Breakaway Singapore - Wanderlust: Fantasy Hotel Only For The Adventurous!

Fancy a night in a colourful loo? Or up on a tree house? How about a typewriter monster for a bedfellow? Or pretend you’re living in a popup book? That’s what you get at Wanderlust, the latest and most talked about boutique hotel in Singapore, nestled in slightly fraying Little India.

Definitely not for your average traveler, this is a quirky place that occupies the old Hong Wen School dating back to the 1920s. The façade has been maintained, but inside…well, let’s just borrow a line from the kindergarten song…. “Here we go, loopy-loo!” No kidding.

Accommodation with view and ensuite bedroom

When I visited the hotel not long ago, walking into the most basic rooms on the 2nd floor, I felt like I was in a bathroom with a swanky bed and TV - literally an 'ensuite bedroom'. Each room on that floor is decked out in one colour only, so take your pick. The best one to me was the yellow room....Take a look at the pretty pictures. Each room on the second floor is covered in mosaic, a little small for my liking but there are nice views of the streets outside. Be assured that unlike the picture above, the glass walls encasing the loo and the shower have since been frosted but you'll still have to step out the put your clothes on, if you're the modest sort. Be warned that 80% of the space is your bathroom. No desk, no table for in-room eating….Like I said,…not for everyone.

The hotel's decor, we are told, is a bold experiment. The 29 rooms spread over the four floors are all different, and designed by award-winning Singapore design agencies Asylum, PhunkStudio and fFurious who were given full creative freedom to design. Hence the weirdness or creativity - depends on how you see it. :)

Pop art room - are you slim enough in a 2D world? Is that a real bed?

If the loos-with-beds are not spacious enough – though they are just right for a single quirky traveler – the third floor, titled ‘Is It Just Black or White?’ has large ‘pop art’ rooms all decked in white, and decorated with origami-like installations. That’s where you feel like you’re the only 3D person in a flat story book world....but they are the most conventional rooms there, and possibly for me at least, the most comfy. 

Tree House and loft living!

Up on the fourth floor are the large loft rooms all weird and spaced out….literally! One room is decked up like you were in a rocket ship blasting off into space (complete with teensy pinpoint lights in the black wall and stuffed extraterrestrials on the chairs), another room made out like a treehouse stuffed with forest creatures (see above) and hanging leaves, and yet another with a giant typewriter ‘monster’. Long baths are set out open plan in the middle of the room, so darlings with a thing for privacy may have a little issue there.

The whimsical dining room of Cocotte

My favourite space in this hotel though is the French restaurant Cocotte, which is totally normal in comparison….and thankfully the food doesn’t feature monsters and weird creatures either. With bare wooden floors, colourful metal chairs, even a communal table in the centre, it gives a nod to the building’s history as the old Hong Wen School.

Roast pork collar with Dijon mustard - sluuuurrpp!Menus are made to look like school exercise book paper, and the communal feel of a school canteen carries into the concept of the restaurant where dishes – in larger portions – are meant to be shared. The food is hearty, homely and devilishly good. Must-have’s include the roast pork collar with Dijon mustard, tender, juicy and falls off the bone with enough good meat to go around; Breaded Pig’s Trotter salad – tastes way better than it sounds, and bouef a lad ficelle, a rich, robust dish of beef tenderloin poached to perfection in a beef and vegetable broth. For dessert, the lemon tart and chocolate soufflé duo will send your weight watching efforts out the door – but it’s definitely worth the sin! The place fills up fast, so make sure you have reservations before venturing forth!

Quirky hotel lobby

An eight-minute walk to the nearby MRT station, this quirky hotel for is a quaint base for discovering an old and intensely atmospheric part of Singapore well off the beaten track - and its pretty close to town as well. Just be warned, it's not for everybody.

2 Dickson Road

Tel: 62981188

- Ee Waun

Continue reading...

Binge - Tetsuya's New Restaurant Waku Ghin Opens at Marina Bay Sands

When I met Tetsuya a few months back to do an interview for a magazine, I was very pleasantly surprised by how unpretentious he is, yet his PR is super slick. Easy going and mild mannered, he gives you his full attention when you talk to him, and makes you feel you’re the most interesting conversationalist ever. And despite his fine dining credentials, one of his favourite eateries in Singapore, he tells me, is Turtle House at Geylang where he has been frequenting with his other equally illustrious chef friends for years. He’s been visiting Singapore so often that he says he feels pretty much at home here, and he can rattle off the places he likes for bak kut and other hawker food. That’s real cute for a guy who’s one of the most famous chefs in the world, and when I called him a ‘celeb chef’ to his face, he gets bashful and says, “But I am just a cook.”

Well, Waku Ghin, his new fine dining restaurant in Singapore, is finally open, taking up a huge 8000 square feet in Marina Bay Sands. But most of this space is taken up by his kitchen, which he’s real chuffed about cos it’s the biggest kitchen he has. There’s still room for guests, of course, and he serves up dining with a difference – you move from room to room according to your courses….a little like gastronomic musical chairs. Starting from the lounge for pre-dinner drinks, diners move from room to room to “experience the art of skilled chefs preparing food for each group personally”. You then move on to the main dining room or drawing room to relax over desserts, coffee and digestifs, with a floor-to-ceiling view of the Singapore skyline to boot.

Be warned there’s only 25 seats here…though he did clarify that the 25 seats refer to each room or course. The group of 25 guests moves from room to room, so once that group moves on to the next room, the next group of 25 will occupy the first room just vacated…..

Open for dinner only, there’s no a la carte menu – just a 10-course degustation serving up Tetsuya’s Euro-Japanese cuisine including signatures like Marinated Botan Shrimp with Sea Urchin and Caviar and Australian Wagyu with Wasabi and Citrus Soy.

We aim to present a layered series of delicate tastes, textures, smells and appearances that build upon one another,” said Chef Tetsuya. “We have created a dining experience that is intimate yet lively, one that allows diners to linger and leaves them with the desire to return for more.”

The restaurant is at Casino Level 2, but non-gamblers can access it by The Shoppes, and its closed on Mondays.  

- Ee Waun

Continue reading...