We searched for the button with the 37th label on it, and pressed. Zoom, the elevator, or I preferred to call it the express lift-off, shot up into the sky. Looking downwards as everything became miniature - we were so insignificant. I was actually quite scared when I took a peep. It shouldn’t be, since I’ve been to higher ground before, but still. It always happened. Ding, we reached 37th level, welcome to Hai Tien Lo.
The Steamed shrimp dumpling ($4.80 for 3 pieces) was pretty with the chopped celery giving it a tinge of green.
It must be short-sightedness, but it often occurred with carrot cake. Somehow I always missed out the word steamed, when I ordered carrot cake. So instead of my favourite fried carrot cake, we were surprised when they served a steamed rendition; but it was good! I like how the sauce brings out the flavour of the soft and nice carrot cake. Okay, the full name, steamed carrot cake with preserved meats ($3.90 per portion).
The Steamed pork dumpling with fish roe ($4.80 for 3 pieces) was a piece of art. The curvy lines, with her yellow outfit, topped with the pretty bright orange fish roe.
This was a special, they called it the dim-sum-of-the-week. Sophisticated yeah? It was essentially a shrimp with fish roe on top of a mushroom. An innovative way to do the overdone-to-death prawn in dim sum.
Surprise number two came in the form of pan-fried rice flour roll with crispy conpoy ($3.90 per portion). Well actually it’s not much of a revelation since I asked about the fillings beforehand. Or rather, the lack of fillings. I like the slightly char pan-fried surface of the rice roll with all the crispy toppings. The rice roll on itself was rather bland, but drizzled with the gorgeous sauce; it was good, no, it was tasty!
Since my favourite char siew sou wasn’t available, I just had to make do with the Steamed barbecued pork buns ($2.80 for 2 pieces). White fluffy buns, with sweet char siew fillings, what’s there not to like? I like it sweet, extra sweet please!
Instead of the usual prawn filling, Hai Tien Lo’s rendition came across as the Deep-fried sea perch wrapped in vermicelli ($5.40 for 3 pieces).
* * *
With the to-die-for magnificent view of the marina area, dining at Hai Tien Lo was definitely something that evoked the visual senses together with the taste buds. We chatted, appreciated the skyline, nibbled at the dim sum, drank more tea, and I’m so in love with dim sum! xoxo
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
I always dread to blog about Japanese food; since I’m not a big fan of Japanese food, nor am I knowledgeable about them. It is on special occasions when my friends craved for Japanese food, then will you see Japanese-related posts here.
The prices at Tatsuya, are incredibly not cheap (at least for my standards); we went for their affordable-and-value bento set lunches instead. The sashimi bento set ($28.90) was immediately on the agenda since my friend’s a big, big fan of sashimi. Pardon me, I can never understand the rave about sashimi though, eating slices of raw fishes didn’t exactly appeal to me; but having said that, the salmon sashimi was remarkably fresh.
I always enjoy eating Japanese rice; the white pearl grains are so soft, and seriously, I could step into a Japanese restaurant just to eat their rice. Be it steamed white rice, or garlic fried rice, give it to me!
The sushi bento ($30.90) was visually-appealing with all the delectable and pretty-looking of sushi; I started with the tempura first, the deep-fried vegetables were pretty all right, I’ve never like my vegetables fried. It was the prawn tempura that really got me going.
Without paying attention to what was what, I took up my chopsticks, steadied my pair of shaky hands, and grab the nearest sushi; delicious, I ate another one, then the next, until I finished the row of six sushi.
The same for the fishes, I’ve a hard time differentiating which fishes were there, with the exception of salmon and tuna; so I took up my chopsticks once again, dipped them into the wasabi-infused soy sauce, and carefully placed it into my delicate mouth. Yum! The fish, with the sticky sushi rice, was exceptionally fresh.
We chose to sit in the interior of the smallish restaurant; an elongated space with at most twenty seats, there’s room at either the counter bar or by the side. Naturally, sitting at the counter bar provides the full Japanese experience, with the chefs and staffs conversing in Japanese, and seeing the chefs live in action. But somehow it does gets a little overwhelming and noisy after a while.
