Category Archives: Dim Sum

East Ocean Teochew Restaurant

As mentioned before in my past posts, and as you loyal readers would also know how Dim Sum is a very favourite and agreeable meal among all my family members.

So we decided to go check out the newly renovated and shifted East Ocean Teochew Restauarant at Takashimaya. It was formerly at Shaw Center where Isetan is.

Center piece

hairy crab season!

parking zone

It’s nice to see they still retain the same theme and style. The place is still mad packed with waiters and waitresses running around. The ‘new’ thing I realised about this place is (or maybe haven’t been back here for such a long time that I forgot about this), their style of serving their dim sum is more ‘traditional’. Well not old school to the extent that there are push carts, but the servers will come out with assorted dim sum for you to choose from.  The waitresses and waiters here I must say, they really know how to ‘sell’ you what they are serving. If I were their boss I would be quite proud to have them around.

so anyway, cutting to the chase,  we were first served some tea to cleanse our palette and prepare ourselves for whats ahead:

Just to cleanse your palette

Looking around, the interior set up really reminds me of a typical Hong Kong Chinese restaurant, except that you won’t be sitting with strangers if there are not enough people to make up one table.

interior

so to cut to the chase, this was what we thought was ok .. manageable .. won’t really die for these dishes:

Char Siew Cheong fun ( bbq pork rice rolls)

Spinach in superior stock with minced meat and seafood

Satay you yu (cuttle fish)

fa gao (fish stomach) soup

glutinous rice

Our favourites were :

Pan Fried Carrot Cake

Min Har Kok (Prawn Dumplings)

Prawn in beancurd sheets

Yam Cake

Fu Pei Kin ( beancurd sheets wrapped with prawn etc)

po lo char siew pau

you cai (Blanched kailan)

si you chow min (soya sauce fried noodles)

Hairy crab Xiao Long Pau

Pi Dan Porridge

Verdict: 4/4 of us will return.

The standard of this place never drops.. well from our memory of how the food was last time, and now .. The standard is very much maintained.

My favourite was the pan-fried rice rolls – I love the sauce. It’s very different from those eaten outside. I apologise my pictures does not do justice to the appearance and taste of it. A common dish but uniquely cooked their style – very much resembling Hong Kong style in my opinion.

The kailan (vegetable) – cannot be underestimated. The way its prepared and cooked, although looks like the  simplest dish on the table, is just like Hong Kong (only not as oily as Hong Kong’s standard). The stem is crunchy and the leaves are not withered from over boiling it. The trick I think, is either to blanch it fast, or when they dip into cold water for a while to ensure the “crunchy-ness” of the stem texture. I like one of my favourite vegetable done this way 🙂

Because its hairy crab season, as part of the seasonal menu, there is hairy crab xiao long bao (super huge!) and very juicy. You could taste the essence of the hairy crab in the soup within the bao. The skin as well, is very thin so be gentle and handle with care!

My dad’s favourite is still the fried noodles. For some reason, we don’t and can’t seem to find this kind of noodles around in the dim sum spots we eat in. *digress* I remember watching Hong Kong drama serials, and they dipped the noodles into the congee/porridge and eat it. When I verified it with my Hong Kong Colleagues last time, they did not know of such eating methods. LOL  .. goodness hahahaa .. but I guess for people who love their carbs, you can have a double carb combo in adopting this method to eat!  works especially when you are in a hurry!

For the prawn dishes, the prawn taster said this was just divine. Just for this place, he is willing and accepts that the filling inside is not one whole entire prawn, but he says overall the dumplings were not too floury and starchy. The beancurd sheets prawn dishes were more preferred. (Maybe it comes with age – fried things don’t go down well with the mentai monster who is going to be rounded up the 30s bracket age group).

As for the rest of the dishes, nothing really great to shout about.
Rice rolls were too thick.
For a change, the fa gao soup was just mediocre, but not that great either. It was not bad but not fantastic until you want to roll around the table.

We were too stuffed to fill our stomachs up with the ultimate lau sar bao. But if you do get a chance, well my family stands by the lau sar bao here as being one of the best in Singapore.

Click here to see what we had for our first visit.

P.s. DO REMEMBER TO MAKE RESERVATIONS! ESPECIALLY FOR DIM SUM SUNDAYS! Otherwise, don’t even think of trying to get a place here through walk-ins.

