The Shisen Hanten restaurants started with Chen Kenmin from China who was a Sichuan cuisine legend in Yokohama, Japan.

Chen Kenmin passed down his culinary skills to Ironchef Chen Kenichi and subsequently Chen Kentaro who is the son of Chen Kenichi, continues the legend.

Singapore was chosen for Shisen Hanten’s first overseas branch. We went on a weekend and the restaurant was not full. There were probably 4 or 5 tables occupied including ours. It’s a classy restaurant at Mandarin Orchard which took over the previous Pine Court space.

A sample of the set dinner is shown here.

We went for the ala carte menu and ordered
Szechuan style green beans 6/10 – this was pretty average

Szechuan thick soup 6/10 – also another average dish

Fried chili chicken 8/10 – this went well with rice, Hokkaido rice which was good but just long grain rice? Not sure how different it was from others.

Mapo tofu 8.5/10 – a very good dish, delicious! Enjoyed it so much!

Braised noodle with mushrooms 6/10

Almond tofu dessert 6/10

Some osmanthus jelly dessert 7/10

Overall, it was a good dining experience. My favorite dish remains as the popular mapo tofu which was so full of Sichuan pepper taste, tofu was really soft and smooth and the sauce did not taste starchy. It was indeed different from other restaurants. Service was also very good.