Since I already gotten my full Japanese experience, the next time I will probably choose to sit outside in the tranquil al fresco environment instead! Tatsuya’s bento set are very value for money, given that it will probably cost double or triple the money when you order ala carte for dinner.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
My love affair with XLB starts way back; I fall in love with her at first sight, every petite piece so delicate and exquisite, she, who has the ability to make my heart skip a beat when I place her on my lips, she, who makes me go crazy and think of her everytime.
The two different XLB was made by two different pairs of hands; the one on the left was by me (note: the uneven folds) and the one on the right was by the master of course.
At Din Tai Fung’s media preview of their new mini steamed pork dumpling (xiao long tang bao), we were given a hands-on experience on making XLB. And that’s why I like dim sum so much; it’s easy to pop a piece inside our mouth, but to make each piece so delectable there’s much hard work and effort involved.
The requirement for a standard XLB is 18 folds, and it’s definitely not easy to do it, especially so when we only had half-an-hour of lesson beforehand, where the chefs actually train for a year to achieve the result. It’s only when you experience how difficult it is, to make a XLB before you actually appreciate the hard work put in by the good people slogging it out in the hot kitchen everyday.
The new mini steamed pork dumpling (XLB), or xiao long tang bao, whatever you call it, is 50% smaller than the regular XLB. Just imagine doing 18 folds on a normal size XLB, and now you do it on half the size of XLB; the xiao long tang baos are notoriously difficult to make!
I love to eat eggs; scrambled, poached, fried, sunny side up, steamed, over-easy, salted egg, quail egg, but with just the exception to century eggs. There’s no reason, but the black glossy appearance never appealed to me. Century eggs with fermented soya ($3.50)
As to the origin of drunken chicken, I do not know the story of it, but I do know that the Original Shanghainese drunken chicken ($6.80) had a strong alcohol taste infused in the smooth chicken meat.
Taking up a piece of the mini cucumber, crunch crunch; the inherited sweetness of the green plate had an addition spicy twist to it. Crunchy Mini Cucumber in Spicy Sauce ($3.80). Just for bites.
Much as I love my veggies, I was never a fan of vegetables in dim sum; somehow the steamed vegetables inside dumplings didn’t work for me. Neither did the Steamed vegetable & pork dumpling here.
This was a make-over of our regular siewmai, done the XLB-style. It was quintessentially an open-faced XLB with a shrimp sitting pretty on top. Shrimp & pork shao mai ($13.50 for 10)
I love to drink soup that is thick and tangy in flavour, with lots of ingredients that bear a close reminiscence to Shark’s fin soup. The Hot & sour soup ($6.80) was not bad, but the excessive pepper overwhelmed my taste buds.
Springy noodles that bounced off your tongue, that might sounds exaggerating, but I like my noodles done that way. The Noodle with minced pork in bean sauce ($7) was delightful with the generous toppings of bean sauce; it was a simple bowl of noodles, but I like it!
The Crispy golden prawn pancakes ($8.50) were nice as appetisers too, fried till golden brown, the crispy pancakes crusts were addictive to bite on.
I wasn’t too impressed with the Stir-fried nai bai with garlic. I’m not sure whether the chilli was supposed to be there as a decoration, or was it to enhanced the taste, but personally I felt that nai bai and chilli didn’t work. Plus the garlic wasn’t fried enough to infused the vegetables with the fragrance.
And now the star that we’ve been waiting for. Introducing, the Mini steamed pork dumpling with superior chicken broth ($10.80 for 10 pieces). As you all know, XLB itself has lots of soup stocks within the skin, but we were given a bowl of chicken broth to go along with the Mini Xiao Long Tang Baos (XLTB) this time round.
Filling the spoon with the chicken broth, we placed a piece of the mini XLB into it, add some ginger and vinegar and put everything into our mouth; the chicken broth was subtle, bordering on bland, and it was the stock within the XLB that gushed out that stole the show. Taste-wise there wasn’t much to differentiate the XLB and the XLTB , but it was a novelty and certainly less-filling to eat the mini.
* * *
It was indeed fun to have hands-on experience on making XLB, my appreciation to Clement & Andrew from ICON for the food tasting invitation, miss Patsy from Breadtalk, and the chefs who taught and made our XLB. The Xiao Long Tang Baos are available exclusively at Din Tai Fung Paragon from 1 June 2009, 3-5pm for weekdays, and 10am-12 noon for weekends.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
If life is about love, I want a day with you alone. Together, we dine and feast, with merry and joy. Bliss is the paradise, and blissful is the pleasure.
