Bite-Size Review: Platters Bistro and Wine Bar - Singapore

Always game to try out something new in Singapore, especially on the increasingly and trendily busy Club Street, I joined five other friends at Platters Bistro and Wine Bar one muggy evening in July.  The restaurant's main gimmick and namesake are front, centre, and above your eyeline the moment you step in. Ginormous wooden blocks resembling wide-sized cricket bats (if cricket bats have handles on opposite ends) hang from the ceiling over the bar. Yes, forget Wedgwood plates and Royal Copenhagen bowls - them platters are what your chow will be served on.

And what chow! I mean, we're talking quality nosh here.  Just to keep our palates on their proverbial toes, the menu changes every three months along with the arrival of that quarter's guest chef.  My night belonged to Chef Yen Koh who's directing the kitchen till October.  According to the bistro's Facebook page, Chef Yen devises his Platters menu from "a mosaic of memories from his recent travels around Asia and his competition life, highlighting some award-winning techniques and cultural tricks of the trade."  Well, alrighty, then!

Our journey started with a refreshing Cava recommended by restaurant manager and in-house sommelier Florian Raymond (picture, above.)  Then we waited as our four platters - Hail Caesar, The Norwegian, Signore Peking, and Salmon Symphony - came in quick succession.  All were yums, but I wish we'd ditched one of the two similar salmon platters and ordered instead Let’s Graze (seared rib eye with pepper yuzu sauce, butter-glazed asparagus and carrots, marinated tomatoes, roasted honey Chef Yen’s hot wings with spicy sauce almond and pretzel crusted chicken.)  Saw that platter travelling to the table next to ours, and damn, those hot wings looked goooood.

Hail, Caesar - Grilled tiger prawns, seared scallops, romaine lettuce egg, and anchovy croutons

The Norwegian - Salmon rillete, pickled apple, salmon roe, toasted foccacia,
mesclun mix, and crispy white bait

My only teeny beef with Platters is the lighting. And the furniture.  Make that two beefs....beeves....bifs.  Maybe it was my own pre-conceived notion that these 40-seater "intimate" joints should be more strategically lit, but I found the illumination to be more than a tad bright and harsh.  And for a place that tiny, the chairs could be less on the clunky, space-hogging side.  But hey, being squeezed and under unflattering light (bit of advice: go with friends who have already seen and don't care that you're at your no-makeup-panda-eyes-sallow-skin-worst) are well worth the pluses that the Euro-centric wine list, quarterly menu and the generous sharing concept bring to the table (and those are, admittedly, huge platter-sized pluses.) 

Platters Bistro and Wine Bar - 42 Club Street, Singapore.  Telephone +65 6223 8048

Reservations and a good foundation highly recommended.