May 21, 2011 - Amara Hotel, Singapore - Service was cold like a marble counter. The food wasn’t too terrible, but the dinner spread certainly paled in comparison to hotels in Manila. One of the oldest hotels in Singapore didn’t impress, but a novel albeit inconvenient way to serve miso soup certainly grabbed my attention. I like novel food and interesting presentations, but it has limits. Some frou-frou you can do without, because usually after the 10-second awe all that’s left is incredulous disappointment.

The soup is served on paper that seems to be impervious to fire—five seconds of awe. I inspect the contraption, lighted from underneath by the waiter so the soup continues a rolling boil while I work my way through it. The paper is held in place by a metallic mesh so the paper cup doesn’t fall into the portable stove—three seconds. I lifted the paper to look for signs of burning and found none—awe is over.

After that brief moment, I’m just annoyed about how bulky this thing is in front of me; how the rolling boil effectively masks substandard miso soup; and how terribly inconvenient it is to run my soup spoon through the uneven paper cup. Big fail.