Mouth Restaurant 地茂馆

Here I am at the newly opened Mouth Restaurant at Plaza Singapura! I've been wanting to try the dim sum over here and the opportunity came when I bought the deal voucher (:

Har Gao

The har gao's skin wasn't thick. It was just nice. Prawns were crunchy and juicy.

The steamed BBQ pork bun looks light and fluffy and it really is!

The beautiful bloom resembles a huat kueh. I don't fancy steamed buns than have a layer of skin on the outside and I will always peel it off before eating.

The char siew filling was pretty good, not too sweet and not too starchy as well.

Fried Prawn Dumplings (明虾饺)

This was okay, there was not strong "kee" taste and it goes well with the mayonnaise

Fried Beancurd Skin Roll a.k.a Tau Kee (腐皮卷)

I like the tau kee here! As you can see, the skin is not those that is slightly translucent. It it fried till almost opaque. With a light, extremely crispy outer skin and juicy inner fillings.. Thumbs up

Fried Chee Cheong Fun 

I ordered this by mistake. I wanted to order the normal, steamed chee cheong fun but I ticked this instead.

This is the usual, fried X.O carrot cake, except that it uses chee cheong fun.

I thought it could have been better if more chai poh (preserved turnip) was added.

Siew Mai (烧卖)

The siew mai is average, pretty much the same as other restaurants' of similar price range that I've tasted.

The size is a plus point though.

Braised Ee-fu Noodles

Again, the usual Ee-fu noodles that are usually served in chinese restaurants and wedding dinners.

I love ee-fu noodles and this was just as enjoyable as most that I've eaten.

Xiao Long Bao

Amazed by the size! The Xiao Long Baos are really huge and look at the amount of soup/juice contained within each of them!

Baked Liu Sha Bao

This was probably the best dish that afternoon. It totally blew me away.

The baked crust is sweet and thing, with a little bit of crisp (think of those Fried Man Tous that goes together with Chilli Crab). Once you sink your teeth into the bun, the molten, liquid egg yolk flows out.

Not for the faint hearted and those in poor health. 

The menu is pretty expansive and I most common dim sum dishes are available.
The restaurant is clean and conducive,  pretty spacious and welcoming. I went on a weekday during high tea hours so there wasn't any crowd, thus I cannot comment on the service during peak hours. The price is a little bit high but the food is reasonable for that. One thing that I would like to mention is that, I'm abit uncertain whether the prawns are fresh or frozen. They do not really taste like fresh ones yet they're not like frozen ones.. Somewhere in between..

B.K.T by Kong Kee

Last weekend, I was privileged to be invited by OpenRice for a food tasting at B.K.T by Kong Kee. This is a new restaurant, located near the CBD area and it was officially opened on 12th Dec, 2012. Very auspicious date. 

This is the standard menu:

This is the menu for us that day. The restaurant is so generous to let us try so many dishes. In fact, they kept asking if we needed to order more.

The first thing that caught my attention was the wide variety of Bak Kut Teh the restaurant offers. Most BKT restaurants one standard kind and some other side dishes to go with it. Kong Kee has 3 types - Klang Style, Teochew Style, Dry BKT

First up is the Teochew Style BKT. The most common one, with a pepper soup base.

The soup is flavourful, yet the pepper taste is not choking. It takes about an 1hour plus to prepare this soup.

I wouldn't say it is very spectacular as it is not difficult to find similar tasting ones elsewhere.

The Klang Style BKT is my favourite among the two soup ones. The herb taste is distinct, yet it is not overpowering. Those who do not like herbal soup would definitely enjoy this as well. According to the PR manager, Patricia,  this takes at least 2hours to brew and the quantity of herbs used is optimum such that they do not add water and continue brewing it when it finishes. A new pot is cooked and brewed from scratch. 

Patricia said that they would only refill the Teochew soup if customers purchase both the Klang and Teochew one. 

In my opinion, this was the highlight of the meal. Dry Bak Kut Teh. Served piping hot in a claypot, at first look I thought it resembles Gong Bao Ji Ding (Kung Po Chicken). The meat is soft and flavourful, yet not too chewy. I love such strong flavoured dishes. It is cooked with the Klang Style's soup till it dries. MUST TRY!

Tendon. I love all sorts of tendon cos of its jelly-like texture. And it is a great source of collagen (:

Pig's trotter. I prefer a stronger flavoured one and the meat could have been more tender.

