feizhu's Reviews
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One of the more traditional Chinese restaurants decor wise, that I've been to, Szechuan Court has nice booth seats shrouded by thin translucent curtains that can be drawn to create a more intimate eating area amidst a third story view of the neighbouring Esplanade (Its quite good actually!). Coupled with a lush red sofa and red film partitions, it shouts oriental through and through.
Braised Homemade Egg Beancurd with Shredded Abalone - Whenever I see the word homemade, my expectations inch up a notch, for better or for worse. In this case, it was for the worse. The beancurd was smooth and silky but barely tasty. Texture wise, it tended more towards the Tau Pok side, which I personally don't really fancy. The accompanying gravy was thick and starchy but I couldn't hardly make out(both visual and taste) the dried scallops
Camphor Wood and Fragrant Tea Leaves Smoked Duck - I remember ordering this dish the last time I was here and was very much unimpressed by it. This time was no exception. The duck, though crispy, was way too dry and didn't have any tea taste whatsoever. The meat this time round was a little too overcooked as well, unlike the previous visit where the meat still retained a reddish hue.
Cod Fish Steamed with Superior Soy Sauce - The fish was fresh and sweet but a little too soft. I would have personally preferred the meat to be a little firmer. Another thing which I didn't really like was the fact that the fish came with its skin attached. I know that most fishes are served with their skin intact but this is probably the only place I know of that does it with cod fish.
Szechuan Fried Rice with Shrimp - A most excellent fried rice and definitely the highlight of the evening. Each grain of rice was homogeneously coated with egg and fried till lightly charred, giving rise to a nice and even Wok Hei taste. Thought slightly drier than your normal fried rice, it was a pleasure to eat and didn't come across as too difficult to swallow, especially with the generous serving of prawn cubes.
A still decent dinner emptied our pockets by about $46, after a 50% discount. Take away that discount and I definitely will not return, not for the quality of food. Will you? On a side note, service was acceptable, but could have been better and faster.
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Located at Conrad Centennial Hotel just next to Millenia Walk, Golden Peony's interior was reminiscent of Hua Ting's. Everything from the layout to the chairs to the wooden beams were vaguely similar. It's not to say that the interior wasn't nice, just that I wasn't too impressed.
quintessential dish at every Chinese dinner - the ever versatile Peking Duck, where you wrap the skin up with crepes and have the restaurant cook the meat in anyway you want it. We chose to have it diced up, fried and served with lettuce. The result was a nicely stir fried lump of duck cubes with chestnut to give it that crunchy texture and served up on a lettuce. I did find the meat a little too salty, but the lettuce effectively balanced out the salt level. The only other place where I've had it done this way was at Min Jiang at One North, whose rendition was on par with Golden Peony's.
As for the skin, it was crispy and served up with egg crepes, which didn't come across as heavy as I had expected. Light and palatable would be most apt in describing it. Only two gripes though. First, the skin was a tad too oily, as evident by the shimmer on the skin. Second, each of us only got 3 slices of skin. The duck must have been ridiculously small, otherwise can someone tell me what happened to the rest of the skin?!
On a side note, this is the first time I'm seeing a Peking Duck going for a lower price than a Roast Duck. I honestly wonder why.
The general fault with tea marinated or smoked dishes is that more often than not, the taste of tea is lacking. This was the case with the Tea Marinated Pork Ribs. Granted, the ribs were quite a size, tender and savoury from the sweet sauce coated on it, but with no tea taste, it could jolly well pass off as braised pork ribs. Then again, I quite like it, just that the pieces of meat kept getting lodged in between the crevices of my teeth.
Homemade Beancurd with Asparagus & XO sauce - A less than outstanding dish, but decent nevertheless. The beancurd wasn't silky but came across as firm with a pleasant lingering aftertaste. The asparagus was just asparagus, albeit two miserly ones.
Salted Yolk Prawns seems to be increasingly common in restaurants nowadays. But not many restaurants are able to do it well. Such is the case with Golden Peony. The batter, though light and crispy, was a little too bland for my liking. The prawns were relatively fresh but weren't exactly very sweet. In fact, they had this fresh water taste which turned me off quite a bit.
At $20 a pop, Lobster Noodles screams plain rip off. For starters, the noodles didn't seem to be of a handmade nature, more of a machine manufactured product actually. They were a little springy, that's about it. The baby lobsters were fresh but weren't exactly meaty and trust me, you get more shell then meat. Not that they tasted very sweet as well.
Another rip off at $4 for a portion the size of your neighbourhood hawker centre 50 cents Tao Huay. To say the least, the Tao Huay wasn't as smooth as I had expected and the syrup didn't permeate thoroughly, rendering only some parts of the Tao Huay sweet. This definitely pales in comparison to the one I had at Si Chuan Dou Hua.
