Twenty four of us descended to Gunther’s in a foodgraphy-frenzy. Hells hath no fury like a floggers' hunger. The long discussion of food, followed by the occasional exclaims of ‘ooh‘, and ‘aah‘. Welcome to the world of the food lovers.
It was smooth, and silky, strands of it sticking out; yet in the dim light setting against the white background, it looked angelic, yes, this must be it: Cold Angel-hair pasta. I enjoyed every slurp, and I’ll gladly have it again.
This, is the In-thing for this season, like the latest fashion trends for each year; rejoiced people, it is this time of the year for the sacred white asaparagus, not green, not red, but white. And then, I spotted the yellowish sauce over the the Poached white asparagus with Bouchot mussels.
I stopped, and slowly took a bit of it with my spoon; “it couldn’t be, Oh yes it is!” I dipped everything on the plate with the hollandaise sauce, and made sure not a single drop of it was left.
“Have you had white asparagus before?”
“No, I don’t see what's the craze over them..”
A surprise always had the biggest impact when you least expected it, and it came pleasantly of course.
There was pata negra, and salted baked seabass for the folks who couldn’t have beef; and damn, the roasted black pig from Spain sounded so good, I should have claimed to have allergies against cows!
My piece was very well balanced in the portions of the fats and meat (read: too much fats). I took a bite of the meat, and chewed down some fats. And it’s not that the Grilled Cote de Boeuf wasn’t good. In fact it was more than excellent; the slightly tinge of pink fully captured my imagination.
My eyes tweaked to see what was coming. It was supposed to be desserts next, but they were serving us, pizzas. You know, the elongated slice of thin-crust bread with toppings all over. Ah no, I was clearly mistaken, this was no pizza, it’s the Fine apple tart a la dragees, with rum & raisin ice-cream.
Once we had our desserts, once we paid off the bill, it would be bye-bye until a year later. Or at least that’s what the script wrote. A year, is far too long a time for us to meet up. We should meet up regularly my friends, and hunt down all the good food around our island.
Note: The 4 course Carte Blanche set menu was $45 per person and done especially for our Food Bloggers lunch, it's not available to public.
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!
Contrary to normal beliefs that guys don’t like sweet stuff, I, for one, however proved to be the complete opposite. I like things that make me happy; food that can cheer me up, the happily-ever-after fairytale-like stories, and naturally, sweet nibbles that I always crave for.
The lady took one, from the pile of mountain-stacked high; this was the one destined for me. Poking a hole into the bottom by tucking it in, she pressed the pump; the lovely custard swam into the tiny hole, just big enough, for everything to flow inside.
Dusted with some icing sugar; it was akin like putting on the make-up for the pretty. I was excited by the sticking in and out, with each done, I could barely hide my excitement. And she repeated this process, six times in total.
Do not, I repeat, Do not (note: in bold), share your sweets around, they are not meant to be shared. What’s the point of passing them around, only to feel slightly agonizing over the fact that you are going to have less for yourself?
Stop staring at my cream puff. They are mine, and mine alone.
This, will come down as, one of the toughest decision you will make in your life. Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberrry? And there’s the lovely eclair winking at me, the tiramisu trying to seduce me. It is a land, of temptations. I decided, like what seemed to take an eternity, to go for just half-a-dozen with the chocolate and vanilla flavours. The rest, are my excuses for coming back next time.
And I regretted just getting six.
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 would have never imagine this; I froze at the mention of it, the sacred foie gras. And hold on a second, what were they saying, I thought I heard something like Juicy dumpling with foie gras. Wasn’t this supposed to be XLB, now where did the foie gras came into the picture?
Believe it or not, they actually contain the French delicacy within our XLB, well maybe just a morsel of it since there wasn’t any trace of the foie gras.
Fresh, is one of the word which has been over-used to describe food. How else would you use to depict the prawn within the crisp vermicelli, well maybe I would say juicy, succulent, and I ran out of vocabulary. Oh well. Deep-fried filo dough.
It was wet, a little moist inside, so I stuck my finger in, and poked it in a little further. I took a bite, beneath the crispy exterior, was duck shreds. Deep-fried yam croquette with minced duck.