Pig's ankle. The most common dish is the trotter and I thought that having this dish in their menu really makes them stand out! I prefer the ankle to the trotter because it is much more tender!

Tau Pok and Tau Kwa.

Tau Kee.

The 5 dishes above are drenched with the same braised sauce.

Salted Vegetables, which I really like because it is not too salty. The garlic and dried chilli also makes it very tasty.

Mee Sua, in the Teochew BKT's soup. Choice of Rice and Kway Teow is available as well!

Kai Lan and Lettuce. I thought the Kai Lan was pretty well-prepared because most places would serve the full piece of Kai Lan with the stalk and simple drizzle oyster sauce over it. Over here, the Kai Lan is chopped and the stalks were not present. 

The fried garlic sprinkled over the two vegetables made them really fragrant.

If you're looking for a good place for herbal bak kut teh, I would strongly recommend this place. Do order the dry Bak Kut Teh as well!
One plus point is that, this place does not charge GST and service charge even though they are GST registered. So the prices are really very reasonable for dining at a comfortable, air-conditioned place.
The location is very convenient, within walking distance from Chinatown and Raffles Place MRT!

Paradise Dynasty & The Last Tycoon

Paradise dynasty is quite a popular Chinese restaurant, under the Paradise Group. It serves common Shanghainese cuisine such at Xiao Long Bao and La Mian.

We went to the branch at Ion, reached there at about 6pm and they were already giving out queue numbers. I walked around for a while and came back to realize that I've missed my number, so we had to wait for a while more.

The interior looks pretty posh for a restaurant that offer reasonable food prices. The decorations were very suited to the name of the restaurant. Seating capacity was very large, with both indoor and outdoor seats for you to choose from. I also like that the kitchen is surrounded by glass so that we can see what is going on in there!

Of course, we ought to order the famous Rainbow Xiao Long Bao - Original, Ginseng, Foie Gras, Black Truffles, Szechuan, Cheese, Garlic, Crab Roe.

I personally think the original one is still the best. If I were to choose one among the 'special' flavours, it would be crab roe. I like anything that has the seafood, fishy taste. Garlic flavour was really overpowering. Szechuan was the worst flavour. The rest are not here nor there. The flavours were not to distinct to taste it at one bite but it doesn't shield the xiao long baos' taste as well.

Ohh yes, I also like that the Xiao Long Baos were seated on a piece of white cloth cos that makes it easier to take them without tearing the skin!

La Mian in Pork Bone Soup with Sliced Pork Belly.

Though I prefer japanese ramen, this is quite good for a chinese la mian! The soup is quite flavourful and you could taste that there were some good ingredients used to brew it. 

The pork belly is great as well! Well-cooked, flavourful, good texture

Zha Jiang Mian was not too bad. Definitely better than Crystal Jade's one though.

This place is great for a quick restaurant dinner, family fare etc.. Or some chinese dian xin or xiao chi, at reasonable prices! Service was prompt even though it was thoroughly packed (the queue outside is never ending). There were many staff around and it wasn't difficult to get their attention. I'm looking forward to try their other dishes!

Paradise Dynasty (ION Orchard)

2 Orchard Turn

ION Orchard #04-12A Singapore 238801

Tel: +65 6509 9118

N and I caught The Last Tycoon also. I always loved such Hong Kong shows and I'm still pretty frustrated that I have not watched Cold War!

The show is amazing. A great cast of actors and settings. A show that revolves love, loyalty, triads.

Even N that do not really enjoy chinese shows said that it was good :D

NanXiang Steamed Bun Restaurant

I bought vouchers for a buffet at Nan Xiang restaurant at bugis. Yes, buffet again..

Luckily my weight remained constant.

Here are photos of some of the food we've eaten!

 Sheng Jian Bao (Pan-fried bun)

Stir-fried duck meat (forgot the exact name)

Sweet and sour pork.

Ming Xia Jiao (Deep fried prawn dumpling)

Drunken chicken

Pork Ribs

Of course, we ordered other food as well.. Siew Mai, Har Gow, Xiao Long Bao etc..

The food came in pretty big portion for two for a buffet. Sweet and sour pork and pork ribs were starchy. It's very "gor gor",  I have no idea why..

Alot of the steamed dim sum like har gow and xiao long bao have quite thick skin and the prawns tasted like crystal prawns. 

