Lunch at Dancing Fish Signature Restaurant Orchard (Closed)

Dancing Fish Signature is a new restaurant that recently opened at level 4 of Tang’s Department Store at Orchard Road. It replaces the Dulukaka restaurant that was there previously. Before Dulukala, the space was occupied by the Tang’s Cafe. According to their Facebook page, Dancing Fish is an “award-winning Malay-Indo restaurant in Kuala Lumpur that is listed in CNN Travel 2017’s ‘Top 20 Restaurants’. We were looking out for a place to go and decided to dig into some dancing fish.

Dancing Fish Signature, Tang’s

Dancing Fish Restaurant Singapore

Dancing Fish is a restaurant in Bangsar in KL, Malaysia. The name reflects the signature dish of deep-fried ikan nila. According to Wikipedia, ikan nila is a type of tilapia, a common freshwater fish. The fish is prepared so that it looks like it is dancing when served on the plate.

The decor at Dulukala has been mostly carried over to the Dancing Fish Signature restaurant. The main change we can discern is the creation of a new semi-private space (above picture) which seems like a grand place to host a dinner party.

Dancing Fish Signature Menu

Here are pictures of some pages of the Dancing Fish Signature Menu. We made a selection of dishes to be eaten with rice, including the signature dancing fish dish. At first glance, they do look like graceful dancing fishes, but on closer examination, we saw that the meat had been separated from the bone. It was hard to imagine them dancing after that.

Dancing Fish Signature Menu

Here are pictures of the actual dancing fish ($37). It did not look as graceful as they do in the menu photograph. The dancing fish is available with different sauces. We chose the sambal dabu dabu, a traditional salsa sauce from Indonesia which was mildly spicy. The fish tasted fresh and the sauce was very good. It was so crisp that even the tail could be eaten. The only negative was that the meat content was low. It was a small dancing fish, young and sweet, only seventeen cm (approx., without the tail).

We were glad we ordered the tahu telur ($12). This simple dish of tofu and eggs was rendered more delicious than usual by the gravy provided. That, I think, was the heme of the day. Each of the dishes came with its own sauce which was unique and improved the dish.

Tahu Telur at Dancing Fish Signature

The grilled squid, cumi-cumi bakar ($15) looked grotesque but it was pretty good. Grilled enough to be cooked and having charred bits at some places.

Another example of a common dish but uplifted with spices and seasoning was the grilled eggplant (terong with sambal cobek merah, $13). It was a wonderful dish.

There were different types of omelette. We decided on the omelette kerabu ($12). A tasty simple omelette with herbs and vegetables, with accompanying sauce.

Omelette kerabu

All the items above have to be eaten with rice. There was a choice of plain steamed rice ($3 per person) or rice cooked with turmeric. We tried a mix of both but it was the turmeric rice ($3.50 each) that was more fragrant and interesting. We understand that turmeric also has health enhancing properties.