Prima Tower Revolving Restaurant (Closed)

http://www.umakemehungry.com/2018/01/prima-tower.htmlPrima Tower revolving restaurant is the only revolving restaurant in Singapore. Being established in 1977, they are located at Keppel Road, sitting on top of a grain silo, serving Beijing Cuisine as well as dim sum for lunch. Having visited 4-5 times here on Business Agenda, this place and her food had never failed to entice me.  Locating the restaurant may be a little tricky as a miss in a turn will make you go a big round to locate it. Since its located within Prima's premises, parking lots are rather limited. However, valet services are provided for diner, thus one do not have to get stress out of parking lots. Once entering the lobby area, diners have to take the lift up followed by a flight of winding stairs to reach the 11th floor then escalator. Interior is in line with the old school traditional vibe with rosewood furnishing, fish tank, round tables with lazy Suzy and square tables. Atmosphere is like tuning into a time machine, going back in time into 1980s. The entire one round of revolution takes about an hour and of course the best seats are by the side of the windows offering a panoramic view to the surroundings to the PSA and Sentosa Island. On our visit, we had the Menu 5 for 6 persons instead of ala carte.  Shredded Scallops with Fish & Egg White is one of Prima Tower's Signatures. The dish was served with ingredients segregated, thereafter the server will perform the mixture of egg, egg white, fish and scallops in front of us. Despite of the dish name in Mandarin that mentioned crab, there was no sign of crab as an ingredient. The combination of ingredients blend well into one another which is sweet and delighting to our palates, very suitable to start off our meals like this. To enjoy this starting dish, add some black vinegar and pepper for taste.  2nd dish on the menu was Fish Maw and Seafood in Thick Soup. Similar to the 1st Dish, we added vinegar and pepper for taste. The serving is prepared in personal potand the thick soup too, was fresh and refreshing. Glistering Peking Duck will be parked by a side on a trolley waiting to be carved by the skillful waitress / waiter. If you are wondering where does the rest of the meat gone to after having its skin encased in the egg wrap. Well, the meat can be used as ingredients for other dishes such as fried rice.  We have ordered egg wraps and staff will fill the wrap with the crispy duck skin, spring onion and bean sauce. Soon Hock Fish was served in Teochew style with light and tasty broth. The meat was tender and topped with garnishing like coriander and chilli stripes. Another dish that struck me by surprise will be their stewed pork ribs that was served separately with buns. In Dialect, Hokkien language, we called this "Kong Bak" where by this braised meat was sandwich in between the pieces of fluffy buns. In this case, its more of pull pork. The meat was fork tender and easily fell off with little force asserted. These pork meat was very flavorful in its generous serving of braised sauce with a few stalks of coriander to enhance its taste. Having said that, the pork was not greasy at all. The buns that come in a set with the Stewed Pork are fluffy and looked different from the usual "flat pouches" kind of bun we had from else where. Instead, these came in shapes and had some lines patterns on the surface. Soup was sweet and delighting with Chinese spinach, shredded scallops, wolf berries in superior broth. An ending surprise with souffle balls encased with red bean stuffing. Even though it was fried, exterior was not greasy and amazingly soft. Initially we thought desserts was fish balls but the skin was soft, taste of egg white and chewy. I love its texture, also given that the red bean stuffing was not too sweet. And just this month, we visited in smaller group and ordered Menu 4.  A popular delicacy in a Chinese restaurant whereby sharkfin was flavored in stock. Soup was great with ingredients like Fish Maw, crab meat, fish and chicken. Enhance the taste of the delicacy by adding black vinegar and pepper.  Similar to the previous menu, this staple item of Prima's is included. I just never get bored of having this signature dish of theirs. Comparing to the Teochew Style Steamed Fish in the earlier visit, it seems like the cohort prefers this! Fish meat was portion out into the best equal sizes. The batter was soft, light and meat was tender. Given sweet sauce and salt pepper combination, I will prefer the former on my fish.  Likewise in this Menu, we are still having their Authentic Barbecued Peking Duck without fail, observing the servers skillfully carved the skin under the stressful eyes of ours. And this round, we have ordered the normal wraps for the Peking Duck instead of the egg wrap we ordered during the last round. The normal wrap ios Braised Slices of Abalone topped the Broccoli. Sauce was savory but a tad starchy for me, not totally of my preference. Ending our meal with a sweet Honey Dew Sago treat. As compared to the other menu, this is cooling and pretty ordinary to me. For occasions, it will be best to bring visitors or your love one here for a meal. I would very much like to visit the blue hour to view the landscapes of Singapore over dinner. continue reading