The two dishes that won us over was the duck meat and this Shanghai stir fried noodle.

We ordered these two dishes twice despite being damn full.

The duck meat was tasty and well-cooked, and the meat doesn't get stucked in your teeth when bitten.

The fried noodle uses la mian, which gives a chewy texture. If i'm not wrong, they fried it with XO sauce.

Dim sum wasn't fantastic although they specialise in it (I think?). I feel that the ala carte dishes were better.

The voucher cost $17.40 per person for weekday high tea, 3-5pm, excluding GST.

Our bill was about $23 per person after including GST and I would say for the variety, it was worth it.

One bad experience with a staff. I called in to make a reservation a day before. It was the longest time I've ever taken to get my reservation done =.=

A woman with China accent picked up. I said I wanted to make a reservation, she said hold on. Okay, so in the background I heard her settling bill with a customer. I'm fine with it..

After about 3-4 mins, she came back and said in Mandarin "you want to make a reservation? wait a while".

So I waited again and this time round, I heard her talking and laughing to her colleague in the background. Waited for another 2-3 mins and she finally came back to take down my reservation. 

Oh yes, and the standard was quite inconsistent. The 1st round of our orders tasted better than the 2nd round, when the crowd came in.

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant @ Bugis

200 Victoria Street #02-53 Bugis Junction S(188021)

Tel: +65 6835 7577

Ending off with my lovely chiffon fabric ear stud!

Johnson Duck Rice + Stayover + Birthday Celebration

I met up with N for dinner along Macpherson Road as his office is nearby. This place is a hidden find!

Johnson Duck. Done a search online and I found that there is a stall called Johnson Duck & Chicken at Ghim Moh Food Center. Most likely they're related. The logo is the same.

Anyway, I think this place is quite new. The interior is not like a coffeeshop. It is clean, furnished with wooden tables and chairs. 

The menu has quite a variety of dishes and the had some promotion going on for the Claypot Rice.

Waiting time for the claypot rice is up to 30mins so I'm guessing that they used the raw rice and cooked it from scratch. 

We ordered the Set Meal for 2 : 2 rice, duck meat, soup, beancurd and 2 drinks and it costs $12 (I added Kai Lan, which costs $3).

Pretty affordable for the spread right! Am average plate of duck rice would cost about $3.50 already.

Anyway, the food came as a surprise. The soup and beancurd was WAYYYY above expectation.

The soup was a bittergourd soup, with minced meat, tofu as well as some ginger slices. Light and complements the whole meal.

I would expect the beancurd to be the braised tau kwa... Probably one piece, sliced thinly and served on a small plate. But NO, the beancurd is a sweet and spicy beancurd, with shallots, spring onions and a little bit of minced meat. It wasn't FANTASTIC, but the fact that they serve an unexpected plate of beancurd was just commendable!

The duck was okay. Nothing very special, but it wasn't bad either. The sauce was a little bit different from normal duck rice sauce. Well, you could say it has the taste of a normal duck rice sauce, just that it has a tinge of herbal taste infused in it. I love it! The sauce wasn't oily as well, and I soaked my rice in it :D

A really worth it meal I would say! Sadly, their business isn't very good. Probably cos it's new? Or based on their renovation, passersby would think that the food would be expensive. That said, a plate of Char Siew or Roast Pork rice is only $2.50!

_________________________________________________________________________________

Two days ago I tweeted "The most not-looked-forward-to birthday of the year"

Well, it was jiaqi's birthday. We did not plan surprise on the actual day itself so I went to stayover at her hall so that she could spend the first few moments of her birthday with me :D

Had a simple steamboat & grill dinner and her friends came over with a pint of Haagen Dazs at 12 to celebrate with her. She was screaming and shouting "It's my birthday" for a good whole 15minutes at least and I swear the whole hall or even several other blocks could hear her loud and clear.

I was not amazed. Very used to this.

We spent the night studying. It wasn't very productive for me as I spent 4hours to complete one pathetic reading. 

Lunched with Jiaqi the next day and I took a bus home. Rested for awhile and met up with bball girls at NEX where we bought a Strawberry Shortcake at Four Leaves and went to have Sliced Fish Soup outside SRJC. Our favourite hang out place and we've been frequenting that stall even though we've all graduated. My favourite is E-mian, with additional fish egg. Some stalls do have eggs but it just has a very strong, pungent taste and there's a yellow gooey stuff, which according to my mum, is the gall. The fish egg from this stall is always clean and very well-prepared and cooked.

