All aboard the foodiest train in the East

Times

04-07-2025

In the restaurant world you generally won't find great cooking and a great view, the principle being that if you are gorging on what you can see out of the window, there's no need for the chef to blow your mind with what's on the plate. I guess you could, kindly, say that the restaurant is trying to save you from sensory overload, but we all know that the truth is they don't feel they need to try.
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It's clearly not the same on the inaugural Tastes of Tomorrow journey aboard the Eastern & Oriental Express in Malaysia. On the table in front of us are a procession of intricate courses prepared by one of Taiwan's most garlanded chefs, André Chiang, along with the Michelin-starred Vicky Cheng of Wing in Hong Kong, which recently came 11th in the World's 50 Best Restaurants guide. The meal is a masterclass in Asian ingredients presented through the lens of classic French techniques. There's a prawn and clam bisque given a third dimension with miso and seaweed; steamed red snapper that explodes with the rich, multitiered citrus of 30-year-old mandarin peel; and a tropical fruit salad of lychee and pineapple in bergamot elderflower jelly topped with a tart soursop sorbet.
As we feast, the ever-changing scenery unfurls beyond the window: hornbills lazily ride the warm air currents over placid lagoons, palm tree-covered hills stretch into the distance and at other times thick, impenetrable jungle crowds in around us. All this to the swaying rhythm of a luxury train as it eases its way along a narrow-gauge track. Great food and incredible views? A big double tick.
The inaugural Tastes of Tomorrow journey has been created to enable guests to take in the sights of the less explored parts of the country, while being indulged by the resident chef Chiang and his Michelin-starred friends. Jason Liu of Ling Long in Shanghai joins him in July and in September Jungsik Yim brings some of the Korean flair that has won him three stars in New York and two in Seoul. It's the chance to explore the food and landscape of the region, while cocooned in luxury.
Our journey had begun in Singapore, where we were picked up from our hotel (one night's stay just to soften the hard edges of jet lag) and taken to Woodlands railway station on the Malaysian border. While porters took charge of our bags and the boring customs formalities, Navein, our forever obliging steward, showed us around the state cabin that was to be our home for the next three nights. All blue velvet, polished brass and cherrywood and elm marquetry panelling, it exuded the charm of a bygone era, but with all the luxuries that modern travellers expect. There was efficient air conditioning and a fully equipped ensuite bathroom, for a start, plus an armchair and sofa — the better to take in the views through the two picture windows by day. These converted, as if by magic, into two beds every time we went to the dining car for dinner (no undignified postprandial clambering in upper bunks for us). 'And these,' Navein said with a final flourish, 'are the two magic buttons. Press whenever you want anything.'
Well, since you ask, a couple of glasses of champagne, please, to toast the start of the journey as we crossed the narrow isthmus into Malaysia.
Afternoon tea served in one of the two dining cars introduced us to the level of catering we could expect for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner over the coming days: elegant finger sandwiches, smoked salmon arancini, chocolate tarts with the gentle prickle of green peppercorn heat, served at immaculately laid tables, all silver and pressed linen. It also gave us a chance to explore the train, with its two richly furnished bars and the observation car at the rear, open to the sides the better to see and breathe the sights and sounds of the jungle.
We soon fell in to the gentle rhythm of a parallel life: breakfast of eggs, pastries, yoghurts and fruit brought to our cabin by Navein; three-course lunches — sometimes at a table for two, sometimes sharing with another couple — then a modicum of restraint over tea, before dressing up in our finery for champagne and canapés on sofas in the piano bar. This was our chance to get to know the other guests. The train has a capacity of about sixty and there were plenty of older couples celebrating landmark birthdays and wedding anniversaries but also younger ones making an early bid for their trip of a lifetime.
Then we'd move to the dining cars for a multicourse dinner of more sparkling complexity and innovation — all achieved by just eight chefs crowded into two tiny galley kitchens — and then back for post-dinner cocktails and karaoke (note to self: Bohemian Rhapsody is both too hard and too long).