Today, we are here at the Prima Tower Revolving Restaurant (百龄麦旋转酒楼). It has been a super long time since I've been back here.I remember clearly how much I liked the food here when I was much younger - I think it must have been about slightly over 10 years since I've come here again.Signs to turn into the restaurant's carpark, for cars driving towards Vivocity.Valet parking for all cars upon entry. Take the lift to the 9th floor.Poster in the lift! They are the only revolving restaurant in the world, situated on top of wheat silos.Once the lift doors open, you'll see framed medals of their Manager and Executive Chef, Mr Chan Sung Og.Escalator brings to you up to the restaurant.As I go up the escalator, this is the sight I saw outside the window. Go right up this stairs to reach the restaurant.We were seated here, where we saw vivocity! But in a bit, that'll change as the restaurant practically keeps turning.I ate alot today! Let's see... first up: appetisers + century egg porridge with fried crackers!I felt the pickled vegetables had a strong taste and the peanuts were too dry.Porridge was so-so and the crackers were already going soft (lao-hong). What I liked about the porridge was that it contained alot of shredded meat.Here's the char-siew sou, aka the Barbequed pork puffs. They added pork floss on top of the puffs so it had added flavor to it. This dish was well done and if you come here, I will recommend you to try this.Here's the inside of the puff. I would order it again when I'm back. Marinated chicken feet or Feng Zhao. I love this dish, but not here. This dish was done quite dry and I'm not used to eating Feng zhao so dry. The sauce, however, was very good, but I still felt it was too little.Xiao long bao aka soup dumplings. Well, I don't recommend you try this as there's super little soup in it. By the time it was served to us, it wasn't piping hot already and I felt it's wrong to serve xiao long baos when they start turning cold. The skin of the dumpling I ate already became dry and hard. Steamed spareribs with yam cake. This was a palatable dish as they were generous with the meat and the steamed flavour of the yam infused quite well with the meat. Definitely recommended.Another of my favourites - Deep fried prawn fritters, or Ming Xia Jiao. Very nicely done in this restaurant, and the prawns tasted fresh.Another one I tried is the fried banana prawn fritter. I loved it as they were generous with their fillings. Prawn was fresh as well.And how can we forget to order the usuals - Char Siew Pau (Barbequed pork bun), pan fried carrot cake (lor bak ko) and Prawn Siew Mai?While the char siew pau and the prawn siew mai were good, I didn't enjoy the carrot cake as much, it was too hard and also served when it was turning cold.Char Siew Pau (Barbequed pork bun)Prawn Siew MaiPan fried carrot cakeWe also shared this noodle, sorry I wasn't able to get the name but it was good! Very well done.For the grand finale, we had their authentic peking duck! ($65).Thin egg crepe, sweet sauce, cucumber and spring onionsThe peking duck skin - VERY CRIPSY AND NICE.How to eat:1. Lay the thin egg crepe open.2. Drip about 1 teaspoon or slightly more only the egg crepe.3. Spread evenly.4. Put in the cucumber.5. Put in the lovely skin.6. Set it nicely.7. Fold it.8. Ready to eat!This dish is a must order as it is their signature dishes. The rest of the duck meat is served to you, fresh! The meat is tender and a joy to eat.To lighten our palates, we ended off with a nice Osmanthus cake dessert (Gui Hua Gao). A jelly like, cake shaped Osmanthus cake with wolfberries. Directions (as on their website)Map taken from PFS website.Business HoursLunch:11.00am – 2.30pm (Mon – Sat)10.30am – 2.30pm (Sun & PH)Dinner:6.30pm – 10.30pm (Mon – Sun & PH)Location201 Keppel Road Singapore 099419Tel: (65) 6272 8822/ 8988My Ratings (the higher the score, the better it is!)Food: 3.2 / 5Ambience: 4 / 5Bang for your buck (Value): 3 / 5Service: 4 / 5Average scoring via my F.A.B.S rating: 3.55 / 5 (Check it out!) continue reading

I went to Prima on National Day 14, to celebrate my mum in law’s birthday. I regret to say that this is the worse experience we ever had.Prima recommended the National Day Set, which costs me $550+ after GST. The menu includes a lobster salad, Peking duck, shark fin, broccoli with abalone, steam fish, noodle, and chrysanthemum cake. Although the ingredients used are quite generous, I found that the menu still lacked something.Lobster salad:My mother-in-law thought that the lobster salad tasted more like chicken salad. My bro in-law thought it was pork salad. We ended up eating the beans and vegetable of the salad instead of the lobster. I am 100% sure the lobster is way overcooked.Peking duck:Instead of a crispy duck skin and juicy duck meat, the duck skin I had was dry without any oil. It tasted harder than an over-barbecued pork slice. I think they pre-cooked it in the afternoon, and microwave it at night.Shark fin: Rather tasteless – no doubt every bowl has a lot of shark fin, but the soap had no other taste.Broccoli with Abalone:Broccoli is not cooked. We only ate the abalone. Noodlek, but it is as good as the coffee-shop standard. I think is a new cook. Chrysanthemum cake:This is the best of the day, but I think they prepared beforehand.I am not sure if they got temporary cooks, but the standard is worse than any coffee shop I been to. I saw the chef cook came up around 8.30pm, I think must have lots of complaints. Actually I like this restaurant before this incident, I go there twice a month for dim sum, it is good. But I will recommend against going during festival season, or occasions when they do mass cooking.  continue reading