East Ocean Teochew Restaurant
391 Orchard Road #05-08/09
Ngee Ann City
Singapore 238872

Kam Boat House

The mental monster (aka brother) decided to be nice and went to the club( Singapore Swimming Club) to take away lunch for my family 🙂

Kam Boat House

So he decided to try out the Chinese restaurant at our club (following on the dim sum theme)  he bought back.
We were all quite ravenous by the time he got back, so just bear with the presentation of the food – although it does kinda overall taste like what it looks like Zzzz …

Xiao Long pau, Har gao (prawn dumplings)

Char Siew Sau

Steamed Black bean pork ribs

Prawn with mango fritters

glutinous rice

Xo carrot cake? or chye dau kueh?

So he also ordered things off the main menu as well.

Seafood Hor fun (with egg)

3 types of egg vegetable

and their speciality, and I think we can all unanimously agree this is the best dish out of all the take aways

Roast chicken with salt dip

 

Verdict: 4/4 of us will not return for dim sum .. the usual dishes that we order (har gao, char siew sau .. ) was just … mediocre according to our fussy taste buds – we have been too spoilt for choice .. But I would say the xiao long pau is quite redeeming of the whole lot of dishes.
The most ‘surprising’ dish I would say was the XO-carrot cake. It ended up tasting like the  carrot cake sold in hawker centres instead of what it should be like.
As for the chicken, it’s not tough (I am more of a chicken breast meat person), and quite tender in fact – I think this was the best dish that was done well out of the whole takeaway. The hor fun was disappointing only because it didn’t have the wok fried taste to it?  .. like the burnt otherwise colloquially termed ‘chao ta’ taste. The ‘wok hei’ (fire) was probably not big enough to get such an effect.

Just thought I try something different in pasting the address

 

addresss

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hua Ting

We decided to book this dim sum spot and celebrate my mum’s birthday at the same time:)
My mum is one of the most respected woman in my life, but also one that can really drive me up the wall at times :p . Nonetheless, its only when I entered into the same line as her, that I realised how she had really in her own ways ‘fought against all odds’. In a male dominated field, she was not intimidated by their presence, blatantly scold them when they were trying to be funny. Even in the late trimester of her pregnancy, she is at her work place same spot doing her work. Her forthrightness and integrity has earned the respect of people around her, including the ex-president of the Singapore Exchange. This is my mum.  My super mum that can painstakingly cook my favourite poh piah and pack them in boxes for easy deep freezing and bring over to Hong Kong for me when I was working there. Tough on the outside and soft in the inside. I am very blessed and proud to be her daughter:)

So anyway, we headed down here together with Uncle P and Auntie M ++ . The wait was quite long for our table (1/2 hr-45 mins) even though I had made reservations!! 😦 *minus points

Entrance

and look what I found! Their chefs did win some awards for their work! talk about Masterchefs in Singapore man! :

So we got down to order:

Appetizers: Dried beancurd rolls

So we fired up our order!!! as usual .. :p

I will now first list what is our favourites of this place and will return to come back and eat it!

Chicken and Mango Tart

Close up

This dish was really something different from the usual dim sum menus. Who would have thought the combination of chicken and mango actually compliments each other so well? We were all pleasantly surprised! 🙂 The pastry was also nice and crisp, not too thick (well liked among the older generation people as well 🙂 I would totally order this again!

Deep fried scallop pastry with onion and garlic

This is our next favourite after the tart. This was a really unusual dish . I reckoned if your are a great lover of garlic, you will love this dish. The scallops inside were also not over cooked, nor were they mushy. This is quite a mind blowing dim sum although it looks so simple. Eat it while its hot and before its gone!

Har Gao

yes I still don’t take prawns so I didn’t eat this. But I asked my brother to rate the best prawn dish he had on the table, and he stands by this. He claims the prawn inside is one WHOLE prawn and its crunchy? not those minced up into deceiving balls to make up the size of prawns.

Char Siew Sau

I think from all my dim sum posts, You all probably know char siew sau is one of the staple dim sum food that we must order. This char Siew sau if I had to rank it from the char siew saus that I have eaten, I would still say, it cannot beat imperial in terms of the pastry, but is on par with paradise pavilion. The pastry crumbles abit too quickly.

The next few dishes that I am about to list are probably more  ‘meh’ / if you are counting your calories no need to waste so much time on it.

Mr Peking duck!!!

