This is a Continuation of “Trip Report – A Private Jet Experience: Alone in First Class on ANA and Thai, Plus Singapore First, a Suite, a Villa, and Some Incredible Food Porn”

Past installments:

• Prologue: The decision-making and booking process
  
• Washington Dulles – Chicago in United First Class and the Greatest Airport Hotel Ever, the Intercontinental O’Hare
  
• Alone in First Class on ANA, Chicago-Tokyo
  
• Singapore Airlines First Class, Tokyo-Singapore
  
• JetQuay Planeside Pickup in Singapore
  
• Intercontinental Singapore Ambassador Suite
  
• In and Around Singapore
  
• Tetsuya’s Restaurant Waku Ghin at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore

The night following our lovely dinner at Waku Ghin we had dinner at Iggy’s in the Hilton on Orchard Road. This is possibly Singapore’s most celebrated restaurant, and we were looking forward to it.

We arrived at the Hilton and took the elevator upstairs. We were the second ones in the dining room, just a couple of minutes after our assigned booking time. This becomes important.

There’s a set menu that everyone in the restaurant follows, though of course they ask any allergies or food preferences and will accommodate as needed. But while we began our meal at a different time from those tables around us, it became extremely clear extremely quickly that we were not going to stay on a different schedule.

Other tables filled up around us, and they were served quickly, and must have been rushed onto their subsequent courses because we looked around and everyone had caught up to us. So far so good, as long as they were happy.

But when the table to my right slowed down, each person getting up to use the restroom one at a time while not finishing their food, that one course at that one table took a very long time. And everyone else paid the price. We waited for our next course. And we waited. And waited. And waited. No one came near our table, until the next table finally finished and was ready to move on along with us.

We began with three amuse bouche courses. Apologies in advance, photos aren’t the greatest.

Then began with the menu.

SQUID
Sea urchin, dashi, ohba flowers

OYSTER
Gillardeau oyster, sea essence, mascarpone shiso

SOUTHERN BLUE FIN TUNA
Kintoki carrot, buratta bottarga

HIMI KAN-BURI
Leek, pepper, wasabi

ABALONE
Kashinikari rice, Alba black truffle

WAGYU
Olive tapenade, Yukon gold potato

MUSCAT AND PEAR
Pear, gruyere, brioche, cinnamon, muscat

CITRUS AND TEA
Rooibos, red velvet, vanilla, orange, matcha

The food itself was good. Service was not. There’s an open kitchen which midway through the evening became chaotic, and the meal slowed down even more. And it became even more noticeable that everyone got their courses at the same time, everyone was cleared at the same time, and every table in our portion of the restaurant was waiting on everyone else, we were ruled by the slowest consumer of each course and then also when the kitchen had regained its footing. As a result the meal dragged on much longer than I was expecting, and I enjoy a nice long lingering meal. By the end I was ready for it to be over.

The meal was SGD$250 per person plus service and tax. Waku Ghun the night before was 605 higher and worth every penny (but then they did open the restaurant just for us!). At Iggy’s I felt like I didn’t come close to getting my money’s worth on the basis of an enjoyable evening. Although I had no complaints at all about the meal itself.

We left the restaurant and headed downstairs to get a cab. As with the Intercontinental, cabs were hardly abundant, and we waited a bit. The hotel refused to allow a couple of locals to get in cabs who had been waiting, giving priority to a couple in front of us that they assumed were staying at the hotel and then to us. Now, they didn’t ask whether we were staying at the hotel, they just assumed, and hopefully our meal upstairs at Iggy’s would have counted. But they didn’t ask the people who were skipped over either if they weren’t. Made the interaction pretty awkward.

Soon enough we were back at the Intercontinental as I pondered the difference between our two top-end meals in Singapore in three nights.