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Dim Sum
Dim Sum @ Sin Choi Wah Restaurant, Bandar Menjalara Kepong
Sep 6th
Sin Choi Wah restaurant is the latest dim sum restaurant to open in Kepong at Bandar Menjalara. It is actually a branch of Choi Wah at Jinjang but much larger considering that it occupies a whole 3-storey building all to itself. But do note that Sin Choi Wah is more of a restaurant serving Chinese dishes. Equipped with huge halls and ballrooms, they mainly cater to weddings and private functions and dim sum was only available later.
WIthin the first few weeks of opening, a close friend of mine had visited the restaurant a few times and gave good ratings. So I thought their dim sum should be as good as well.
Although there are about 40+ items to order, they look all too familiar, which are pretty much the same dim sum you would see in a typical dim sum restaurant. Depending on the ingredients, each basket has a price between RM4.80 to RM7. Starting with the highly recommended items: Har Gao @ RM5 was delicious owing to the extremely fresh, sweet and crunchy prawns.
I like the Siew Mai (steamed prawn dumpling, RM5) because each dumpling contains three large prawns with little minced meat. You could really taste the sweet flavor of the prawns without any strong porky taste.
Victor’s Kitchen Authentic Hong Kong Dim Sum @ Sunshine Plaza
Aug 16th
Victor’s Kitchen is a family run dim sum restaurant in Sunshine Plaza along Bencoolen Street, Singapore that serves authentic Hong Kong Dim Sum. They are able to claim this because the owner and chef himself is a Hongkie. But because of that too the the expectation bar of the dim sum here is higher.
Victor’s Kitchen is popular among the locals as a no-frills place to enjoy good dim sum at an affordable price. So unlike the typical Chinese or tea restaurant, it looks more like a small eatery and the seats are very limited. You could even find tables and chairs outside the eatery along the walkway. Luckily customers do not need to grab the dim sum from push carts, just fill up the order chit and wait for them to be delivered.
The Har Gao (King Prawn Dumplings) @ $4 has fresh, succulent prawns – it’s that simple to ensure that they are delicious.
It wouldn’t be a complete dim sum meal without sampling Siew Mai. At Victor’s Kitchen they are called Tasty Queen size Siew Mai (because of its normal size?) and comes in four @ $3. Very porky and very little prawn was used so I found them lacking taste of seafood freshness and sweetness taste.
Dim Sum @ Red Star Restaurant, Chin Swee Road
Jan 27th
After spending hours researching for a good and affordable dim sum restaurant in Singapore, finally I chose to dine at Red Star Restaurant located at Chin Swee Road, somewhere near Chinatown. It was a tough decision really, because there are so many dim sum restaurants to choose from and all of them have their fare share of good and bad comments. And none seemed to stand out, well except those that are situated in a fancy hotel that is just too expensive for my blood.
Judging by the huge number of customers at an odd lunch hour, I felt I have made a good call in choosing Red Star. There were about one hundred big and small tables to accommodate high turnover. But there was still a bee line queue at the entrance.
Being an old restaurant, the ambiance at Red Star is traditional and oozed the 80s feelings. Push carts were still being used, said to be rare sight in Singapore nowadays. Each dim sum either steamed or fried was priced between $3 and $4, depending on its portion and specialty.
Starting with the nicest dim sum we had that day.. the Char Siew Sou had one of the flakiest pastry I ever tasted. You could really feel the puff pastry layers, so delightful! This is highly recommended, a must try.
The Egg Tarts were delicious too. Like the Char Siew Sou, they had a very nice flaky pastry as well. And being freshly baked, the egg tarts were aromatic with warm custard that tasted just right – not too sweet.
Steamed pork ribs had always given me an impression of being salty and bony but Red Star’s version was nothing like that. The flavor was just right with a hint of spiciness and the meat was tender albeit a little fatty.
A Little Dim Sum Place @ SS2 Petaling Jaya
Oct 19th
A Little Dim Sum Place at SS2 is yet another recommendation from a reader – M@Y, who told to me that this is her favorite place for dim sum. Like always, if there’s good food being recommended and it isn’t too far for me – I will definitely try it. So keep the suggestions coming!
I actually imagined A Little Dim Sum Place to be a typical tea restaurant like any other dim sum outlet. But to my surprise it turned out to be a small and packed restaurant, just like its name implies.
My first impression upon seeing the menu prices was that A Little Dim Sum Place is not a cheap place. With that, I could only hope their food is good and hence justified by the prices we are paying. Luckily the first dim sum – King Of Shiu Mai @ RM5.50 delivered with flying colors.
Big, fleshy and most importantly fresh prawns were stacked on each other to create this delectable siu mai. Bursting with flavors and served piping hot, I don’t know what’s there not to like about it.
Sweet Dragon Beard @ RM3.60 – was a dim sum that seemed more like a dessert to me.It is actually a 50-50 combination of banana and red bean paste rolled in crunchy strands of sugar (the Dragon Beard) Quite interesting for me considering it was my first time trying, and it was quite good too.