Peking duck meat

Lettuce wrapped duck

The peking duck was over all so-so I felt, like not in a bad way. Just its nice, nothing to be fussy about, but not something I would specially return to order. We decided to use the other half of the duck to accompany it with lettuce.  This was quite yummy I wonder if its because its been such a long time since I had this.

Siew Mai

My prawn taste tester said they liked the ones at Paradise Pavilion better.

Seafood stuffed roll

My prawn taste testers also didn’t really like this dish. They said its like a dish with a mistaken identity. There are alot of chopped prawns inside, but overall, it was just abit flat for a dish.

Char Siew Pau

I think you can’t really go wrong with this staple. I apologise for the blur picture! but it was ok not bad.

Glutinous rice roll

This was abit too dry for me, but still well liked by everyone else on the table.

Kurobuta Pork with salted fish and layered beancurd skin

I actually quite like this dish, but not my brother. I thought the pork was nice and tender, and there are hints of salted fish – not too overpowering until you feel like you are eating a salted fish, but just nice.

Verdict: 7/7 of us will return to this place for the favourite dim sums 🙂 Its a nice change from the usual dim sum spots (unless you really hang out here every time for dim sum) Overall, the food was quite good, just perhaps some of the dim sums was just because we felt that we had better ones else where :p But be sure to make reservations! I only managed to get a place because someone coincidentally cancelled their spot right after that time I called in.

Hua Ting Restaurant
442 Orchard Road
Orchard Hotel

Paradise Pavillion

My bro brought us all to this place as a change from the usual dim sum places that we frequent.
We took the lift up and immediately it was the entrance of the restaurant.
A very nicely decorated classy decorated Chinese Restaurant, filled with peking duck aroma.
Towards the right of the booth where you ‘register’,  you will find

place where they roast the duck

Its quite cruel. We were really starving and they took quite a while to show us to our table. The peking duck smell really just made us grumpier by the minute.

When we Finally got our table, we fired away our orders .. and waited again for the dishes to come. ..

view from where we were sitting

For starters, this place has sharks fin done 26 different styles!!!
So we ordered to share

Sharks Fin in Brown Tham sauce

Stone Bowl Sharks Fin + Crispy skin to dip

Shark cartilage + ‘Fa Gao’ Soup

and my dad, not a fan of sharks fin, ordered himself

Lobster bisque in Old coconut

Then of course, what we came for!!
What dishes we liked:

Xo Fried Raddish Carrot cake

Chicken and Mushroom Truffle pie

Char SiewSau

Siew Mai Skewers

Prawn and Mango Breadcrumbed Pastry

Xiao long Pau

Roast Pork with Kai Lan

Steamed glutinous rice in chinese wine 

What we thought was pretty meh..

Snow baked Charsiew buns

Yam Puff stuffed with meat

Chicken Feet

Har gao

Crab Pastry

Fried Mushroom on Toufu with black pepper truffle sauce

and of course, not forgetting to finish the meal off with

Lau Sar Pao

close up

Verdict: 4/4 of us will return for the dishes we liked.
The shark fin soup generally, I thought it was ok. .. Though I think we thought the best out of the four was still the shark cartilage soup. My brother kept talking about the stone bowl one, but I didn’t really think very highly of it though .. like it didn’t taste as I expected it to be. Ingenious idea though, to provide that dipping stick to accompany the soup.
The char siew sau however, I think still cannot beat Imperial’s one. I like that Imperial’s one is more pastry based but not thick, and their egg wash is so nicely glazed – makes the dish more inviting than this one. This one is nonetheless, less flaky but quite well liked by my brother. This being said, I totally loved the chicken and mushroom pie. This pastry should just replace the char siew sau’s one.
The Xo fried raddish was one of the best that I have eaten so far. The raddish cake was pan-fried to crispy (like the corners) and was not all mushy! This is really awesome!
The xiao long paus were also very yummy! the skin is very thin, filled with alot of soup, but to describe it, I would call it little drops of heaven.
My parents enjoyed the glutinous rice dish. They felt it was very unusual.
The kailan and roast pork . Although the roast pork was slightly too saltish, but the kai lan was really cooked very well – my favourite style, boiled for a while before blenching in it cold water to retain its crunchiness in the stem. Reminded me of the kai lan that ate in Hong Kong.
For the prawn dishes (because I don’t eat prawns), my brother said that the mango and prawn pastry was his favourite. The flavours inside and the ‘creamy texture’ within had been very different from those he previously had. The siew mai Skewers as well, they had kind of ‘bbq-ed’ the siew mai so making it very nice smelling and different from the others he had.