We sit by the waterfront; calm and serene. Time stand still at that moment, we are cut out from the world. So this is it; the feeling of bliss.
Even though you might not agree with me, I firmly believe that ambience and company is more important than food. A simple illustration, will you enjoy good food while you are dining with a person you do not like, or will ordinary food actually taste better in the company of good friends and nice ambience?
I’m a sucker for ambience, al fresco dining will always be the option when the weather is kind. And this ain’t some prime location, it’s Punggol park for goodness sake; I haven’t been to Punggol before!
Nothing too heavy or fanciful since we were there during mid-afternoon. The spicy wings ($6.90) were great for some light snacks. I remembered it was red fiery-hot; it was a satisfaction; gnawing at the meat, chewing on the bones, and sucking dry the oh-so-hot chilli flavour.
I couldn’t figured out why the fries were called X-cut ($5.90), but it was crispy and a close resemblance to nachos rather than fries. Dipped the fries into chilli sauce, and I’ll have my ketchup please.
And if I may, the tiramisu ($6.90) was a waste of money. For the sole reason that it wasn’t made in-house, there’s no value. What-to-do, a mis-time of tiramisu-craving. I know it doesn’t sound nice, but 7 bucks is a lot of money, it could get you a very good tiramisu elsewhere.
The place reminds me of Bark Cafe, another great place for finger food and chilling out. And it isn’t a coincidence that my buddy introduced me to both places; he’s a sucker for ambience too! And by the way, I absolutely loathed the round-shape cylinder that was placed on every table, the presence of the chilli-ketchup bottles didn’t help too.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
If you are to pick a random person from the street and ask, “where’s the best wanton mee?“, chances are Feifei wanton mee at Joo Chiat will be mentioned. The legendary wanton mee stall from Joo Chiat.
The bowl of wanton mee arrived, with chilli all over the noodles, and that’s it. My friend gave me a nudge to stir the noodles from below and all the treasures were indeed hidden beaneath the noodles. The char siew wasn’t fantastic, it was decent, and the wanton was not bad. But it was the noodles and the chilli which deserved the recognition; the noodles were Q and simply bounced on my tongue, while the chilli was fiery hot, although I was sweating all over, but it’s worth the while!
Feifei doesn’t served roasted duck, this was ordered from another stall in the kopitiam.
Crisping on the surface, the roasted duck skin was bursting red, with a layer of fats sticking under it, was sinful, but a delight to have. They looked good, they smelled even better. I wolf the whole thing down, nibbling everything from the skin, the meat and the fats, chewing any leftovers that I spotted on the bones. I love roasted duck!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
1=SGD 0.0587
The Steamed shrimp dumpling ($4.80 for 3 pieces) was pretty with the chopped celery giving it a tinge of green.
It must be short-sightedness, but it often occurred with carrot cake. Somehow I always missed out the word steamed, when I ordered carrot cake. So instead of my favourite fried carrot cake, we were surprised when they served a steamed rendition; but it was good! I like how the sauce brings out the flavour of the soft and nice carrot cake. Okay, the full name, steamed carrot cake with preserved meats ($3.90 per portion).
The Steamed pork dumpling with fish roe ($4.80 for 3 pieces) was a piece of art. The curvy lines, with her yellow outfit, topped with the pretty bright orange fish roe.
This was a special, they called it the dim-sum-of-the-week. Sophisticated yeah? It was essentially a shrimp with fish roe on top of a mushroom. An innovative way to do the overdone-to-death prawn in dim sum.
Surprise number two came in the form of pan-fried rice flour roll with crispy conpoy ($3.90 per portion). Well actually it’s not much of a revelation since I asked about the fillings beforehand. Or rather, the lack of fillings. I like the slightly char pan-fried surface of the rice roll with all the crispy toppings. The rice roll on itself was rather bland, but drizzled with the gorgeous sauce; it was good, no, it was tasty!
Since my favourite char siew sou wasn’t available, I just had to make do with the Steamed barbecued pork buns ($2.80 for 2 pieces). White fluffy buns, with sweet char siew fillings, what’s there not to like? I like it sweet, extra sweet please!
Instead of the usual prawn filling, Hai Tien Lo’s rendition came across as the Deep-fried sea perch wrapped in vermicelli ($5.40 for 3 pieces).
