Screening Room

Previously known as the two-starred Damenlou Hotel (大門樓旅店) until 2007, the 5-storeyed historical building on Ann Siang Hill was taken over the following year and transformed into a film and foodie haven, offering dining, wine, and theatrical experiences all under one roof.

I have been recommending this place to friends without having been there. At last, I got my chance early this month.

Can't decide what to order? Their platters are good to start with.

Feeling adventurous, we chose the less common Greek Platter ($18) that comprised selected bites with alien-sounding names.

Tastebud was particular impressed with the kakavia greek fisherman stew that came in a cup. Intense in flavours and complex in taste, it warmed the heart in a unique way that left me lost for words for the next couple of minutes.

For main I had Danish hake fish ($28), enveloped in a potato crust fried to crispy brown, garnished with trout roe and citrus fruit salsa.

It was decided which dessert we wanted, to end this grand dinner.

Mahalabia ($14) it was called, the yogurt crème was livened up by the pomegranate and peppermint bits. Refreshing bites of crushed peppermint provided a clean balance to the tangy yogurt.

If it's too early to call it a night, proceed on to its star attraction, Time Out's best rooftop bar in 2008. Take comfort from the casual yet stylish settings of rooftop bar as you take a sip of dessert wine and soak in the lovely view.

For more photos, feel free to visit Amasou Umasou.

We went as a small group, first for dinner then for drinks. The restaurant was two-thirds empty, yet the staff still seemed stressed and confused. Trying to order some wine was the first problem - it took over 15 minutes for it to arrive. Then the food took forever, and although most of it was fine, it was at best over-priced standard western fare. The bar is a different proposition, with a great view and decent ambience. But the restaurant is dreadful

screening room overated while i screen for it. cause of my friend working there was prasing it but appears to be out of expectation the grill mutton you can't find any marination of it. i could just buy it at supermarket diy it. when i ask is there any discount of anycard my reply was no. but after i found out here that there 10% uob discount next worst of all come to food portion is too small and the taste of spices is over powered what i meant by it is you cannot find the taste natural flavour. i ordered 1 grill prawn and 1 grill mutton with a side of curry potato although its priced at the end 113$ including desert fairly reasonable price i find it unacceptable when you could easily diy it at home the grill prawn was the worst nightmare i ever had it lost the prawn taste over powered by chilly. i live to eat but this is a total nightmare for me. just my 2 cent worth of thought

Screeing Room has 5 floors:

1. The Roof top: The Terrace

Fantastic position to overlook Chinatown, with alfresco area for gatherings and probably have some wines.

The Film Theatre: Film and private bars showing films from all over the world. Private screeings can be organized by making bookings.

3. The Studio

It’s highly customizable facilities and mini-studio allows you to hold a conference, private cocktails and dinners and even fashion shows!

4. The Restaurant

Modern Asian menu is served by Culinary Director of Corriander Leaf Group, Samia Ahad.

5. Malt Vault (bar)

Showcases some of the world’s sought-after single malts and place for Whiskey lovers.

Expect Fusion food to be served here and the menu is 70% similar to the Corriander Leaf Bistro. Screening Room offers a 3 course set lunch priced at $28.50++ and menu changes weekly. Ala-carte available as well because on the pricey side. They offer ”bar-bites” where they serve some of the appetizers in small portion which allows you to sample various dishes.

Chilled prawn with quail egg, cucumber & herb mayo

The amuse bouche was a chilled prawn topped with a quail egg with some fish caviar. The prawn was really fresh and sweet. I like the herb mayo which goes well with the small slice of cucumber and prawn.

Mesclun salad ($8++)

A simple mesclun salad to start off. The radish (in pink) taste like wasabi which has a slight bitter taste.

Crabcakes in homemade tomato chutney – bar-bites portion ($12++)

They offers quite a variety of bar-bites items which I faced some difficulties in choosing what to order. I narrowed down the choices from the hummus to the lamb-kebabs. The staff recommended the Crab-cakes to be one of the popular bar-bites item.

They offer 3 pieces of crabcakes for bar-bites portion and 5 pieces for ala-carte. The crabcakes coquettes were very crispy and filled with generous crabmeat, onions, capsicums, corriander leaves and some other stuff which I am unsure and of course , a dash of Indian spice.