As for the dishes that we thought were ok…
The snow skin char siew pau was just flat. It like ‘lau hong-ed’ as you cut it, and it wasn’t anything special – turned out so different from what we thought it would be.
I would also like to take the opportunity to point out the crab pastry dish. I felt so cheated . Because I don’t eat prawns, there were traces of prawns inside that dish! which was not mentioned on the menu! I thought it was purely a crab dish! That put me off the dish. This dish is exactly what is looks like – boring and dry.
The har gao – as complained by my brother, it was not a whole prawn so .. neh .. not what he likes.

The desert lau sar pau, I would say is comparable to East Ocean’s one.  It is thicker though, but better than Imperial. If there was a lau sar pau ranking, #1 East Ocean, #2 Paradise Pavillion, #3 would be Imperial

Paradise Pavilion 乐天阁
 #02-01 Marina Bay Financial Centre,
Ground Plaza
8A Marina Boulevard, Singapore

 

Old Hong Kong

So for a family of Sunday lunch, we headed down to old hong kong at novena square for a dim sum fix- I must add that nowadays in Singapore, for Chinese Sunday lunches, it’s like impossible to get places unless you have made a reservation!

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Verdict: 3.5/6 of us will return. Somehow this place is very well liked by my parents and uncle P & auntie M . But my bro and I didn’t really like this place. We felt that the standard did drop a little .. so was a little disappointing for us .. no special favourite dish, but ok, guess we couldn’t really have much of a choice since we didn’t make reservations. Nonetheless, a friendly neighbourhoodish dim sum :/

 

Peach Garden – revisited

We went back to peach garden… and ok .. kinda know what we were expecting..

So as per usual we ordered:

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Crispy Whitebaits

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Prawn Steam Rolls

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Mango and Prawn Fritters

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Fried Eggplant with Pork Floss

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XO Sauce fried carrot cake

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Har Gao

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Fried Prawn Dumplings

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Char Siew Pau

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Roast Platter: Suckling pig, Roast Pork, Roast Duck

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Wasabi Mayo Prawns

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3 types of eggs spinach

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Seafood Hor Fun

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Verdict: 6.5/7 of us will not return. Well, for sure dim sum was just ok.. The wasabi mayo prawns and the pork floss eggplants were awesome! Hmm the rest was just alright.. nothing special .  … the hor fun (noodles) did not have much wok charred taste to it .. the claypot rice was not bad ..

Peach Garden
273 Thomson Rd  
Novena Gardens #01-06

Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck

My lil sister is back for her holidays! So my brother booked for her to try Imperial Super Peking Duck for dim sum ( we are such good siblings, whenever we go there for dim sum lunches/ dinners, we would devotedly whatsapp her pictures of what we are having 🙂 are we good siblings or what!!! *cheeky grin)

so, together with our favorite uncle P and auntie M, they did the ordering and we ‘monstrously’ ordered:

honey-ed bacon wrapped with yam

Century Egg Porridge

teochew dumplings

Fried Toufu – with mushrooms and minced prawn

Prawn Paste with beancurd skin

Chicken Feet

Steamed Pork ribs

Yam Puffs (wu kok)

Pan Fried Carrot Cakes

Steamed Prawn rolls

Char Siew Pau

Steamed Char Siew Rice Rolls

Har Gao

Char Siew Sau

and of course, Super Imperial cannot be complete without its: Peking Duck!

Duck Breast + Condiments

Skin to be dipped in Sugar!

With the hand made skin

and with the remaining duck – because we were so stuffed with food, so we tried a new style of cooking it :

Stir Fried duck in Salt and Pepper with Chinese wine

3 types of Eggs Spinach

Close up

and of course .. to top off .. dessert!

Ma Lai Gao

Thousand Layered Cake

and of course for the lil rolly pollie :

Liu Sha Bao

Close up of the liu sha bao

Verdict: 7/7 of us will return! this place satisfies all the fussy eaters around!  Super liked!
Uploading all these pictures I think will scare people off by the portions that we eat.  But i think the few favourites were,  the honeyed bacon wrapped in yam, the yam puff ( my mum and non-yam eating siblings complimented on it being moist in the inside and not too dry after being fried, the beancurd ( minus the minced prawn for me), the steamed pork ribs -superb 🙂 and of course, the most favourite and best seller char siew sau! that was like super well liked by all of us all!
The disappointments were the har gao ( according to my prawn testers, it has “a wierd thing inside” because it was all minced prawn, the carrot cake was not pan fried crispy enough, and quite disappointing .. as well as the new way that the duck was fried. When it came, there was a strong wine smell , but i guess this method does not really go with duck since it made the meat abit tough. Although the men on the table agreed that it would go very well with beer and wine instead. The liu sha bao – we still reckoned and think east ocean has the best liu sha bao in singapore.

Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck Restaurant
290 Orchard Road,
#05-42/45 
The Paragon

Happy Father’s Day

Wonder how were all the father’s day celebration.. 🙂

We went to tung lok classics ( last minute managed to get a place) for dim sum

So we ordered

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Salted Egg Yolk and shredded duck porridge

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Sliced taro and Carrot cake

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Teochew “fen guo”

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Xiao Long Bao

And of course, dim sum is never complete without a few prawn dishes:

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Har Gao

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Hong You Chao Shou

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Prawn Rice Rolls

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Prawns on Toast?

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Salted Egg Yolk Prawn

My dad decided to go ahead and order this to try for all of us:

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Stone Bowl Rice (Hui fan)

And to top off the whole tung lok experience, instead of a birthday rap, they came up with a father’s day chinese poem cum rap for the fathers on the table

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And what are those yellow paus??

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Verdict: 4/6 of us will return- ok we didnt have much of a choice since we didn’t pre book at the restaurant that we wanted, this was one of the next available. Beggars can’t be choosers- we were grateful enough to be able to find a table at lunch peak hour

I still like the porridge – love the salted eggs and duck combination , as well as the taro shredded carrot cake- but i think maybe the chef is like on his father’s day holiday cause todays one was thicker and carrot cake was too starchy for my liking. I take my carrot cakes very seriously

According to the prawn taste tester, His most favourite prawn dish was the prawns on toast. Salted egg yolk prawn needed more salted egg yolk, the rest of the dishes were just ordinary.
I must admit the rice was pretty good! Something different from the normal fried rice but in a good way.
Kudos to the service and father’s day extra!

Tung Lok Classic
1 Tanglin Road #02-18
Orchard Parade Hotel

Old Hong Kong Kitchen (Square 2)

One of our favourite family restaurants we like to patronise – and the lady boss has really good PR skills. She also even helped me find a housing agent (but I didn’t use her in the end as her rates were too high) when I told her I was going to Hong Kong. She also mentioned how there are alot of hidden areas to eat, like tai hung .. 🙂

Anyway, today we went she was not around .. so we just ordered accordingly to our usuals..

I liked the following:

Seasonal: crabmeat giant xiao long pau

I am biased towards gluten/ beancurd sheets. I think its one of the best chinese dishes/ food that was ever invented by whoever the dude/lady is! kudos to her/his ingenious idea, we can reap from the goodness of such an exquisite manually tedious dish.

Fried gluten and assorted mushrooms

Bai cai with pan fried garlic, shredded dried scallops and red dates

Braised duck slices - teochew style

I especially loved this duck dish .. I will always order this when I am here! its super yummy!! the duck is not too tough, the sauce is not too saltish as well. They have a special dipping sauce to go with the duck, pretty sourish but I quite like the combination.

dangui kurobuta pork on hot pan

cooled down

This didnt go down too well with me .. I thought the dangui masked the whole dish, it made it so bitter. The sauce evaporated and sizzled out pretty fast, so by the time it cooled and settled down, there wasnt any sauce left. I wont order this dish again ;/

I would go back because my parents like the place. We enjoy this taro dessert that comes in a coconut, and steamed (its very popular and well liked with my parents and their friends *ah hem their generation love such desserts .. well.. so do I actually)

Old Hong Kong Kitchen (Square 2)
Address: 10 Sinaran Drive,
#02-80 Novena Square 2, 
Singapore 
+65 6397 7023

 

 

 

Tung Lok Classics

So my very last pit stop before leaving for the airport back to Hong Kong – Dim Sum lunch -_-
My parents found their new place to have dim sum and thought they bring me along to try it..

I remember coming here for a birthday dinner previously and they would provide singing services .. ok to elaborate on it before it seems so shady, they will ‘rap’ and sing a chinese poem about you, write it on a plate the poem and sing it as their form of a present to you! hahaha .. its quite interesting a sight 🙂

so we ordered :

seasonal beef brisket