Sheer disappointment pretty much sums up my thoughts about Golden Peony. I had gone there expecting a fair bit in terms of food quality but left disappointed. Add the fact that the 6 of us chalked up a sizeable bill of almost $473 and you can't help but feel ripped off. Service was generally quite good though. Now heres some food for thought. How did Golden Peony manage to snag so many accolades with its merely above average food?
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This seafood place is sandwiched between Changi Village hawker centre and the open air carpark and is reminiscent of an old kampung with its main structure elevated on low concrete stilts. The open air kitchen sits in a small seperate shack just outside the stairs leading to the dining area. Very nostalgic.
Soup of the day - This was a simple winter melon soup (if I remember correctly). A tad bland and a little oily. But easy on the palate.
Stir Fried Kang Kong - Nicely fried with a hint of wok hei. Not too limp from overcooking as well. Just watch out for the overdose of fiery chilli. But then again, it could be that none of us at the table had a high level of tolerance for spiciness.
Fried Fish - The fish was deep fried and drenched in a semi viscous salty gravy but still managed to maintain a mild crispiness on the exterior. Flesh was relatively fresh and firm and quite an enjoyable dish overall.
Thai Style Fried Chicken - Too much flour, too much thai sauce, rendering this dish rather unpleasant. The taste bud killer sauce also ensured that there was no chicken taste of whatsoever, just a glob of flour laden piece of unidentifiable meat.
Deep Fried Prawn Ball - Another flour obsessed dish - so fluffed up until I had problems locating the real prawn meat. Okay I am exaggerating, but 50% flour and 50% prawn just isn't funny. It was so gross that none of us wanted past our fair share of this dish, which meant leftovers.
The set lunch cost the 5 of us about $51, which isn't too expensive honestly. But factor in food quality and I'll probably take my chances at Macdonalds instead. Rice was free flow though, if that's any consolation.
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Chawamushi - The chawamushi was not very smooth, leaning towards a firm custard like texture instead. Flavour wise, the egg taste was apparent but did seem a little bland overall. Still decent though.
Sushi & Tempura Combo - I can't deny the aesthetic attractiveness of the sushi but found the rice to be rather loose and lacking in vinegar. The relative freshness of the raw seafood made it more bearable though but probably not something I would order again.
The tempura batter was a little too frilly for my liking but on the upside, it wasn't overbearingly thick and the prawns were sizeable. Decent enough.
Apparently there was a promotion going on for the sirloin, which could be done either teppanyaki style or grilled with teriyaki. We chose the former and opted for it to be done medium. Although the meat came a little overcooked, it was still tender and juicy, which was rather surprising. That said, it wasn't sweet and I could only make out the strong taste of the garlic. Rather disappointing.
Food quality was average but definitely better than the likes of Sake Sushi. However, pricing is slightly steeper as well, at about $120 for the 3 of us. I definitely won't be back in a hurry.
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The interior at the Thomson outlet is reminiscent of the original shop at Purvis, with its predominantly pink theme and girlish intonations. Even the menu is pink! And for all the eatery's success, it was empty on a Saturday evening (maybe standards have dropped or the crowds are limited to the outlet at Purvis).
Chicken Ballotine - One of the apparently popular and signature dish of the eatery, the Chicken Ballotine was essentially boneless thigh meat stuffed with mushrooms and roasted. Personally I thought the idea was good but the execution was terrible. For starters, the meat was very dry and rubbery. I could make out the mushrooms but the chicken itself didn't have much inherent taste. Disappointing as compared to what I had many years back.
Soft Shell Crab Linguine - If my Chicken Ballotine was bad, the soft shell crab linguine was a total disaster. Limp pasta swimming in artificial tasting cream based sauce and topped with crisp but flour laden soft shell crab pieces. This is as bad as it gets.
Blueberry Pie - Any hopes of dessert salvaging the meal was torn to shreds as soon as I had the first bite of the blueberry pie. First please allow me to qualify that I personally am not used to having warm blueberry pies. I prefer my blueberry pies chilled. So it came as quite a bummer when mine came served warm with a gooey, seemingly mass produced blueberry filling, sandwiched between 2 layers of hard, dry and tasteless biscuit. The sad fact of the matter is, even Han's blueberry pie, at just over 2 bucks for a slice, enjoys a better standing in my books.
A ruined dinner for 2 wasn't expensive, at almost $27. But seriously, I'll rather stuff myself with 3 big mac meals than step foot into Miss Clarity ever again. Did I mention that I have a weakness for fast food? ;)
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