So, it was the annual Mother's Day cum Mother's birthday celebratory dinner, and this year, the chosen venue was Prima Tower Revolving Restaurant. The reason why I chose this restaurant was because of its interesting revolving concept, thus offering sweeping views and taking panoramic scenes to another level altogether. The other reason is because this place was where my mother brought my grandmother to eat at, 30 years ago too, when my maternal grandmother was still alive.The first item arrived - Shredded Scallops with Fish and Egg White (medium, SGD$45.00) - it looked different from the photo I saw online at their website, but we were assured that it was the very same one. We were encouraged to add vinegar to it, so we gave it a shot. The dish was tasty with the sapid flavor of egg white and sweetness of scallops and fish. It was an interesting item, cooked to be something that tasted like, say, dry shark's fin soup or dry fish maw soup kind of taste. We liked it.Next up, we had the Authentic Peking Duck (SGD$65.00) - oh well, the skin portion first. It was very crispy and tasty - and we loved the egg-flavored flour skin it came with for the wrap. There was black sweet bean paste sauce, cucumber slices and spring onion stalks served together for the wrap too.After quite a while, we finally got to see and taste the rest of the duck. It was so tender, I couldn't help having 2 - 3 pieces because the flesh nearly melted in one's mouth. The taste was light but the aroma of fresh duck meat was eminent. This was a keeper for sure.Finally, we ended the meal with Fried Ee-fu Noodles (small, SGD$20.00) - this one contained ingredients such as chives, chicken strips, mushrooms and beansprouts. The noodles was quite tasty, but somehow it lacked the deliciousness of ee-fu noodles served during some wedding banquets. Something missing?For more detailed information and photos, please feel free to visit:http://thearcticstar.blogspot.sg/2014/05/dinner-at-prima-tower-revolving.html?m=1 continue reading

It was my dad's birthday so we decided to celebrate it at a Chinese restaurant. Prima Tower is located about 10min walk away from Vivocity. The exterior looked pretty old and is situated out of nowhere, atop Prima's flour mill. We had to take a lift all the way to the 9th floor, and from there were still had to walk up some stairs, which was carpeted and spiraled up. It looked very old school and had a nice nostalgic feeling to it.There was nothing to shout about with regards to the interior of the restaurant. However, the revolving of the entire restaurant gave the dining experience a novelty. Don't worry, it spins really slowly (one round takes 45 mins) so most of you shouldn't notice a thing We ordered a number of dishes:Century Egg PorridgeThis was really yummy! I have high expectations for century egg porridge and this bowl satisfied me You know how some porridge consists of just porridge and the ingredients and all the flavours have not merged together so the porridge is just really plain? Theirs is the opposite! The porridge was really smooth and had absorbed all the flavours of the meat and century egg after hours of boiling. SUPER comforting!Shredded Scallops with Fish & Egg WhiteI've never heard of this before but this was one of the recommended dishes hence we ordered it. The Chinese name for this dish is called 赛螃蟹, which means mock crab. When this dish was served, you could see the bowl filled with lots of egg white, some fish and shredded scallops with a raw yolk in the middle. The waitress will then proceed to mix it all up and scoop into the individual bowls. Who would have guessed that a combination of egg white, fish and scallops can REALLY give you the taste and texture of crab meat!! Trust me, I was really amazed at how similar it tasted. This dish is really superb.Peking DuckThis was their signature dish hence we ordered it too. They helped us to wrap the peking duck skin so it was really convenient for us. However, this dish really failed our expectations. It was really dry and tasteless. Don't know how come this can be their signature dish Can't remember the name of this dish but basically it was Asparagus wrapped in fish meat and then fried. This taste ok, nothing to shout about.We ended off our lunch with Toffee Banana, also highly recommended by the staff. This dessert was 'made' at your table - the waitress would come out with some fried banana chunks and toffee sauce and a big bowl of ice water. First, she’ll coat the banana pieces in the toffee sauce, then proceed to dunk it into the bowl of ice water and ensure that they are fully immersed in the water. By doing this, the ice water actually hardens the toffee sauce so what you get are some lovely banana coated in toffee! This is pretty innovative and fun to watch. The dish itself was also yummy, but those who don’t have a sweet tooth might find it a little too sweet. Overall, the prices are kinda steep but the revolving part was interesting and some of the dishes were really yummy and not easily found in other places. Definitely worth a try! continue reading