* * *
With the to-die-for magnificent view of the marina area, dining at Hai Tien Lo was definitely something that evoked the visual senses together with the taste buds. We chatted, appreciated the skyline, nibbled at the dim sum, drank more tea, and I’m so in love with dim sum! xoxo
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
The prices at Tatsuya, are incredibly not cheap (at least for my standards); we went for their affordable-and-value bento set lunches instead. The sashimi bento set ($28.90) was immediately on the agenda since my friend’s a big, big fan of sashimi. Pardon me, I can never understand the rave about sashimi though, eating slices of raw fishes didn’t exactly appeal to me; but having said that, the salmon sashimi was remarkably fresh.
I always enjoy eating Japanese rice; the white pearl grains are so soft, and seriously, I could step into a Japanese restaurant just to eat their rice. Be it steamed white rice, or garlic fried rice, give it to me!
The sushi bento ($30.90) was visually-appealing with all the delectable and pretty-looking of sushi; I started with the tempura first, the deep-fried vegetables were pretty all right, I’ve never like my vegetables fried. It was the prawn tempura that really got me going.
Without paying attention to what was what, I took up my chopsticks, steadied my pair of shaky hands, and grab the nearest sushi; delicious, I ate another one, then the next, until I finished the row of six sushi.
The same for the fishes, I’ve a hard time differentiating which fishes were there, with the exception of salmon and tuna; so I took up my chopsticks once again, dipped them into the wasabi-infused soy sauce, and carefully placed it into my delicate mouth. Yum! The fish, with the sticky sushi rice, was exceptionally fresh.
We chose to sit in the interior of the smallish restaurant; an elongated space with at most twenty seats, there’s room at either the counter bar or by the side. Naturally, sitting at the counter bar provides the full Japanese experience, with the chefs and staffs conversing in Japanese, and seeing the chefs live in action. But somehow it does gets a little overwhelming and noisy after a while.
Since I already gotten my full Japanese experience, the next time I will probably choose to sit outside in the tranquil al fresco environment instead! Tatsuya’s bento set are very value for money, given that it will probably cost double or triple the money when you order ala carte for dinner.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
The two different XLB was made by two different pairs of hands; the one on the left was by me (note: the uneven folds) and the one on the right was by the master of course.
At Din Tai Fung’s media preview of their new mini steamed pork dumpling (xiao long tang bao), we were given a hands-on experience on making XLB. And that’s why I like dim sum so much; it’s easy to pop a piece inside our mouth, but to make each piece so delectable there’s much hard work and effort involved.
The requirement for a standard XLB is 18 folds, and it’s definitely not easy to do it, especially so when we only had half-an-hour of lesson beforehand, where the chefs actually train for a year to achieve the result. It’s only when you experience how difficult it is, to make a XLB before you actually appreciate the hard work put in by the good people slogging it out in the hot kitchen everyday.
The new mini steamed pork dumpling (XLB), or xiao long tang bao, whatever you call it, is 50% smaller than the regular XLB. Just imagine doing 18 folds on a normal size XLB, and now you do it on half the size of XLB; the xiao long tang baos are notoriously difficult to make!
I love to eat eggs; scrambled, poached, fried, sunny side up, steamed, over-easy, salted egg, quail egg, but with just the exception to century eggs. There’s no reason, but the black glossy appearance never appealed to me. Century eggs with fermented soya ($3.50)
As to the origin of drunken chicken, I do not know the story of it, but I do know that the Original Shanghainese drunken chicken ($6.80) had a strong alcohol taste infused in the smooth chicken meat.
Taking up a piece of the mini cucumber, crunch crunch; the inherited sweetness of the green plate had an addition spicy twist to it. Crunchy Mini Cucumber in Spicy Sauce ($3.80). Just for bites.
Much as I love my veggies, I was never a fan of vegetables in dim sum; somehow the steamed vegetables inside dumplings didn’t work for me. Neither did the Steamed vegetable & pork dumpling here.
This was a make-over of our regular siewmai, done the XLB-style. It was quintessentially an open-faced XLB with a shrimp sitting pretty on top. Shrimp & pork shao mai ($13.50 for 10)
I love to drink soup that is thick and tangy in flavour, with lots of ingredients that bear a close reminiscence to Shark’s fin soup. The Hot & sour soup ($6.80) was not bad, but the excessive pepper overwhelmed my taste buds.
