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
Ahballing 