A couple of months ago, my ears perked up when I heard Chef Shen Tan was launching a fruit-centric menu ($99 per pax) for her @ownselfmakechef private dining. I promptly made a reservation and that is how a group of us indulged in it last Saturday night.

The 8-course menu featured at least one fruit in each dish, but sometimes it wasn’t immediately obvious what fruit it was, which made it kind of fun because we got to play guessing games. The following were my favourites from the entire menu:

- Green banana (or plantain) layered mille-feuille style with slices of Wagyu beef which was then breaded, battered and deep fried. This painstaking creation tasted a lot like mashed potato and beef but with the benefit of a crunch factor. It was served with a sharp-ish kalamansi marmalade and kewpie mayo and the combination was terrific in my opinion.

- One of the top crowd-pleasers of the night had to be the huge and fleshy mussels from @ahhuakelong that were cooked in a piquant guava chilli sauce. It possessed the kind of appetite-whetting flavour that triggered a craving for more. In me anyway.

- Inspired by the tapas from her recent trip to Madrid, Chef Shen came up with croquettas of green jackfruit and mashed up cooked jackfruit seeds. Crunchy on the outside, and thick and creamy on the inside, they were served on fluffy Japanese rice topped with a curry sauce and onions. This also proved to be a hit with everyone around the table.

- Although Chef Shen and her assistant chef Joy proclaim to not enjoy desserts, the brown butter cake with lychee sorbet, coconut ice-cream and a dusting of red peppercorn seemed to suggest otherwise. I inhaled it despite how full I was feeling by this point.

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