Springy noodles that bounced off your tongue, that might sounds exaggerating, but I like my noodles done that way. The Noodle with minced pork in bean sauce ($7) was delightful with the generous toppings of bean sauce; it was a simple bowl of noodles, but I like it!
The Crispy golden prawn pancakes ($8.50) were nice as appetisers too, fried till golden brown, the crispy pancakes crusts were addictive to bite on.
I wasn’t too impressed with the Stir-fried nai bai with garlic. I’m not sure whether the chilli was supposed to be there as a decoration, or was it to enhanced the taste, but personally I felt that nai bai and chilli didn’t work. Plus the garlic wasn’t fried enough to infused the vegetables with the fragrance.
And now the star that we’ve been waiting for. Introducing, the Mini steamed pork dumpling with superior chicken broth ($10.80 for 10 pieces). As you all know, XLB itself has lots of soup stocks within the skin, but we were given a bowl of chicken broth to go along with the Mini Xiao Long Tang Baos (XLTB) this time round.
Filling the spoon with the chicken broth, we placed a piece of the mini XLB into it, add some ginger and vinegar and put everything into our mouth; the chicken broth was subtle, bordering on bland, and it was the stock within the XLB that gushed out that stole the show. Taste-wise there wasn’t much to differentiate the XLB and the XLTB , but it was a novelty and certainly less-filling to eat the mini.
* * *
It was indeed fun to have hands-on experience on making XLB, my appreciation to Clement & Andrew from ICON for the food tasting invitation, miss Patsy from Breadtalk, and the chefs who taught and made our XLB. The Xiao Long Tang Baos are available exclusively at Din Tai Fung Paragon from 1 June 2009, 3-5pm for weekdays, and 10am-12 noon for weekends.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
Together, we dine and feast, with merry and joy.
Bliss is the paradise, and blissful is the pleasure.
We sit by the waterfront; calm and serene.
Time stand still at that moment, we are cut out from the world.
So this is it; the feeling of bliss.
Even though you might not agree with me, I firmly believe that ambience and company is more important than food. A simple illustration, will you enjoy good food while you are dining with a person you do not like, or will ordinary food actually taste better in the company of good friends and nice ambience?
I’m a sucker for ambience, al fresco dining will always be the option when the weather is kind. And this ain’t some prime location, it’s Punggol park for goodness sake; I haven’t been to Punggol before!
Nothing too heavy or fanciful since we were there during mid-afternoon. The spicy wings ($6.90) were great for some light snacks. I remembered it was red fiery-hot; it was a satisfaction; gnawing at the meat, chewing on the bones, and sucking dry the oh-so-hot chilli flavour.
I couldn’t figured out why the fries were called X-cut ($5.90), but it was crispy and a close resemblance to nachos rather than fries. Dipped the fries into chilli sauce, and I’ll have my ketchup please.
And if I may, the tiramisu ($6.90) was a waste of money. For the sole reason that it wasn’t made in-house, there’s no value. What-to-do, a mis-time of tiramisu-craving. I know it doesn’t sound nice, but 7 bucks is a lot of money, it could get you a very good tiramisu elsewhere.
The place reminds me of Bark Cafe, another great place for finger food and chilling out. And it isn’t a coincidence that my buddy introduced me to both places; he’s a sucker for ambience too! And by the way, I absolutely loathed the round-shape cylinder that was placed on every table, the presence of the chilli-ketchup bottles didn’t help too.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!
The bowl of wanton mee arrived, with chilli all over the noodles, and that’s it. My friend gave me a nudge to stir the noodles from below and all the treasures were indeed hidden beaneath the noodles. The char siew wasn’t fantastic, it was decent, and the wanton was not bad. But it was the noodles and the chilli which deserved the recognition; the noodles were Q and simply bounced on my tongue, while the chilli was fiery hot, although I was sweating all over, but it’s worth the while!
Feifei doesn’t served roasted duck, this was ordered from another stall in the kopitiam.
Crisping on the surface, the roasted duck skin was bursting red, with a layer of fats sticking under it, was sinful, but a delight to have. They looked good, they smelled even better. I wolf the whole thing down, nibbling everything from the skin, the meat and the fats, chewing any leftovers that I spotted on the bones. I love roasted duck!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!
Login to add your comment. Or, Register for an account now. It's free!