Deft handling of fresh food provides the perfect touch to the intermarriage of many dishes
Mia Stainsby
Sun
Prima Taste manager Wendy Ang with some of her favourite dishes. Prima Taste serves Singapore cuisine. Photograph by : Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun
Normally I get frosty at the mention of “franchise” and “chain restaurant,” especially with a name like Prima Taste.
But forget all that. Yes, there’s a cookie cutter feel to the decor, but I walked out very happy on both my visits, with zippers and buttons working extra hard.
Prima Taste serves Singapore cuisine and you wouldn’t be totally wrong mistaking it for Malaysian cuisine. (Malaysia is a five-minute drive across a causeway.)
Owner Kiam Ang says Singapore, being a migrant country, is a melting pot of cuisines. There’s been a lot of intermarriages so dishes have evolved accordingly.
Prima’s food is fresh and shows deft handling of some very aggressive flavourings. The Hainanese Chicken Rice must be tried. It looks a little anemic upon arrival but dig in and oh my god, do they know chicken, very tender and gently flavoured with herbs, including pandan leaf. The rice that accompanies it (which can be ordered separately) is made with the broth and it’s fragrant and delicious.
Another must-try is the mango salad, a mountain of julienned mango and fennel slices. Its refreshing taste is a perfect foil for some of the heavier dishes, like Beef Randang or the satays, and especially, the yummy but heavily sauced Singapore Chili Crab. I would advise you to wear chili sauce-resistant clothing for this.
“If you go to Singapore and you don’t eat chili crab, it’s like you’ve never been. Singaporeans like to eat crab. A lot of places specialize in it,” Ang says.
Eating chili crab is kind of like mud wrestling — it’s slathered in chili sauce and you poise both hands above the plate and dive in, cracking the shell for the elusive meat. New York City and London honour the dish with annual Chili Crab Fests. If you hate getting icky, you might prefer the Pepper Crab which isn’t as sauce-luscious.
The laksa was okay by me, the coconut broth echoing the chicken and prawns in the soup. Ang says he imports the best dried shrimp he can get his hands on to enrich the broth.
I appreciated the variety of vegetables on the menu — green beans, eggplant, asparagus, kailan, broccoli and seasonal vegetables. You get a heaping plate sauteed in your choice of four sauces.
The room is shiny and new with dramatic black and white prints of Singapore. There are enough servers to provide thoughtful, friendly service and when pressed to explain dishes, they came through, explaining what sweetener was added to the Cheng Tng dessert — a sweet soup of dried fruits, lotus seeds, gingko nuts and white fungus. It’s palm syrup, she said.
Desserts can be “exotic” but I found there are a couple that are pretty close cousins to tapioca pudding and rice pudding.
You’ll find a modest list of wines, aimed at handling spicy foods.
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PRIMA TASTE
Over-all: 3 1/2
Food: 3 1/2
Ambience: 3 1/2
Service: 3 1/2
Price: $/$$
570 Robson St. Open 7 days a week, lunch and dinner.
Restaurant visits are conducted anonymously and interviews are done by phone. Restaurants are rated out of five stars.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