  

  

The saddest birthday song ever. Everyone just had enough of her and couldn't wait for her birthday to be over. HAHAHAH.

Royal China

Last Thursday, I finally had a chance to go our with Reg for lunch. It was a birthday (super belated one) treat from me and knowing that she like dim sum, I decided to bring her to Royal China! N and I went there in April this year and it did not disappoint! I was there early and had to wait for a while because parking was very expensive and she had some difficulty in find a place to park.

 Beautiful colonial inspired exterior..

Baked Char Siew Puff

 Thin, fluffy and buttery crust with a flavourful char siew filling in its core... Yummy!

 Har Gow.

Generous filling of fresh succulent prawns. Skin was pretty thin! But it wasn't something that wow-ed me.

 Love the Siew Mai! I really dislike low quality siew mai that contains minced meat/lots of fats.

This is really good. Addition of a wolfberry and a stalk of parsley made it stand out (:

 Pan-fried XO Carrot Cake. I'm quite impressed by the fact that the carrot cake is not plain carrot cake. When bite through the cubes, you could actually find mushroom and minced meat. However, I still prefer Canton-i's version. Probably because I couldn't taste any chai poh in this.

 Liu Sha Bao was a disappointment. The buns were not very fluffy and the taste wasn't very distinct. Maybe because it was infused with mango flavour? But I couldn't taste it despite it being mentioned in the menu ):

 A really interested dish! Superior soup with a mega huge dumpling. The dumpling is really special. Wrapped with thin skin, it has crabmeat, scallop and many more ingredients as filling!

 Smooth, velvety chee cheong fun (3 fillings- scallop, char siew, prawn) that glides down your throat

 The egg tarts were good! I like it that it is puny (;

Deep-fried Beancurd Skin. Dou kee is quite and some don't have impressive filling. This one is good!

Very unique dessert here.. Apple Jelly, with aloe vera (and some other fruits if I remember correctly). The cashew nuts gave the dessert a really special taste and crunch! Thumbs up!

Avocado puree with pearl in coconut, with a scoop of chocolate ice cream.

While avocado and chocolate is quite a common combination. Bringing in the coconut as a third party is unusual. The avocado puree is very smooth and creamy. I thought the coconut is quite a calafare and complicates it without giving it anything special. Just the puree and chocolate ice cream is nice enough!

We spent about $89 in total.

Updated on 17th May 2013

I went there for the 3rd time and these are some new dishes that I've tried:

Roasted Pork (烧肉) a.k.a Shio Bak

The roasted pork is fantastic. Crispy skin, yet not overly salty. On top of that, the pork has a thinner layer of fat, makes it less jelat and you can just enjoy the pork at ease :D

The peanuts were gently fried (or roasted?) and the fragrance is at its optimum. 

Scallop Dumpling 

I was wondering why did I not order this dish the previous few times I visited this place. It probably did not stand out as a dish to order. But, as a scallop lover, I like this dish for the freshness of the scallop as well as the bits of caviar on it.

Egg Tart

These dainty egg tarts are so mini and so cute! The crust is light and flaky, but I would prefer the filling to be softer and smoother.

Steamed Pork Ribs

Most meh-ish dish =.= Don't waste the money

Sliced Fish Congee

My friend wanted a staple dish, if not I would give this a miss. The porridge is no doubt smooth and creamy, but at the same time, it was pretty grainy. It tasted quite plain and there were only a few slices of fish. The biscuits (similar to those found on Yu Sheng) did not do a favour for the porridge as well.

Though the food was good, I am really turned off by their service. Even after reservation, we had to wait for like 15-20 mins to get seated (when there were some big empty tables around). I guess they just did not want to utilize the big table for only 2 people. In addition, my friend had a stroller. The staff gave us such a squeezy table. Difficult to get staff's attention. 

Placed order at 2pm.... At 2.20, the food is not here..and guess what, a waitress came to us an said "Our last order is at 2.30, is there anything you wish to add on?" (in Mandarin) I looked at her and said "None of our dishes are served yet and now you asked me for last order?!"

In my mind I was thinking "How would I know if I would be able to finish the food I ordered and whether I needed to order more dishes?!" Yes, I do understand that they have to settle the accounts and close the register etc...But, the fact is that their service is slow, yet even before any food is served, you are asked to place your last order, I find that very annoying.