I was caught by surprise when they told me this was called the Deep-fried scallops with sugar cane. I was happily biting it off the sugar cane (read: I use it), thinking it was very prawny, and there they were, telling me it was deep-fried scallop!
Naturally I was amused, how could scallop taste like prawn? Ignoring that, the slightly-sweet-slightly-sour sauce was most excellent - it was refreshing. And the sugar cane added some brownie points to the whole artistic value.
May I introduced to you, ladies and gentleman, the scarce Harm Soei Gok, or Deep-friend traditional chicken dumpling. Honestly, I did not know about its existence before this, since many places didn’t served it due to the complexity and effort needed to produce it.
The whole, Shark’s fin within the soup, it was so big! With an equally flavourful stock, all of us agreed that the Double-boiled dumpling with Shark’s fin was a delight, well maybe not for the sharks lovers.
I liked this. I’m a char siew sou man. And I was disappointed when there was no sight of it on the menu. And then the baked fluffy skin pie with chicken and mango came. Having the same (or almost) crispy, buttery pastry skin, the interior of the usual char siew was replaced by chicken and mango instead. And the marriage of chicken and mango was a good one, those two totally complimented each other well.
How can one reinvent a dish already done to death and found everywhere? Well, they either provide premium stuffing or reinvent the skin used to wrap the stuffing. For the steamed pork dumpling, they did neither but it was still a cut above the rest. The prawn was sweet and there wasn’t an overly-porky after-taste.
My, my. It was interesting to note, a mini version of claypot rice appearing in a restaurant. Call it a classic, the Mini pot rice with chicken was nothing mini in taste; the tasty Chinese sausages, the succulent mushrooms, and the tender chicken chunks. I had it a taste without any sauce initially, then I added some of the superior sauce that came along with it, and it did wonders - it literally enhanced the taste of the whole mini pot.
There was three different types of steamed rice roll served, but I just showed one photo since all rice rolls looked the same less the fillings. It was the standard-trio, scallops, char siew and prawn. And needless to say, most Chinese restaurants definitely uses fresh ingredients, so it was really down to the rice roll to determine the winner.
And I must say, Man Fu Yuan had silky smooth rice roll, and most importantly, they were not overly-thick.
I never liked beef balls, or for that matter, any type of meat balls. Just the sight of it made me full, I took a bite of the beef balls with bamboo pith, and unexpectedly, it wasn’t as heavy as I thought it would be. And there’s tripes at the bottom of the beef balls too.
It is a fine line between tradition and new, and I feel Man Fu Yuan balanced it very well. There are the traditional dim sum available for the purist who want their fix regularly, and not neglecting those who craved for innovation and excitement in their dining experience, the chefs played around with some other ingredients that are not commonly used in Chinese cuisine.
This marks the end of the dim sum marathon, and I must say I’ve enjoyed myself very much together with the rest; chatting and enjoying the good food. My appreciation to Sharon, the PR manager for hosting us, and Cuisine & Wine Asia for the invitation.
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!
The beautiful, each piece: Oh-so-dainty, Oh-so-refine. Almost like art, delicately crafted.
O’ my dear, I love you so. Never in my heart, I stopped thinking of you. Miss sushi, and Miss tapas: both seemed to be more popular than you, but I will always put you in the first place.
It was big, no, huge! This was, one of the many, different renditions of har gau we would see today. Essentially a har gau without the skin; the crab meat dumpling. It was prawny, with a nice bite - but crabby (no pun intended) it was not, well who cares?
Rather than an-overly-thick-skin, give me a dumpling without skin.
The well-admired Steamed Prawn Dumplings had an injection of carrot purée which only served to beautify the appearance of the har gau skin.
“We protested! We protested!”
The purist camp did a demonstration on the streets, crying for the restoration of the conventional har gau which they were so used to. But for the ladies; the boost in vitamin A. What was missing however, was the carrot taste.
The novelty. The inclusion of preserved vegetables was a brilliant stroke of art; the saltiness enhanced the flavour of the pork, which brought us to the question: why didn’t anybody thought of this before? Steamed pork dumpling with preserved vegetables, siew mai.