The Tomato chutney that is served along with the crabcakes has a strong aroma of Indian spices and it was a little spicy . The chef added some black mustard seeds, indian spices together along with tomatoes. Those who are not used to spicy and indian food should are advised to drink more water!

Roasted cod with tomato & red pepper fondue & flamed roasted provence vegatable skewer ($33++)

Surprisingly, the roasted cod is the only fish item being offered as the Mains. The roasted cod is served in a tomato-based fondue, alongside with a vegetable skewer.The cod is roasted and has a crispy skin and silken and fish meat. The cod is topped with red capsicum relish that has the soft texture of Jelly. Every bite melts in my mouth and it is that delicious.The tomato fondue has a tangy taste and the taste reminds me of tomato-based food in Indian cuisine due to the addition of onions and herbs.

The vegetables - Zucchini, squash, eggplants and tomatoes are lightly sprinkled with some sea-salt and roasted. Just look at the burnt edges, I probably had to skip that. The roasted vegetables were slightly burnt, resulting in a bitter taste.

Overall verdict: The restaurant is very quiet and ideal for a quiet and relaxed lunch. The food served here focuses more on fusion thus some of us might not be able to get used to the taste eg. Pakistan and Indian food. Screening Room is popular for it’s movie screening and now it is another excuse for me to go back again for food!

As per my cousin’s bday request, I included Malt Vault in the bday celeb and made reservations for 5 pax. Despite the bad weather that day, we still made our way here. This is a place that is truly only for whiskey lovers as 90% of the menu is nothing but whisky from different distilleries in Scotland. Yes, this place specializes in whisky from Scotland.

Another highlight about this place is the availability of the Glenfaclas whisky in your birth year, as long as your birth year is from 1952 onwards. A bottle of 1952 whisky gonna set you back by about $7K and the 80s range of whisky gonna set you back by about 1 to 2K per bottle.

Situated in the basement of the Screening Room, comfy sofas and soft orange lighting form the décor of the place. Normally, there is a live band on weekends, just that the night when we were there, there wasn’t any. Browsing through the menu, it was really too much for us as we really did not know how to order till we chance upon 2 pages of whisky trails (1 for beginner and 1 for connoisseur).

We decided to proceed with the beginner whisky trail ($90) where there are 6 plus 1 types of whisky from all over Scotland. Each type is served in a nip (about 20ml). Mike, the owner and the only staff around (I think), served us in a very informative way. A map of Scotland was placed before us and each nip of whisky was placed at the position where that whisky was distilled from. He also taught us the order to taste in order to fully appreciate the differing tastes and fierceness of each whisky. Plain water was also provided for mixing if we wished to and each of us is served a glass of iced water too. Mike is also very forthcoming with information so feel free to ask.

The odd type of whisky served is not distilled from the usual barley malt but from a single grain (corn) from North Scotland. The other 6 types were from the usual barley malt and they were of varying degrees of fierceness! Even my cousin who down more hard liquor in her life than me was also ‘defeated’.

List of whisky and its distilleries (Order of tasting too)

a) Isle of Jura 1990 (Island)

b) Springbank 1996 (Campbeltown)

c) Ardbeg 1993 (Islay)

d) Bladnoch 1990 (Lowland)

e) Invergorden 1972 (single grain whisky – corn)

f) Macallan 1990 (Speyside)

g) Glengarioch 1988 (Highland)

Lest one gets too intimidated by the whisky on the rocks serving, do not fear. There is a small selection of cocktails with whisky as a base of course and also a small selection of traditional ales. A friend had The Godfather (a nightcap) ($16) and it was indeed strong enough. Definitely not those watery kind. :P

What’s with all the alcohol without food? We felt puckish after a while and so ordered a plate of Calamari ($10) and serving of chapli beef tartare ($12) topped with a raw egg. One will need to request specifically for the food menu as food is essentially from the Screening Room’s bistro kitchen. Nothing spectacular about the calamari but the beef tartare was good.

Overall, a very comfy place to chill out with a group of friends and I bet it would be more fun with the live band than just piped music.

Hidden in the basement of the Screening Room is the Malt Vault and it truely lives up to its name. There you will find a treasure trove of rare single malt whisky's that once consumed are gone forever.  If you are born anytime since 1952, they willl have a single malt for you in your birth year!

