TUCKED away next to a pedestrian trail and overlooking Palawan Beach on Sentosa - several minutes' walk from the nearest car park - Silk Road of the Sea may be considered remote or quaint, but either way, dining there is a culinary voyage with a difference.

This two-month-old sister outlet of Silk Road at the Amara Hotel in Tanjong Pagar is part of the newish Amara Sanctuary Resort. The Amara group appears to be in the habit of twinning its signature restaurants - there's also a branch of Thai restaurant Thanying at both Amara locations, but there are some obvious differences between the two Silk Roads.

The original started life in late 2001 as an upmarket speciality Chinese restaurant, featuring regional cuisine from places like Sichuan, Shanxi and Shenyang. The new restaurant focuses on seafood, even though there is enough to satisfy culinary landlubbers as well. Still, any restaurant that offers double-boiled shark's fin soup, sotong (squid) sambal, chilli crab, Beijing duck and Thai-style pineapple fried rice might be construed as suffering from an identity crisis, but for Silk Road of the Sea, it's eclecticism with a definite purpose.

According to general manager Jimmy Teo, the restaurant has individual chefs to produce dishes from all over the world, including China, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the Mediterranean. As such, there are seven ways of serving crab, from local style with chilli to Thai style with curry. Several of the dishes are done Sichuan style, using spices imported directly from China. In addition to the usual suspects like prawns with dried red chilli, the menu features dishes like home-made beancurd in claypot and frog legs served every which way - deep fried with ginger, stir fried with dried red chilli, or with chilli and peppercorn.

Non-menu items can be ordered too, like lobster fried with egg white, pan-seared cod or Western-style mussels poached in white wine. Prices are on the reasonable side, ranging from appetisers at $8 and local noodles and fried rice at $10 to $14 per order to mains at $8 to $28.

Silk Road of the Sea is a place you might take an out-of-town guest to, or somewhere you may go to for a change of culinary pace. It's a little rough around the edges but if you take Marco Polo's approach and go with an open mind, it could be worth the trip.

Silk Road of the Sea
60 Palawan Beach Walk, Sentosa
Tel: 6377-4248
www.silkroadrestaurants.com

This article was first published in The Business Times on Mar 15, 2008.

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