Now this was a not-so-simple bun that was bound to turn heads. Served piping hot, the bun seemed quite insignificant until you took a bite at it. Immediately, you would realize that you just had something very special. The bun itself was soft, fluffy and light as a feather while the fillings were so, so sweet and juicy. The Steamed kurobuta char siew pork fluffy bao, was the winner for the day.
The humble har gau did an open-faced sandwich; with shark’s fin on top. Luxury, it was, wealth, it symbolized, and prestige, it presented. Sorry sharky! Steamed shark’s fin dumplings with dried scallops and shrimp.
The tinge of pink, at the top of the tri-top; pretty and so pretty. Another piece of art we seen, at the gallery of Cherry Garden. However, the Scallop and spinach crystal dumpling did came across as slightly dry.
Truffled Essence Crystal Dumplings stuffed with Assorted Fresh Mushrooms. This, was a beauty; the translucent skin, the jelly texture, the array of mushrooms, almost perfect - but it was too large!
Prawn was the main lead, and mango was the second lead. There was the accompany of the green, hot wasabi! Netted rice crispy turnover. I held you, in my arms, into the late wee wee hour: without the wasabi! My dear, the netted rice crispy turnover.
And there was the famous XLB. The voluptuous folds, the goodness of the soup stock, everything, gushing out.
Like a peacock spreading his feathers, the netted rice crispy did a peacock effect: it caught everybody’s attention. Oh my, so beautiful, was this meant to be eaten?
And oh wait, there’s something hiding below the feathers; the netted rice crispy I meant. Ah, that’s the pan-fried chives and chicken dumplings!
Unfortunately, I was not a big fan of chives - I would leave the taste of the dumpling to your own imagination. This was, a piece of art! Why don’t we turn it upside down?
This was the umpteenth time we had a make-over of the har gau, they called it, Steamed Chinese spinach dumplings. The spinach, provided the lovely lines, just like how a painting adorned the wall. The egg yolk, provided the oomph, so, so good.
This, was a poisonous pear, for snow white. The wicked witch threw in some pumpkin, a pinch of jicama, stirred stirred, mixed mixed, and finally, some vegetarian ham.
Poof! With a wave of her wand, the deep-fried potato “pear” appeared. Crispy texture checked, mesmerizing appearance checked, vegetarian (snow white is on a diet) checked. Sticky innards (to stick the mouth together) checked. Everything was present, and OH, where’s the poison?
And we took a plunge, into the deep, deep blue sea. From the land to the sea, the Symphony of live pacific grouper prepared in three different ways. The first: we have a soup, grouper fish broth with ginger, onion and Silken tofu.
Steamed grouper crystal fish dumpling. Was this a dim sum, or was this a fish? It was both, with a twist. Brilliant it was, bravo we shouted. Grouper fish meat inside a dumpling of the fish skin. It was beautiful, too beautiful to eat.
It was not all smooth-sailing, nothing was. As much as I loved the creativity, there was a snag. The use of fish skin, for the translucent was great for the eyes, but not for the mouth. It was chewy, and slightly fishy: non fish lovers, would say, no no!
Prawn and pork, were absent. I give you fish, fish for dim sum. The very first, I believed. Let there be more, say fish siew mai? This, surely, would be a great day for all the fish lovers.
One price, one fish, for the value of three. Worthy, indeed. Sautéed grouper fillet with asparagus, no parts of the fish were wasted, from the meat, to the skin.
I have always wanted to go to Cherry Garden. And I’m glad I finally did. It was a feast, for the visual senses. The dim sum, so delicately craft piece by piece, was an art, for all to enjoyed. Creativity was certainly in the air, the adventurous use of different ingredients, the details to attention for the tiniest things, the emphasize of making it look as good as it tasted. I’m sold. Praises, have to be reserved for the savvy and charismatic executive Chinese chef, Mr Hiew Gun Khong.
Cherry Garden has the weekend dim sum ala carte buffet at $45 per head, which has a selections of 20 over dim sum, and other Chinese food as well. My appreciation to Kelly, the PR relations manager for hosting us, and Cuisine & Wine Asia for the invitation.
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!
