367. Paradise Dynasty

酒酿丸子@$4.20

This was my favourite when I was residing in Shanghai 3 years ago. It's a die-die must have dessert for me if it's available on the menu then. It is a hot dessert. I loved the rice dumplings, especially if they were made small. So easy to chew. But, it was the fragrance of the osthamus that captured my likes. The one at Paradise Dynasty had a nice osthamus fragrance and the rice grains were well-soaked. But, the quantity was too small to satisfy my craving.

Chilled Aloe Vera @$3.50

Nice chilly dessert. If I didn't remember wrongly, there was a nice ginseng taste. Can't remember exactly if ginseng was stated on the menu.

Braised Pork Ramen @$10.80

Mixed Dumplings @$13.80

A colleague of mine was sharing with me the assorted dumplings she had and I was intrigued. In fact, I was more interested in the black truffle and foie gras dumpling after hearing what she had shared. It so happened that these dumplings were also featured on the morning papers and so I decided to have them for that day's dinner. Well, the black truffle taste was there but not really evident. Whereas for the foie gras dumpling, I felt it was a tad overpowering in taste. The dumplings were nice when hot. After a short while, they were chilled and it didn't really taste nice.

Dan Dan Noodles @$7.00

The dan dan noodles was nice! It has a nice peanuty taste and there was a tinge of sourish aftertaste which I liked as it somehow dismissed the greasiness of the peanut sauce. It was a tad spicy which I find it rather different from the other dan dan noodles. Again, I felt the quantity was quite small.

Chilled Sliced Pork @$7.50

Another of my favourite cold dish. Thinly sliced pork topped with garlic mesh. So appetizing, I thought. Never a favourite for people who dislike garlic.

Chilled Assorted Eggs @$6.00

Very nicely done. Every quarter has a fair bit of the 3 different types of eggs, that is, the salted egg, the century egg and the egg. However, me and my company thought it was quite bland despite the salted egg.

Overall, I felt the food was decent. Price looked decent but quantity was quite small for the price stated for some of the dishes.

Paradise Dynasty

#04-12 Ion Orchard

366. Moi Lum Restaurant

A colleague of mine made reservations at Moi Lum, a quick 5 mins walking distance from our office on friday. It was to celebrate another colleague's birthday. It is always very occupied and luckily we made reservations. We chose the set menu and food was served very quickly. First was the scallop fish maw soup. I thought it was quite good because the soup had lots of ingredients and the degree of starchiness of the soup was to my liking.

This is a die-die must try dish. Braised roast pork with yam. Triggered my taste buds at the first mouth. The sauce was delicious. The roast pork juices combined with the powers of condiments showed their good relationship with the fragrant yam. This dish will go very well with plain rice.

Moi Lum's legendary cripsy fried chicken. Hmm.....nice, my heart said. Skin was very crispy, just like tissue prata.

Dessert-of-the-day was pomelo mango. Hidden underneath the yellow sea was a spoonful of mango pudding which I thought makes a nice dessert overall. Just that, the mango was sour so did the dessert a disservice.

The set menu was $168 and serves 6-7 pax.

Moi Lum Restaurant

38 Maxwell Road, Airview Building

#01-01/02

364. Tanjong Rhu Pau

A boss of mine raved at how good the Tanjong Rhu "yuan yang pau" was and he was surprised that I have not tried it before. "Yuan yang pau" as its name suggests, a combination of two different substances. There, in the filling was red bean paste and lotus paste, accompanied by special guest, Mr Salted Egg Yolker. The sweetness of the two paste was reduced with the salted egg yolk. The overall feel resembled eating a mooncake except it was with a flour crust.

Got to thank boss for going all the way to Tanjong Rhu to get the pau admist his busy schedule. So nice of him! It's always nice to know people who share nice food!

346. Duo Le Restaurant

Sitting on 8th level of Orchard Central, Duo Le is much higher than just 8 storeys. You can see Singtel building clearly. Since it started, I have not been there so I took some time off my hectic schedule to take a walk there last week.

I thought there will be more than just a few tables but no, there were just a few tables.

Braised peanuts and thinly sliced potatoes.

红杏鸡@$9.80

I like to eat cold dish chicken, not just from Duo Le. I think chilled chicken taste nice and the tinge of numbness from the chili gave the fair bit of shiokness. Sliced cucumber gave the refreshingness. But, the chicken was immersed in chili oil which I felt too much would not do our body good. Try it once in a while.

干贝焖冬瓜@$26.80

This was good. The combination of beans complemented the colours well. Not to leave out the taste, especially the kidney beans. The winter melon was not too soft and being blandless, the sauce made the dish tasteful.

