Another steamboat contender opened in Vivocity just 3 weeks back and it is already creating quite a stir in the mall. With already successful outlets in malls like Centerpoint and One km mall, many hungry patrons are just awaiting the opening once there were news of the restaurant opening in the mall. Taking over the old Paradise Dynasty space, the new Beauty in a Pot; also a brand under the Paradise Group; occupies a huge area that could house up to 100 patrons.
With renovations being done, the new restaurant is gold and sparkling with a new sense of grandeur that was not there in the old Paradise dynasty restaurant. There are a lot more booth tables catering to 2 seaters and 4 seaters as well as a few longer tables and round tables catering to bigger groups. For big groups, it is recommended to have prior bookings since there is more tables for 4 and below groups.
Like it’s competitor, HDL, ordering is via the ipad menu which is pretty straight forward and easy. You can also choose your soup pot; 1 soup base or 2 soup base or 4 soup base within 1 pot and the price differs according to the soup base and the number of soup base you choose. For the choice of soup base, there are drunken chicken soup, tomato soup, pork bone soup, collagen soup, coconut cooling broth and mushroom broth. Soup bases might differ depending on outlets.
Free flow sauces are also available at a cost and you can make your own sauces from the condiments provided. In comparison to it’s competitor, the sauce buffet does not include desserts or additional side dishes.
The hot fruit tea and home made drinks like luo han guo and sour plum are all refillable throughout the meal for SGD 2.50 to SGD 3.80.
Some of the special dishes worth mentioning is like this fish tofu which comes in a pretty shape of the fish and taste between a mix of soft tofu and springy fish cake. This is a very delicious item to order and is exclusive to the restaurant.
There are 2 kinds of crab sticks being offered, one which is the normal crab stick we can buy from the super markets and this which is the higher grade ones. The flavour is slightly different from the usual ones and the texture is much better and does not taste as artificial.
The black Kurobuta pork was served in semi thick slices with good marbling and the meat was very flavourful and juicy.
The squid here is served as an entire piece cut into rings and is as fresh as it gets with sweet natural flavours.
Now to the soup bases, I had 2 soup bases which is the collagen and the cooling coconut broth on the first trip and I also had the tomato soup base on another occasion. The collagen soup is very milky and thick with good oils but in comparison to Bijin Nabe which used pure chicken collagen, this soup uses shark cartilage to extract all the nice collagen fats into the soup. As the soup uses fish collagen instead of poultry, it is slightly less oily and also lighter in flavour. This is however just perfect for cooking the ingredients as a thick broth would make it too difficult.
The cooling coconut broth is so sweet from the well cooked and softened coconut meat chunks that it feels like a sweetened soup but with natural sugars. Just like the Cantonese chicken broiled in coconut, the clear broth is very addictive. The tomato soup tasted very natural but yet pales in flavours as the soup was slightly bland.
To end off the meal, they will provide you with crushed passionfruit ice which is light, sour and sweet and works as a palate cleanser and a great digestive.
Overall, Beauty in a Pot excels in it’s soup bases and I would say it has the best soup bases so far compared to the may others out there. The collagen and coconut ones are enough to make me return. In terms of ingredients, the food is fresh but quite limited and also pricier than others. For service, the servers have very good standards and are all very polite but the constant 90 degree bowing by the servers can be quite a burden after the initial 2 bows. For now, this might take over as my favourite steamboat restaurant.
Address: 1 Harbourfront Walk, #03-08A VivoCity, Singapore 098585
Operating hours: 11.30 am to 6 am
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