60. The number could refer to almost anything; age, weight, people, money, time - Si Chuan Dou Hua restaurant on the sixty level of UOB plaza. 100 - a century figure of dishes at weekend lunch, offering dim sum, tea and Szechuan cuisine. 38.8 - the unbeatable price of under forty dollars. Numbers are magic: they tell a thousand things too.
The kidney, I have to say, was lovely: chewy and pinkish-coloured, swelled-looking, with the clever use of spices covered the porky smell which made so many people avoided the delicious pig kidney.
The question of authenticity popped up during the tasting session, and Linda the director of SCDH was quick to point out although there were some minor tweaks of the dishes to suit local palates, the Chilled chicken in spicy bean paste was done exactly like the Szechuan favourite. The spicy bean paste caused a storm; hot, fiery, and simply so Szechuan!
SCDH served us many cold dishes for starters, and the Sliced beef and tripe in chilli sauce was one of them.
At first glance, it was not difficult to mistaken the Sliced duck in Teow chew style for the more commonly seen drunken chicken. Thinly sliced, I could never resist duck meat!
This one caught me by surprise - the crispy chicken puff. I wasn’t expecting something so, small and tiny, to be so good. The crispy fried skin had chicken within: it was a reminiscent of cream puff, except the pastry was fried instead of baked, and the fillings were chicken instead of cream.
Perfect. One of the best carrot cake I’ve had; every bite was flavourful with radish. The only correct thing to make a good carrot cake is to just add more radish, it’s so simple, yet many fail to get the gist of it.
The purist would protest at the sight of the Steamed siew mai with quill egg. The additional of quill egg was an innovation, and credits had to be given to the chefs for experimenting with different ingredients.
No, it definitely wasn’t St Valentine’s the last time I checked. Nonetheless, the heart shape was pretty enough to gorge at - Pan-fried shredded yam pancake with waxed meat.
I ain’t a big fan of mince meat balls, but the Steamed beef balls with seasonal vegetables won me over with the chewy and bouncy texture.
I eyed the golden dumpling, not knowing what to do. Should I, or should I not? I took up my pair of chopsticks, and dove right in, secretly praying in my heart: Sharky, rest in peace, you’d not die in vain. Steamed shark’s fin and chicken dumpling.
Despite the scary-looking-thick-oily-layer of chilli, the Dumpling with chilli oil was surprisingly, not that spicy. I had called the fire brigade to be prepared to put out any fire, and after one tiny nibble of the dumpling, it was safe. And I ate some more, of the thick and generous filling, which almost busted out of the dumpling skin.
This one was interesting. The Pan-fried fish pancake with parsley, the crispy firm pastry-like texture was evident, but I couldn’t quite make out what actually constituted in the fish pancake.
For the best creative award, I presented to you the, Pan-fried sweet corn pancake. The inclusion of sweet corn in a dim sum was a first for me: needless to say, it worked. The sweet corn, like its name, enhanced the sweetness of the pancake.
The Steamed prawn dumpling, or Har gau, had fresh succulent prawns, but I found the skin slightly too thick from what I had in mind.
Instead of the streetfood in Szechuan, SCDH decided to upmarket the Fried pumpkin cake by scoring on presentation and refining it. The delicate-lovely-looking miniature pumpkin; it was too pretty to eat.
If there was one memorable dish I had to choose from SCDH, it had to be the Steamed lotus paste bun with egg yolk. The egg yolk within the lotus bun, oh my. It was indescribable. The combination of lotus paste and egg yolk, was akin to mooncake, with a bun skin.
Balancing my chopsticks, I took a glance at the noodles. This should be easy, I thought. I grabbed some noodles using my less-than-perfect chopstick skills, and slurped the tan tan noodle. The world seemed to froze in time; I took another mouthful of noodles, putting in as much as my mouth would fit. The noodles, how should I put it: bouncy, springy, smooth, well it seems my vocabulary would be exhausted soon. It was good!
We had the following desserts: herbal jelly, mango & pamelo cream, glutinous rice with coconut milk, almond cream with fungus, chilled strawberry jelly, chilled coconut & jackfruit cream, red bean paste with lotus seed, and yam paste with ginko nuts.