It wasn't all to be nonstop eating, drinking and caterwauling, though: we had to do something to earn our indulgence. Having travelled on the first night up the centre of Malaysia, along a single-track jungle line built in the 1920s during British rule, we awoke to find ourselves in Taman Negara National Park, the last refuge of the elusive Malayan tiger. There was an option after breakfast to meet conservationists and join photographers in their hides (although the chances of spotting a tiger were approximately nil, they freely admitted). Instead my wife joined a morning yoga class beneath towering limestone outcrops, then lay on a lounger in a shallow jungle stream having a sound bath, while I joined five others on an electric bike ride down jungle tracks and past remote villages to explore two of the 130-million-year-old caves that dot those outcrops.
After a restorative lunch on the train (kimchi salad nicoise with champagne dressing, scallops with sweet and sour chilli XO sauce, and coconut pannacotta with nyonya chendol, a classic Malaysian iced dessert flavoured with pandan leaves) we spent most of the afternoon in the observation car, chatting to the chefs and other guests and watching as the jungle slipped away behind us.
By the next morning the train had doubled back and tracked its way up Malaysia's more populous west coast to Penang Island. We disembarked for a 15-minute crossing on a privately chartered ferry, and arrived in the Unesco-protected town of George Town, famous for its handicrafts and street art. Here, while some guests went for a cookery class, others of us wanting a break from food climbed on the back of vintage Vespas to buzz around the artistic highlights in this fascinating city, taking in the faded elegance of the colonial architecture, seeing the vibrant murals that adorn many of the streets and visiting a young artist and textile maker in their typical old shophouse (built long and narrow to avoid the ubiquitous British window tax).
After lunch it was time to head back to Singapore. Our scheduled stroll around an old mining town, Ipoh, en route was thwarted by a sudden darkening of the skies and torrential rain. Such downpours in these parts seldom last more than 20 minutes before the sun comes out again, but my wife was taking no chances and retreated to the onboard Dior Spa for a massage and facial, while I holed up in the bar (again!) to prepare for our final gala dinner. This was to be a seven-course feast that included sushi-grade shrimps marinated in chilli oil and soy, a laksa-spiced bouillabaisse and a dish of salted fish and aubergine with sea cucumber, that Cheng told me took six days of prep.
It was all we could do to wobble back to our cabin (oh, all right, stopping off for more drinks and some rather more professional entertainment by the resident pianist and singer) before waking to find ourselves back at the Woodlands border and returning to a Singapore that this year celebrates 60 years of independence.
After the high glamour of the Orient Express, it felt appropriate to end our week amid the colonial grandeur of Raffles hotel, whose stately charms have been luring visitors to Singapore since it was established in 1887. Pulling up at its gleaming white-columned portico, with its immaculately liveried Sikh doormen, the humid, busy city outside evaporated away amid its tropical gardens, marble colonnades, teak verandas and suites — each with their own butler. With their ceiling fans and minibars housed within travel trunks, the rooms filled me with nostalgia for an era I never knew (perhaps it was the fact we were staying in a suite named after Joseph Conrad). There was also a corridor of fame featuring guests from Charlie Chaplin and Liz Taylor to Nelson Mandela and pretty well every member of our royal family, plus, slightly incongruously, the band Deep Purple.
As you would expect, there was no let-up in the eating and drinking opportunities. We ventured out to Singapore's famous hawker markets for laksa and char kway teow (noodles with prawns, cockles and sausage) at nearby Lau Pa Sat and for grilled skewers on 'Satay Street', where the smell of smoke from the various stands hangs heavy in the air.
Raffles itself is no slouch on the food front. It houses, of course, Singapore's most famous drinking hole, the Long Bar, and yes, we went there for the obligatory Singapore Slings. But we were happier in the less frenetic and more atmospheric surroundings of the Writers Bar, next to the hotel entrance.
Later this year André Chiang opens his own restaurant in the hotel, but for now our favourite was Butcher's Block, where the Hawaiian chef Jordan Keao harnesses fire and smoke with admirable restraint. An eight-course tasting menu included highlights such as yellowtail tuna with tomato sorbet and aguachile, dry-aged wagyu beef with bone marrow custard and pea puree, and a palm sugar ice cream with strawberry and macadamia nut crumble.
Sometimes a bit of sensory overload, when done right, is exactly what you need.
Three nights on the Eastern & Oriental Express Tastes of Tomorrow tour costs from £5,370 per person in a state cabin, belmond.com. Suites at Raffles Singapore cost from £1,145, raffles.com