Empire State Restaurant @ Iluma

Went to Iluma on Tuesday, 21 Jul 09, at around 12.45 pm. Surprisingly it was not packed at all considering that it was lunch hour. Perhaps the building is new, having just opened about four months ago and not fully-tenanted yet. Perhaps the building is so ultra-modern and high-tech looking that people think it is an expensive shopping mall. I reckon there will be more human traffic towards the end of the year when the complex is more “developed” and be the entertainment centre it is intended to be.

Decided to eat at the Empire State Restaurant which is on the 4th floor. I was the third customer. Subsequently, eleven others came in four different groups. The restaurant is quite large. The staff are quite young and all of them wore t-shirts with the face of an ape in front and different one or two-liners on the back, such as “I didn’t trained so hard to be a vegetarian.”

The Restaurant has quite an extensive menu. There were twelve different groups of food, drinks and desserts. Just for pasta, there were eleven choices. You will need some 10 to 15 minutes to finish reading the entire menu.

As I wanted something light, I ordered the Baked Salmon, shown here.


This picture, which was hurriedly taken, doesn’t do justice to the food. I meant the amount of food. I didn’t expect the portion to be as large as what you usually will get in US. There was another piece of salmon about half the size of the front one you see, which was lying on top of a bed of mashed potatoes. The serving of mashed potatoes was easily equaled to 1.5 large KFC mashed potatoes. The salmon, mashed potatoes and greens were not salty and blended well, just nice for my taste. At $16.90 it was worth it.

I will definitely go back there again, if not sooner, then at the end of September.

(I did go back, read my update here.)