Si Chuan Dou Hua has certainly opened up my narrow view of Szechuan cuisine; the impression of only hot and spicy food is wrong, there are many more variety available. Linda, the director of SCDH, who hosted us for the tasting session. And I have to conclude that Linda was the best host among the 4 restaurants which we had went to; her passion for food, and her warm & friendly smile, made our meal more enjoyable.
The 40 items which we tried for the tasting session were part of their weekend lunch which had a mind-blowing 100 items, priced at another unbelievable figure $38.8. My appreciation to Linda for hosting us, and Cuisine & Wine Asia for the invitation.
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
It was smooth, and silky, strands of it sticking out; yet in the dim light setting against the white background, it looked angelic, yes, this must be it: Cold Angel-hair pasta. I enjoyed every slurp, and I’ll gladly have it again.
This, is the In-thing for this season, like the latest fashion trends for each year; rejoiced people, it is this time of the year for the sacred white asaparagus, not green, not red, but white. And then, I spotted the yellowish sauce over the the Poached white asparagus with Bouchot mussels.
I stopped, and slowly took a bit of it with my spoon; “it couldn’t be, Oh yes it is!” I dipped everything on the plate with the hollandaise sauce, and made sure not a single drop of it was left.
“Have you had white asparagus before?”
“No, I don’t see what's the craze over them..”
A surprise always had the biggest impact when you least expected it, and it came pleasantly of course.
There was pata negra, and salted baked seabass for the folks who couldn’t have beef; and damn, the roasted black pig from Spain sounded so good, I should have claimed to have allergies against cows!
My piece was very well balanced in the portions of the fats and meat (read: too much fats). I took a bite of the meat, and chewed down some fats. And it’s not that the Grilled Cote de Boeuf wasn’t good. In fact it was more than excellent; the slightly tinge of pink fully captured my imagination.
My eyes tweaked to see what was coming. It was supposed to be desserts next, but they were serving us, pizzas. You know, the elongated slice of thin-crust bread with toppings all over. Ah no, I was clearly mistaken, this was no pizza, it’s the Fine apple tart a la dragees, with rum & raisin ice-cream.
Once we had our desserts, once we paid off the bill, it would be bye-bye until a year later. Or at least that’s what the script wrote. A year, is far too long a time for us to meet up. We should meet up regularly my friends, and hunt down all the good food around our island.
Note: The 4 course Carte Blanche set menu was $45 per person and done especially for our Food Bloggers lunch, it's not available to public.
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!
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Contrary to normal beliefs that guys don’t like sweet stuff, I, for one, however proved to be the complete opposite. I like things that make me happy; food that can cheer me up, the happily-ever-after fairytale-like stories, and naturally, sweet nibbles that I always crave for.
The lady took one, from the pile of mountain-stacked high; this was the one destined for me. Poking a hole into the bottom by tucking it in, she pressed the pump; the lovely custard swam into the tiny hole, just big enough, for everything to flow inside.
Dusted with some icing sugar; it was akin like putting on the make-up for the pretty. I was excited by the sticking in and out, with each done, I could barely hide my excitement. And she repeated this process, six times in total.
Do not, I repeat, Do not (note: in bold), share your sweets around, they are not meant to be shared. What’s the point of passing them around, only to feel slightly agonizing over the fact that you are going to have less for yourself?
Stop staring at my cream puff. They are mine, and mine alone.
This, will come down as, one of the toughest decision you will make in your life. Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberrry? And there’s the lovely eclair winking at me, the tiramisu trying to seduce me. It is a land, of temptations. I decided, like what seemed to take an eternity, to go for just half-a-dozen with the chocolate and vanilla flavours. The rest, are my excuses for coming back next time.
And I regretted just getting six.
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!really love your reviews~~~ so funny!
10 Jul 2009 at 1:01 am
Believe it or not, they actually contain the French delicacy within our XLB, well maybe just a morsel of it since there wasn’t any trace of the foie gras.
Fresh, is one of the word which has been over-used to describe food. How else would you use to depict the prawn within the crisp vermicelli, well maybe I would say juicy, succulent, and I ran out of vocabulary. Oh well. Deep-fried filo dough.
It was wet, a little moist inside, so I stuck my finger in, and poked it in a little further. I took a bite, beneath the crispy exterior, was duck shreds. Deep-fried yam croquette with minced duck.
