Tiger Prawn Capellini to be slightly dry at first when I first ate it. The capellini was also a bit harder to my liking. However after a few bites, perhaps I had become accustomed to its taste, I actually enjoyed the fragrant taste of the pasta. It was only towards the end when I realised that I had not mixed the pasta well enough because it was very salty and oily (moist) at the bottom. While I like the texture of the pasta better (with its oil), the seasoning was too salty for me. I quickly mixed whatever remaining pasta with the oil and managed to finish it :D!
On the other hand, with one look at the halibut served, both Sunshine and I could tell that the meat was very soft and tender! I also liked the potato puree (?) while Sunshine uncharacteristically finished his side vegetables which came with the fish! He explained that though he did not like the veg, they were cooked till very soft and so he did not mind eating them. Lol. This was the first time in our ten years together where I saw Sunshine ate pumpkin on his own accord!
When I chose my drink, I was quite surprised to see passionfruit juice as it was not commonly offered. However, when the drinks came, I was disappointed to see that it actually tasted like passionfruit syrup in some gassy drinks, similar to what you would get at Aijsen or Fish & Co.
For desserts, we ordered the Flambe Baked Alaska. While I had saw this dessert before, both of us had never tasted it before. Unlike the “full piece” of Alaska was posted on its website, we got a slice of the Alaska and I felt a bit cheated. Lol. Sunshine commented that he thought the cake at the base tasted like brownie and he quite enjoyed it while I preferred the soft and cool Neapolitan ice cream. I found the base too hard to be cake-like, too dense to be brownie-like and too soft to be cookie-like and hence, I did not really fancy it. I would have preferred either a soft and moist cake base or a crunchy cookie base. It was also refreshing that the tartness of the (berry?) sauce and the berries contrasted and balanced the sweetness of the Alaska.
Atmosphere
I chose this place for its stunning views and with the fairy lights draped across the glass panels, I thought the place looked quite romantic. I felt that 6.30pm was a good time to reach as we were there when the sky was still bright and as we progressed through the night, we had a good view of the change of colours in the sky. It was so pretty! We were seated at a table where we could watch the cable cars going up and down the peak.
Service
Service was prompt. There were many waiters (strangely, we did not see any waitresses at all) and we never had to signal for a waiter for long before we were attended to. However, perhaps it was because I was too fast for them to offer, I had to ask them if there were any card promotions before we learnt that there was a 10% discount for payment by Mastercard.
Price
Though I had casually estimated the total cost of the dinner when I researched for this restaurant, the total bill still came as a slight surprise for me. It was not expensive but as Sunshine and I usually ate in the shopping malls when we dined out (with the max bill of $50 for the both of us), it was still more than twice the price of our usual expenses, even after the 10% discount. I guess such dining experiences would remain a rare (yearly?) affair for us in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, we still had a great dining experience and I would not rule out us visiting again for one of our celebratory events.