They took away Seah Street Deli at Raffles Hotel and replaced it with Halia!! Can't complain since I'm not a fan of Seah Street Deli nor have I eaten at Halia before so this was a nice place to try out with the family.

Mum ordered a starter of roasted carrot soup with olive oil drizzled on top ($6++).  The soup was very yummy and the bread was very fragrant too! It wasn't a piece of garlic bread but I suspect that they may have rubbed it with garlic because there was that hint of garlic goodness.

For mains, I ordered the signature Halia Chilli Crab ($25++) which is a very neat version of our Singapore Chilli Crab but served with spaghettini (the thickness is between spaghetti and angel hair) instead of fried mantou (buns).


My mum and bro felt that it was too spicy but I thought that the spice level was just nice.  So...to each their own, I guess.  I liked that there was a lot of crab meat and it really was like our Singapore Chill Crab but then again, the wonderful thing about our Singapore Chilli Crab is that it's messy, eggy and just sooo delicious.  This felt like a sanitised version.

Mum ordered the Chilean Seabass ($46++) which is what we would normally call cod.  It is steamed in paper  with soy sauce, brocoli and enoki mushrooms, served with Japanese rice, courgette and a wafu sauce.


The fish was nice and oily and the subtle flavours of the mushroom and soy sauce compliments it well.  However, $46++ for this dish is really a little bit too much.  Mum also said that the rice was a little too hard.  I could cook that for you...it just wouldn't come in paper.

Now...onto dessert!!!!


To the left is the Sticky Toffee Pudding ($10++) and on the right is their recommended Ginger Nougat Parfait ($10++).  I think it quite apt for their signature dessert to have Ginger but...I don't like ginger.  It was a bit like eating cold candied ginger with cream BUT, it reminded me more of eating frozen chicken rice without the oily feeling in the mouth.  Would I eat it again? No.

As for the Sticky Toffee Pudding...


OMG.  I would go back to Halia JUST for this dessert.  Warm cake that's not sweet paired with cold vanilla ice cream (you can see the vanilla beans) that comes with delicious toffee that's surprisingly not very sweet.  It's perfect.  Who cares about fruit or fibre or what not.  You want a decadent dessert? This is it.  More satisfying than a mud pie from Coffee Club or NYDC.  YUM!!!

They do have weekday set lunches at $25++ and Theatre set dinners at $28++ so I think it's worth checking them out on a weekday.  I went on a weekend so everything was from their ala carte menu.  Service-wise, they are in Raffles Hotel so it was relatively good but speed is something that they probably have to improve on as we waited quite some time for our bill and received a less than satisfactory reason.

Halia @ Raffles Hotel
1 Beach Road
#01-22/23, Raffles Hotel
Tel: +65 9639 1148
Email:  general.hrh@thehalia.com
Website:  www.thehalia.com