Shangri-La Singapore | Cantonese | $$$

Chef Daniel Cheung’s retooled menu at Shang Palace reads like a love letter to Hong Kong’s culinary heritage, where each dish presents a masterclass in textural complexity and the delicate art of Cantonese cooking. This isn’t merely food—it’s edible storytelling, where centuries-old techniques meet contemporary finesse.

Double-boiled An Xin Chicken Broth with Fish Maw, Sea Conch and Honeydew ($48)

This soup carries the weight of history in its delicate golden depths. Born from the preferences of Tang Shiu-kin, the Kowloon Motor Bus magnate who survived being bayonetted in 1941’s Battle of Hong Kong, the recipe has traversed decades to arrive at Shang Palace’s table with its soul intact.

The Experience: The first spoonful reveals what double-boiling achieves when executed with reverence—a clarity of flavor so pure it borders on the transcendent. The broth itself possesses an almost gossamer quality, light enough to let every component speak yet sufficiently rich to coat the palate with umami warmth. There’s no heaviness, no cloudiness, just distilled essence.

Textural Layers: The fish maw offers that prized gelatinous bounce, simultaneously yielding and resistant, each piece swollen with absorbed broth like tiny flavor reservoirs. When you bite down, it releases its cargo in a gentle burst. The sea conch provides contrasting firmness—a resilient chew that speaks to proper cooking, tender enough to enjoy yet substantial enough to remind you of the sea.

But the revelation is the honeydew melon. Transformed by hours of gentle heat, it has softened to the texture of perfectly braised daikon, offering almost no resistance yet maintaining structural integrity. Each cube has become a sponge for the chicken’s essence, the seafood’s brininess, achieving that rare quality of being both sweet and deeply savory. The melon’s natural sugars haven’t just sweetened the soup—they’ve created a subtle complexity that elevates every element. Biting into these soft, soup-laden pieces becomes addictive.

Baked Assorted Diced Seafood, Sea Conch and Chicken in Cream Sauce ($38)

This is Hong Kong café culture elevated to fine dining—a sophisticated riff on the Portuguese-influenced baked dishes found in cha chaan tengs, minus the rice but plus considerable luxury.

Visual Drama: Served in an actual conch shell, the presentation alone evokes coastal elegance. The top layer bears that desirable golden-brown crust, testament to proper oven work.

Textural Symphony: Breaking through the surface reveals the genius of this dish. The top has that essential gratinéed quality—crisp in places, creamily yielding in others, providing textural contrast before you’ve even reached the main event. The cream sauce beneath is luscious without being heavy, thick enough to cling to each morsel yet fluid enough to pool seductively.

The seafood varies in texture by design: prawns with their characteristic snap, scallops offering buttery softness that dissolves on the tongue, fish providing flaky tenderness. The sea conch adds that familiar firm chewiness, while diced chicken breast contributes a different protein texture—less oceanic, more earthy, binding the dish together. Everything is cut to similar size, ensuring each spoonful captures multiple textures, multiple ocean depths, in a single creamy embrace.

The sauce itself achieves that difficult balance—rich and coating without being cloying, its dairy elements melding with seafood juices to create something both comforting and refined.

Baked Australia Pork Rib with Osmanthus Honey and Black Pepper Sauce ($60 for six ribs)

Theatre arrives at the table. The ribs emerge from the kitchen already caramelized, but tableside torching with rose wine adds drama and delivers an intoxicating aromatic wallop—floral notes from the wine, sweet warmth from the honey, all lifted by fire.

The Crust: That caramelized exterior is everything. It’s crackly and almost lacquered, the osmanthus honey having been subjected to high heat until its sugars form a glossy, slightly brittle shell. There’s gentle resistance before it yields, releasing the sticky-sweet coating.

The Meat: “Fall-off-the-bone” gets overused, but here it’s literal. The pork has been cooked to that precise point where fibers separate willingly, requiring almost no effort to pull away. The meat itself is impossibly tender, each strand succulent and juice-laden, having benefited from both proper timing and quality Australian pork.

The Balance: Black pepper could easily dominate, turning this into a one-note spice assault. Instead, it’s calibrated with surgical precision. The heat builds gradually, a warm tingle rather than an attack, playing call-and-response with the honey’s floral sweetness. The osmanthus—subtly fragrant, almost tea-like—adds complexity beyond simple sweet-and-spicy. Your palate experiences waves: sweet, then heat, then floral, then savory pork, then back around. It’s compelling, nearly addictive, explaining why these ribs disappear so quickly.

The rose wine’s residual alcohol and aromatics cut through the richness, preventing palate fatigue even as you devour multiple ribs.

Traditional Stewed Pomelo Peel with Shrimp Roe ($20)

A dish so rare in Singapore that its presence alone merits attention. This represents old-school Cantonese ingenuity—taking what others discard (pomelo peel) and transforming it through technique into something sublime.

The Texture: Pomelo peel, properly prepared, undergoes remarkable transformation. First, the bitter white pith must be meticulously removed. Then, through patient braising, the remaining peel achieves a texture unlike anything else—simultaneously spongy and yielding, with a slight resistance that gives way to airy softness. It’s porous enough to absorb whatever sauce it’s cooked in, becoming a vehicle for flavor while maintaining its own gentle presence.

The Shrimp Roe: These tiny beads provide crucial textural punctuation. When you bite down, they pop almost imperceptibly, releasing concentrated seafood umami. They’re distributed throughout, appearing like precious garnish, their slight crunch and burst of brininess contrasting beautifully with the peel’s softness.

The Overall Effect: This is comfort food for those who understand Cantonese cuisine’s depths—humble ingredients elevated through skill and time. The braising liquid, rich with aromatics and the roe’s essence, has been absorbed into every air pocket of the peel, making each bite both light and intensely flavored. It’s the kind of dish that reveals why Cantonese cuisine prizes texture as much as taste—the interplay between the peel’s sponginess and the roe’s pop creates interest that flavor alone couldn’t achieve.

The Nostalgia Section

Worth mentioning: the Braised Boneless Duck with Eight Treasures ($78) and Sautéed Fresh Milk, Crabmeat and Eggwhite ($32) represent dishes many Hong Kong restaurants have abandoned. The duck arrives impossibly tender, studded with glutinous rice, chestnuts, and other treasures that provide textural variety—chewy, nutty, soft, yielding. The fresh milk dish achieves that legendary silky-smooth texture, where egg white and milk create clouds punctuated by sweet crabmeat.

Final Thoughts

Shang Palace under Chef Cheung’s direction offers something increasingly rare: authentic Hong Kong Cantonese cooking that respects tradition while executing with modern precision. Each dish demonstrates mastery of texture—that crucial element Cantonese cuisine prizes above almost all else. From the gossamer clarity of double-boiled soup to the gratinéed crust of baked seafood, from fall-apart pork ribs to spongy pomelo peel, this is cooking that understands texture isn’t just mouthfeel—it’s language.

Location: Lobby Level, Tower Wing, Shangri-La Singapore, 22 Orange Grove Road
Hours: Lunch: Noon-2:30pm (weekdays), 11am-3pm (weekends) | Dinner: 6-10pm (daily)
Contact: 6213-4473/4398
Price Range: $$$$ (Expect $80-120 per person)
Recommended For: Hong Kong cuisine enthusiasts, special occasions, those who appreciate traditional Cantonese techniques

Don’t Miss: Double-boiled chicken broth, pomelo peel with shrimp roe, honey-pepper pork ribs