To celebrate the coming of Spring, Chef Matthew Mok of Rabbit Stash has created a new seven-course menu themed “Modern Singapore”. For the new menu, he is introducing a spritely vibrancy through bold new flavours. It seems like Chef Matthew drew inspiration from travel as the basis for this menu, combining French cooking techniques and various ingredients hailing from all over the world to redefine dishes, some with a more Singaporean touch than others.
I arrive at Rabbit Stash on a weekday afternoon. At lunchtime, Rabbit Stash is bright and sunny, and is also a quiet respite from the sweltering heat and bustling crowds of the city. Decorated with tons of rabbit statues around the room, the restaurant has a personal touch to it, and I felt like I was dining in someone’s house.
The starters before the first course already impressed me, and interested me enough to look forward to the beginning of the meal. A welcome drink of guava and menthol took away some of the heat, and was refreshing. The other small bites were enough to stimulate my appetite — the signature pork balls were smoked to perfection. The addition of brown rice to the mushroom and truffle soup was certainly a crunchy surprise that piqued my interest for the dishes that were yet to arrive.
The entire course is titled “ENSOPHI”, and doesn’t really mean anything but the summation of the dishes themselves– Exotic, Nostalgia, Soil, Ocean, Piquancy, Heritage and Impression. I also loved how Chef Matthew signs each and every menu, hinting at the careful detail that he ensures.
Soil
The very first dish, Soil, unearths itself with the elegant flavours of the earth. With cucumber pearls, dehydrated kale and San Marzano, it was a cold dish to cool down my tastebuds for the next dish. Kale, currently one of the “in” things to eat on a diet, tasted similar to seaweed, but is crunchier.
Ocean
Ocean was a sight to behold. It kind of reminded me of “The Little Mermaid”. The foam, which looked a little bit like soap, was actually garlic foam made with a blender. You can’t really see the seaweed here in this picture, but Chef Matthew managed to create seaweed from egg white and squid ink.
Piquancy
Piquancy, a slice of Norwegian trout paired with lime fondue and fresh cucumber yogurt, imbued a sense of sharpness to the tastebuds, but left a little craving for more. The roasted melon also tasted good, but somehow missed the piquancy that the dish was named after.
Impression
Aptly named, Impression really made an impression on me, with its breathtaking presentation – a representation of Chef Matthew’s rock-climbing experience. Smoke always makes for good photos, and food at Rabbit Stash is part performance, part art. Even the bowl was specially made just for this dish, and it came with all sorts of gimmicks, including a little pie-ti pastry for diners to enjoy the elements of the dish with, which when mixed together, was comparable to the chili-crab sauce of Singapore’s signature dish.
Heritage
With Heritage, Chef Matthew paid homage to his Peranakan roots by taking inspiration from the traditional fare of nasi lemak. His popular sambal ice cream is back, and it surprisingly went well with the cous cous. Maybe it was the heat of the day which made me receptive to the spice-tinged ice cream. I had always assumed that something sweet like ice cream should not be mixed with savoury flavours, but Chef Matthews managed to break that boundary for me. The lady finger, fried to perfection, added a little crunch to the dish.
Exotic
Nicely rounding off the savoury part of the meal, Exotic featured veal and kangaroo meat, and also showed off another ice cream creation – bacon ice cream. Once again my doubts of mixing savoury and sweet vanished as the bacon ice cream somehow added another layer of complexity to the meats when consumed together. Kangaroo is known to be rather gamey (kind of similar to lamb and thus not very popular), but Chef Matthews managed to coax out the meaty flavours for a satisfying finish that was not too overpowering.
Dessert took me back to my childhood with Nostalgia. Chef Matthew graced our table with a live arrangement of the dessert himself with a flourish. The highlights of this dish was the pandan balls and teh halia ice cream.
Nostalgia
The flavours at Rabbit Stash are impeccable, and can be considered worth a taste of fine dining even if lacks the finesse of some higher class establishments. I liked that a lot of thought and preparation went into the food, from the ingredients to the presentation. Each dish was like experiencing a work of art in itself.
Laksa leaves from Chef Matthew’s garden
Chef Matthew even grows his own spices, with a little garden sitting outside on the terrace. Not many restaurants can boast about their own spice garden, so plus points to Matthew for this. There is just something so enthralling about eating home-grown vegetables that just adds a more personal touch to it.
Rabbit Stash
231 Outram Road, Level R,
Wangz Hotel, Wangz Hotel
Singapore 169040
Opening hours: 12pm to 2pm (Lunch), 6.30pm to 10.30pm (Dinner), 2pm to midnight (Alfresco Lounge)
