SINGAPORE, Feb 10 — The Macadamia Pesto Flatbread served with butter, extra virgin olive oil and a tube of bush tomato dip was amazing. The bread had come out of the stone hearth oven and straight onto a slab of slate. It didn’t even need the olive oil, but the bush tomato gave it a tart lift. It was crispy at first bite, sinking into a slightly soft and chewy centre. We were at Osia, at Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore.

This fine dining restaurant is all about clean, fresh flavours and balance in contemporary Australian cuisine. Not surprisingly its chef/co-owner is Australian celebrity chef Scott Webster, who first opened the highly regarded Osia in London in 2003. He works with chef de cuisine Douglas Tay at Osia Singapore.

The Valrhona Hot Chocolate Soup with Pepper Ice-cream is a signature dessert. You dip a sesame crisp into the molten chocolate, and it tastes sensational. Then put a small scoop of the vanilla ice-cream speckled with black pepper into your mouth, and you have a marvellous combo.

You can’t leave Osia without having the orgasmic Seafood Ice Experience. You will totally enjoy working your way through six shooters of flavoured crushed ice

topped with seafood presented on a stand. There’s the Lychee Martini Ice, Oyster; Sourz Apple Ice, Tasmanian Salmon Trout; Pineapple Coconut Ice, Southern Blue Fin Tuna; Quandong Orange Campari Ice, Amaebi Shrimp; Calamansi Mojito Ice, Diver Scallop and Carrot “Pokka” Ice, Lobster.

We were sharing the shooters, and I was wowed by the Quandong Orange Campari Ice with the shrimps, and the Lychee Martini Ice with oysters. I didn’t get to taste the rest. Next time, all the six shooters will be mine!

The Seafood Ice Experience is S$32 (RM77), the Macadamia Pesto Flatbread S$11, Valrhona Hot Chocolate Soup S$22.

On the a la carte menu, two main courses that leap out at you include Tasmanian Milk Fed Lamb Short Loin and Shank with apricot jam, puffed wild rice, butternut hazelnut puree and garlic jus (S$62) and Moreton Bay Bug, Hand Dive Scallop, Sea Clam, with fried lychee red king crab, yellow lemon gel, bacon foam and lobster sugo (S$63).

The restaurant also has a set menu for lunch, at S$32 for two courses, and S$42 for three courses. Among the courses that catch my eye is the Compression of Pickled Watermelon with truffled goat cheese and micro cress (appetizer), and the Australian Beef Hanging Tender with chestnut mousseline and balsamic vinegar sauce (main course).

From Osia we went for a walk around Universal Studios, stopping for an awakening bone-rattling, water splashing, spider-biting Far Far Away: Shrek 4-D Adventure.

We met with David Hamamo, vice-president of Food and Beverage, Resort World Singapore, in KT’s Grill. He tells us that there are 14 restaurants and 22 food kiosks in the park, which on a busy day, turn out 25,000 to 30,000 meals! “We serve anything from cotton candy and flavoured popcorn to foie gras, and comfort food like chicken rice and nasi lemak,” he said. “We have six halal restaurants. Food is part of the culture here in the theme park. The Asian market in Singapore is value oriented, and we make sure the pricing is correct.”

Hamamo names Loui’s NY Pizza Parlor as his personal favourite, “as the NY thin crust pizzas are difficult to find in Singapore.” Popular too are Mel’s Diner, Discovery Genting (for local favourites like chicken rice) and Goldilocks Fried Chicken — “they outweigh the local ones here.”

So here we are at Loui’s NY Pizza Parlor, and deciding which pizzas to order as we gasped at the 20-inch ones that kept appearing at the nearby tables.

There are four signature pizzas — Margherita, Chicken Tandoori, Original NY Pepperoni, and the Hawaiian. Each pizza (they are just one size) can feed at least five adults.

The Tandoori Chicken Pizza was generous with the roast chicken, onions, fresh coriander and green chillies. It was drizzled with mint pesto and altogether it tasted good.

We also had a half Hawaiian and half NY Pepperoni Pizza. You certainly can’t fault these pizzas in their toppings — every inch of them was filled up.

You pay S$42 for a whole pizza; a slice of it is S$9.