lunch in Singapore

Leaving the country on a solo mission is like going to a wedding shoot - lonely & without a theme song. But once you arrive, it's mad! #fb
— Jan Shim (@JanShim) March 23, 2011

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On the day I left for the Singapore for the Singapore Tourism Board assignment, my morning began with a double-shot cappuccino at Coffee Bean@Departure Hall of Brunei International Airport followed by Royal Brunei Airline’s in-flight breakfast menu. About 3 hours or so later after touching down Singapore and getting reacquainted with Melo and meeting Jonel from the Phillipines for the first time, we were whisked away to the Wild Rocket for lunch.

“Wild Rocket started in 2005 out of a selfish ambition; because I wanted to be a chef and own my own restaurant. Over the years, this selfish purpose has changed; I have sort of done what I want – to open a restaurant but I needed something bigger than my original selfish goals to bring the restaurant to a higher plane. The philosophy of Wild Rocket remains unchanged i.e. to provide good food with good service and good ambiance but what drives us now is 2 pronged – 1. For the staff to all have a stake in the business; 2. To bless the less fortunate. But in order for us to do all that, we first need to be profitable and in order to be profitable we need to concentrate on what we think we do best – good food, good service and good ambiance.” — Wild Rocket | About Us

Wild Rocket, Hangout Hotel (Mount Emily), 10A Upper Wilkie Road, Singapore 228119
Telephone (65) 6339 9448 | Wild Rocket on Facebook

STB2011-0010A — I normally stay away from taking photos of fellow restaurant patrons especially when they're eating. This instance I made it an exception seeing how the rather animated female patron helped give this photo a sense of drama to an otherwise mundane composition.

So what’s “Mod Sin” cuisine? It simply refers to Modern Singapore where “most of the dishes are inspired by Singapore flavours, hawker dishes or food I grew up with as a child.” — Wild Rocket | Menu

When we first opened wild rocket, everyone kept asking us what cuisine serve. I didn’t know how to describe it and always described it as food that I would eat. But that was a problem because every journalist and guidebook that wrote about us always have to find a way to label us. So in early 2006, I coined the term “Mod Sin” (or modern Singaporean) to describe our cuisine since most of the dishes are inspired by Singapore flavours, hawker dishes or food I grew up with as a child. I hope you will enjoy the Mod Sin cuisine as much as we have enjoyed creating it. Bon Appetit!