I was caught by surprise when they told me this was called the Deep-fried scallops with sugar cane. I was happily biting it off the sugar cane (read: I use it), thinking it was very prawny, and there they were, telling me it was deep-fried scallop!
Naturally I was amused, how could scallop taste like prawn? Ignoring that, the slightly-sweet-slightly-sour sauce was most excellent - it was refreshing. And the sugar cane added some brownie points to the whole artistic value.
May I introduced to you, ladies and gentleman, the scarce Harm Soei Gok, or Deep-friend traditional chicken dumpling. Honestly, I did not know about its existence before this, since many places didn’t served it due to the complexity and effort needed to produce it.
The whole, Shark’s fin within the soup, it was so big! With an equally flavourful stock, all of us agreed that the Double-boiled dumpling with Shark’s fin was a delight, well maybe not for the sharks lovers.
I liked this. I’m a char siew sou man. And I was disappointed when there was no sight of it on the menu. And then the baked fluffy skin pie with chicken and mango came. Having the same (or almost) crispy, buttery pastry skin, the interior of the usual char siew was replaced by chicken and mango instead. And the marriage of chicken and mango was a good one, those two totally complimented each other well.
How can one reinvent a dish already done to death and found everywhere? Well, they either provide premium stuffing or reinvent the skin used to wrap the stuffing. For the steamed pork dumpling, they did neither but it was still a cut above the rest. The prawn was sweet and there wasn’t an overly-porky after-taste.
My, my. It was interesting to note, a mini version of claypot rice appearing in a restaurant. Call it a classic, the Mini pot rice with chicken was nothing mini in taste; the tasty Chinese sausages, the succulent mushrooms, and the tender chicken chunks. I had it a taste without any sauce initially, then I added some of the superior sauce that came along with it, and it did wonders - it literally enhanced the taste of the whole mini pot.
There was three different types of steamed rice roll served, but I just showed one photo since all rice rolls looked the same less the fillings. It was the standard-trio, scallops, char siew and prawn. And needless to say, most Chinese restaurants definitely uses fresh ingredients, so it was really down to the rice roll to determine the winner.
And I must say, Man Fu Yuan had silky smooth rice roll, and most importantly, they were not overly-thick.
I never liked beef balls, or for that matter, any type of meat balls. Just the sight of it made me full, I took a bite of the beef balls with bamboo pith, and unexpectedly, it wasn’t as heavy as I thought it would be. And there’s tripes at the bottom of the beef balls too.
It is a fine line between tradition and new, and I feel Man Fu Yuan balanced it very well. There are the traditional dim sum available for the purist who want their fix regularly, and not neglecting those who craved for innovation and excitement in their dining experience, the chefs played around with some other ingredients that are not commonly used in Chinese cuisine.
This marks the end of the dim sum marathon, and I must say I’ve enjoyed myself very much together with the rest; chatting and enjoying the good food. My appreciation to Sharon, the PR manager for hosting us, and Cuisine & Wine Asia for the invitation.
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!
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O’ my dear, I love you so. Never in my heart, I stopped thinking of you. Miss sushi, and Miss tapas: both seemed to be more popular than you, but I will always put you in the first place.
It was big, no, huge! This was, one of the many, different renditions of har gau we would see today. Essentially a har gau without the skin; the crab meat dumpling. It was prawny, with a nice bite - but crabby (no pun intended) it was not, well who cares?
Rather than an-overly-thick-skin, give me a dumpling without skin.
The well-admired Steamed Prawn Dumplings had an injection of carrot purée which only served to beautify the appearance of the har gau skin.
“We protested! We protested!”
The purist camp did a demonstration on the streets, crying for the restoration of the conventional har gau which they were so used to. But for the ladies; the boost in vitamin A. What was missing however, was the carrot taste.
The novelty. The inclusion of preserved vegetables was a brilliant stroke of art; the saltiness enhanced the flavour of the pork, which brought us to the question: why didn’t anybody thought of this before? Steamed pork dumpling with preserved vegetables, siew mai.
Now this was a not-so-simple bun that was bound to turn heads. Served piping hot, the bun seemed quite insignificant until you took a bite at it. Immediately, you would realize that you just had something very special. The bun itself was soft, fluffy and light as a feather while the fillings were so, so sweet and juicy. The Steamed kurobuta char siew pork fluffy bao, was the winner for the day.