The owner, Mike, has a deep appreciation of this liquid gold and after one evening there you will leave only wanting to come back for more as there is so much to learn.

If you want to unwind and relax, have a quiet chat with a few friends, the weeknights are the best times to go. Once Friday and Saturday hits, you will find the room filling up to listen to live music of jazz and blues.

It is one of those places that you hope will always be there and take you back to the days where you didn't have to rush through life, but could sit back, relax and enjoy a dram of smooth scottish whisky.

www.maltvault.com.sg

Located along Ann Siang Road, the Screening Room is a five storey heritage building with two bars (basement and rooftop), a restaurant, a film theatre and a multi-function events studio. Since it was raining and there was a private screening on the night we went, we cuddled up in the basement bar, Vault Bar.

It's a small area with about 4 couches and tables. They specialize in Scottish whiskies so if you're a whisky lover you'll be spoilt for choice there. I was in the company of wine lovers though so we got a bottle of white wine instead (they only have a choice of 4 wines by the bottle). The one we had at $65 a bottle wasn't bad.

The food was surprisingly good, considering the small place and kitchen. First we had the mixed cheese platter comprising epoisses de bourgogne, reblochon, beaufort, roquefort, tomme de savoie and selles sur cher. I loved the reblochon and roquefort cheese! What's most unique was that instead of crackers of bread, the cheese came with naan. It was so good we asked for the naan to be refilled. The owner of the bar sportingly gave us more.

Next came the ASEAN platter to share. Here we had an interesting mix of spring rolls (I thought I detected satay sauce), spicy soba (yums) and calamari. Very nicely made and portions weren't too small for four ladies.

The highlight of the evening has to be the whisky liquer I tried. I had the Bruadar. It's 22% alcohol content, not that I could tell, because it was so yummy. It's made from single malt whisky and infussed with wild honey and sloe berries. S had the Columba Cream, which she said reminded her of Bailey's. M had the Blueberry liquer. At $9 to $10 a pop I could go on all night!

The Verdict - I'm coming back for more whisky liquer! Btw, did you know that the Scottish uses "whisky" whereas everyone else calls it "whiskey"? Trivia for the day hee hee.

Had lunch here. Ordered the Executive Set Lunch - 3 course.

The both of us tried everything on that menu and only one item really stood out --- the strawberry panna cotta.

Perhaps the rooftop serves up a better experience with the view and drinks, but lunch wasn't fantastic.

I had tastier pasta at Sketches.

Read about the new Michelin starred executive chef at The Screening Room so thought it would be a nice place to start a hedonistic Halloween evening.

Unfortunately we were quite disappointed, as it turned out to be more of a trick than the treat we were hoping for.

Food: Shared some starters which include some foie gras roulade thing (creamy and cold, not quite used to it), duck croquettes with mini quail sunny side on top (quite yum) and some mini ribs thing with Turkish pide (pide was good). Mains include the roasted cod (bland with virtually no sauces but freshness and natural flavour did come through) and burgers (the boys said it was too tough even for a medium rare) followed by a molten chocolate cake (good but not awesome) and some nut tart with kulfi (so-so) for dessert).

Service: Pretty good.

Ambience: Nice enough.

Overall not impressive enough for a revisit.

Been there on more than a couple of occassions, cant remember why i forget to post a review.. opps.

1. Great Place - 5 story building w a underground whiskey bar, bistro on level 1, then you have the screening rooms and function rooms further up. Finally they have a bar on the roof.

2. Miss all the screenings not on purpose cos they only screen on thurs to sat and no screening when there are events and functions.

Sorry for all the nag... keke here comes the food part

I love the hummus dip w the crispy bread slices. Which is served after orders are taken. For starters i have tried a few but sorry not too impressive so i forgot what i had.

Most significant is the mains. I have tried the mushroom rissotto, nice but a bit too heavy for me. My fave is the lamb rack *muacks* perfect and excellent recommendation by the manager J. Have also tried their beef steak and duck breast before, both are good. Nicely marinated and tender.

Normally i cant taste my dessert cos im too full to stomach anything after all the good food.

But coffee is good, esp the creamy latte which i always have to end my nite.

For fellow wine lovers do keep a look out for their wine list, they offer pretty decent selections at a good price.