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If you are into dining with a view, Hilltop offers the perfect vantage point from which to look out to the surrounding Jurong industrial landscape and a bit of the sea.
If you are into dining with a view, Hilltop offers the perfect vantage point from which to look out to the surrounding Jurong industrial landscape and a bit of the sea. As night falls and the lights come on, the environs make a nice spot for a postprandial stroll, but little else justifies the journey we had to make to this restaurant. No public transport takes you here, so if you're not driving or taking a taxi, alight at Jurong Bird Park and take a slow, long hike up the hill.
The restaurant itself, which looks like it came right out of the 1980s, is a little bit of an anomaly. Primarily a Japanese restaurant with a few teppanyaki stations, there is an adjacent section carved out for Indonesian food (there's plenty to order from). And if that's not enough for your fussy palate, you can also order dishes from a ‘Western local food' menu, consisting of dishes like chicken chop, pork cutlet, steaks, fish and chips, and earthen pot rice. Quite endearing, if not a little bewildering. We chose to stick with the main theme.
If you don't mind dining with an orange bib around your neck, you may opt to sit at the teppanyaki stations and watch the chefs masterfully slice vegetables, fry rice and flambé your steak. Here, you'll get a better view of the neighbouring heavy-vehicle carpark and some factories. Preferring a larger table to the view, we stayed in the main dining room and took in the '80s décor and instrumental music.
We started our meal with some of the freshest sashimi we've ever tasted. Four types of fish are offered on the sashimi moriawase - red snapper, salmon, swordfish and tuna, all clean-tasting and superb in quality. The prawns in the ebi tempura were plump and juicy and an absolute delight to eat, although the batter coating was way thicker than acceptable for true tempura.
The signature dishes that we were recommended were a letdown. Not only was the soft shell crab in egg completely soggy, it left an unpleasant, metallic aftertaste. The bulgogi ramen (which we ordered from a small Korean section in the Japanese menu) was overcooked, the noodle mushy and the slices of beef dry and tough. The soup was also thin, spicy and insipid. Garlic fried rice, which we heard so much about, turned out to be quite unremarkable - although aromatic, it lacked depth and persistence of flavour, and tasted a little bitter. Craving for more meat, we ordered a plate of Kurobuta pork belly and a ‘Special NZ steak'. The Kurobuta pork was overcooked and way too greasy (it was dripping with oil), while the nicely seasoned slices of steak fared much better. We asked for it rare, although when it came to us, it was closer to medium-rare in doneness.
Diners are offered a complimentary dessert from a small list of items comprising scoops of ice cream, mango pudding and some other local desserts. In addition to that, we recommend the pan-fried ice cream from the a la carte menu. It consists of a block of vanilla ice cream encased in a deep-fried batter coated with corn flakes, probably the only dessert here worth ordering.
2 Jurong Hill, 6266 3622