The humble har gau did an open-faced sandwich; with shark’s fin on top. Luxury, it was, wealth, it symbolized, and prestige, it presented. Sorry sharky! Steamed shark’s fin dumplings with dried scallops and shrimp.
The tinge of pink, at the top of the tri-top; pretty and so pretty. Another piece of art we seen, at the gallery of Cherry Garden. However, the Scallop and spinach crystal dumpling did came across as slightly dry.
Truffled Essence Crystal Dumplings stuffed with Assorted Fresh Mushrooms. This, was a beauty; the translucent skin, the jelly texture, the array of mushrooms, almost perfect - but it was too large!
Prawn was the main lead, and mango was the second lead. There was the accompany of the green, hot wasabi! Netted rice crispy turnover. I held you, in my arms, into the late wee wee hour: without the wasabi! My dear, the netted rice crispy turnover.
And there was the famous XLB. The voluptuous folds, the goodness of the soup stock, everything, gushing out.
Like a peacock spreading his feathers, the netted rice crispy did a peacock effect: it caught everybody’s attention. Oh my, so beautiful, was this meant to be eaten?
And oh wait, there’s something hiding below the feathers; the netted rice crispy I meant. Ah, that’s the pan-fried chives and chicken dumplings!
Unfortunately, I was not a big fan of chives - I would leave the taste of the dumpling to your own imagination. This was, a piece of art! Why don’t we turn it upside down?
This was the umpteenth time we had a make-over of the har gau, they called it, Steamed Chinese spinach dumplings. The spinach, provided the lovely lines, just like how a painting adorned the wall. The egg yolk, provided the oomph, so, so good.
This, was a poisonous pear, for snow white. The wicked witch threw in some pumpkin, a pinch of jicama, stirred stirred, mixed mixed, and finally, some vegetarian ham.
Poof! With a wave of her wand, the deep-fried potato “pear” appeared. Crispy texture checked, mesmerizing appearance checked, vegetarian (snow white is on a diet) checked. Sticky innards (to stick the mouth together) checked. Everything was present, and OH, where’s the poison?
And we took a plunge, into the deep, deep blue sea. From the land to the sea, the Symphony of live pacific grouper prepared in three different ways. The first: we have a soup, grouper fish broth with ginger, onion and Silken tofu.
Steamed grouper crystal fish dumpling. Was this a dim sum, or was this a fish? It was both, with a twist. Brilliant it was, bravo we shouted. Grouper fish meat inside a dumpling of the fish skin. It was beautiful, too beautiful to eat.
It was not all smooth-sailing, nothing was. As much as I loved the creativity, there was a snag. The use of fish skin, for the translucent was great for the eyes, but not for the mouth. It was chewy, and slightly fishy: non fish lovers, would say, no no!
Prawn and pork, were absent. I give you fish, fish for dim sum. The very first, I believed. Let there be more, say fish siew mai? This, surely, would be a great day for all the fish lovers.
One price, one fish, for the value of three. Worthy, indeed. Sautéed grouper fillet with asparagus, no parts of the fish were wasted, from the meat, to the skin.
I have always wanted to go to Cherry Garden. And I’m glad I finally did. It was a feast, for the visual senses. The dim sum, so delicately craft piece by piece, was an art, for all to enjoyed. Creativity was certainly in the air, the adventurous use of different ingredients, the details to attention for the tiniest things, the emphasize of making it look as good as it tasted. I’m sold. Praises, have to be reserved for the savvy and charismatic executive Chinese chef, Mr Hiew Gun Khong.
Cherry Garden has the weekend dim sum ala carte buffet at $45 per head, which has a selections of 20 over dim sum, and other Chinese food as well. My appreciation to Kelly, the PR relations manager for hosting us, and Cuisine & Wine Asia for the invitation.
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!
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The kidney, I have to say, was lovely: chewy and pinkish-coloured, swelled-looking, with the clever use of spices covered the porky smell which made so many people avoided the delicious pig kidney.
