POH is well-Oriented: Restaurant review by Raul Dias

Brought to you by the people behind Mainland China, the restaurant has a serious flair for drama - and most of the food is scrumptious too.

POH stands for Progressive Oriental House and it’s at Kamala Mills, that once-abandoned square of real-estate now packed with dining options.

Brought to you by the people behind Mainland China, POH has a serious flair for drama.

You can tap your cocktail order into a tablet, for instance, and watch as one of the mechanical bar’s many apothecary cabinets opens up automatically.

The corn-stuffed shiitake mushrooms were plump and yielding, with a pleasantly surprising burst of curry leaf.

The result was a wonderfully well-made gin-galangal-elderflower symphony appropriately named Anaesthetic.

The décor at POH is bold, in-your-face Chinoiserie, down to a sculpted bamboo chandelier and giant abacus-style space dividers.

The plating is what you would expect from the renowned chef Vikramjit Roy. The duck and water chestnut dumplings offer gamey poultry in perfect harmony with crunchy nuts, the whole enclosed in a silken veil.

The crab cakes with jalapeno tartar sauce and arugula salad were disappointing. The cakes needed either more crab or less binder.

Plump and yielding with a surprising burst of curry leaf, the corn-stuffed shiitake mushrooms pair well with a refreshing sochu-and-apple dragon cocktail dispensed out of a pressurised canister.

We paired a small but scrumptious portion of stir-fried Udon noodles with the tenderest braised lamb we’ve had in a while.

The theatre continues mid-meal, with the sorbet course arriving in a fog-shrouded bowl containing a refreshingly tart lychee-lemongrass palate cleanser.

Our main course hits the spot — a small but scrumptious bowl of stir fried Udon noodles with a sesame oil drizzle and added heft from bits of chicken and egg, paired with the tenderest braised lamb we’ve had in a while.

Dessert included a smoky, almost umame guacamole ice-cream like nothing we’ve had before.

Dessert included a smoky, almost umame guacamole ice-cream like nothing we’ve had before.

Replete with liquid nitrogen-crafted icy banana ‘soil’, banana caramel ice-cream and an airy banana cake, the deconstructed toffee banana was a fitting finale to a show we’d gladly shout ‘Encore’ for any time.