The question of authenticity popped up during the tasting session, and Linda the director of SCDH was quick to point out although there were some minor tweaks of the dishes to suit local palates, the Chilled chicken in spicy bean paste was done exactly like the Szechuan favourite. The spicy bean paste caused a storm; hot, fiery, and simply so Szechuan!
SCDH served us many cold dishes for starters, and the Sliced beef and tripe in chilli sauce was one of them.
At first glance, it was not difficult to mistaken the Sliced duck in Teow chew style for the more commonly seen drunken chicken. Thinly sliced, I could never resist duck meat!
This one caught me by surprise - the crispy chicken puff. I wasn’t expecting something so, small and tiny, to be so good. The crispy fried skin had chicken within: it was a reminiscent of cream puff, except the pastry was fried instead of baked, and the fillings were chicken instead of cream.
Perfect. One of the best carrot cake I’ve had; every bite was flavourful with radish. The only correct thing to make a good carrot cake is to just add more radish, it’s so simple, yet many fail to get the gist of it.
The purist would protest at the sight of the Steamed siew mai with quill egg. The additional of quill egg was an innovation, and credits had to be given to the chefs for experimenting with different ingredients.
No, it definitely wasn’t St Valentine’s the last time I checked. Nonetheless, the heart shape was pretty enough to gorge at - Pan-fried shredded yam pancake with waxed meat.
I ain’t a big fan of mince meat balls, but the Steamed beef balls with seasonal vegetables won me over with the chewy and bouncy texture.
I eyed the golden dumpling, not knowing what to do. Should I, or should I not? I took up my pair of chopsticks, and dove right in, secretly praying in my heart: Sharky, rest in peace, you’d not die in vain. Steamed shark’s fin and chicken dumpling.
Despite the scary-looking-thick-oily-layer of chilli, the Dumpling with chilli oil was surprisingly, not that spicy. I had called the fire brigade to be prepared to put out any fire, and after one tiny nibble of the dumpling, it was safe. And I ate some more, of the thick and generous filling, which almost busted out of the dumpling skin.
This one was interesting. The Pan-fried fish pancake with parsley, the crispy firm pastry-like texture was evident, but I couldn’t quite make out what actually constituted in the fish pancake.
For the best creative award, I presented to you the, Pan-fried sweet corn pancake. The inclusion of sweet corn in a dim sum was a first for me: needless to say, it worked. The sweet corn, like its name, enhanced the sweetness of the pancake.
The Steamed prawn dumpling, or Har gau, had fresh succulent prawns, but I found the skin slightly too thick from what I had in mind.
Instead of the streetfood in Szechuan, SCDH decided to upmarket the Fried pumpkin cake by scoring on presentation and refining it. The delicate-lovely-looking miniature pumpkin; it was too pretty to eat.
If there was one memorable dish I had to choose from SCDH, it had to be the Steamed lotus paste bun with egg yolk. The egg yolk within the lotus bun, oh my. It was indescribable. The combination of lotus paste and egg yolk, was akin to mooncake, with a bun skin.
Balancing my chopsticks, I took a glance at the noodles. This should be easy, I thought. I grabbed some noodles using my less-than-perfect chopstick skills, and slurped the tan tan noodle. The world seemed to froze in time; I took another mouthful of noodles, putting in as much as my mouth would fit. The noodles, how should I put it: bouncy, springy, smooth, well it seems my vocabulary would be exhausted soon. It was good!
We had the following desserts: herbal jelly, mango & pamelo cream, glutinous rice with coconut milk, almond cream with fungus, chilled strawberry jelly, chilled coconut & jackfruit cream, red bean paste with lotus seed, and yam paste with ginko nuts.
Si Chuan Dou Hua has certainly opened up my narrow view of Szechuan cuisine; the impression of only hot and spicy food is wrong, there are many more variety available. Linda, the director of SCDH, who hosted us for the tasting session. And I have to conclude that Linda was the best host among the 4 restaurants which we had went to; her passion for food, and her warm & friendly smile, made our meal more enjoyable.
The 40 items which we tried for the tasting session were part of their weekend lunch which had a mind-blowing 100 items, priced at another unbelievable figure $38.8. My appreciation to Linda for hosting us, and Cuisine & Wine Asia for the invitation.
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!
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