陕西卤汁蒸面@$12.80

Have you noticed? Potatoes appeared again in the dish. I felt it has a rather different braise taste which I'm not accustomed to.

海参麻婆豆腐@$26.80

Very much covered in oil. I could felt a tinge of numbness after eating the tofu. I felt this dish was just average. The difference being we won't cook our sea cucumber with tofu in this way.

陕西手工卷饼@$4.80

It was like Taiwan's cong you bing wrapped with sliced potatoes. The exterior was bland. The overall gave a starchy taste. It would have been better if there was dipping taste but there wasn't.

We had a pot of Pu-er tea at $8 and our bill worked out to be $115.10 which I felt was rather expensive.

Duo Le

181 Orchard Rd

#08-09/10

Orchard Central

323. Pu Tien

"Pu Tien" Style Century Egg @$7

If you are wondering if century egg has transformed, my answer is they have been disguised. They are battered and coated with sweet and sour sauce. Due to the deep-fry process, the surface of the egg white of the century egg became harder to chew. The sweet and sour sauce was just a mere thin coat. Even as this was so, the taste and pungent smell of the century egg was completely disguised. Not so shiok!

Stir-fried Greens @$12
The plate of greens looked pathetic and the cost of $12 for that quantity was definitely a tad too expensive.

Deep Fried Pig's Trotters with Pepper @$3.80/pc

The trotters were calling out to me. They were fried till very crispy and you just want to have more. It was not oily and there was not much fats. 'The coast is clear', ladies. It is very considerate of Pu Tien to provide plastic gloves for this dish. It would have been troublesome to have forks and knives with the chopsticks and etc on the table just to have the trotters. Let's have it the primitive way but with hygiene.

Claypot Sea Cucumber with Chestnut @$32

It was good with rice. With the roasted chestnuts and mushrooms, the oyster sauce gravy was very fragrant.

"Pu Tien" Lor Mee @$12

One of the chef's specialities. It was really good. Especially with their chili sauce. Yummy! $12 portion can serve 6 pax.

Homemade Beancurd @$12

Braised Beancurd with Chinese Cabbage @$18

Chinese cabbage was cooked till soft. The sweetness from the clams and cabbage went into the soup. The soup thus had a natural sweetness.

The total bill was about $120 after a 10% discount with Passion card. Their VIP card has to give way for Passion card. It is recommended to make reservations, else you may have to wait for quite some time. The branch at Kitchener road provides free valet parking as it is located along the roadside where finding a parking lot is very much a hassle.

Pu Tien
127 Kitchener Road
Singapore 208514
Tel: 6295 6358

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303. Ah Yat Seafood Restaurant III

A group of us entered the partition room at Ah-Yat. They named the room, Shanghai. Not a thing in the room was of symbolic significance to Shanghai. Beijing and KL?? as its "neighbours".

"Night Shanghai" relived with singing that should have gone behind closed bathroom doors. >.<
Stir-fried lobster with scallions

If you go Ah-Yat, you should really order their seafood. I think they are really worth the money. I would not say they are of the best quality but they fulfilled typical Singaporeans' criteria - "cheap and fresh". Cooked in a lenient Sze Chuan style, the lobster pieces were snapped up where the fastest fingers was rewarded with the biggest piece of palatable meat.

Spinach with garlic

Salad Prawns

Roasted Chicken

I have always used Boon Lay Raja's roasted chicken as a benchmark because I felt they have the best roasted chicken. Surprisingly, today's roasted chicken came close to be on par with Boon Lay Raja's. Juicy and tender. Most probably they made the chicken exercise when we placed our reservation 2 weeks ago.

Bamboo Clams with Garlic

Steamed Fish

Chili Crabs

These 2 guys had a hidden plot!

Singaporeans' favourite! They have already won a quarter of the battle in seducing us. They put on a weak front at first. The spiciness was mild, so you gradually fall deeper into their trap and reached for the second serving. Ah Haa! You had it! They are subtle liars. Wily crabs! They planted spicy bombs and you realised the area where the bombs effected got bigger. They won half the battle.

Scallops with Greens

Lotus Glutinous Rice

I would rate this dish the lowest. It was dry and not fragrant enough.

Pan-fried Red Bean Pastry

We had 2 servings. The flaky hot pastry was topped with sesame seeds and filled with red bean paste. It was very delicious. Red bean paste was made to the right sweetness.

$612 was deducted off my bank account for a meal of 11 pax. Given private space and karaoke, I would say this meal was very reasonably priced. Contacted the manager to arrange for this menu so I have no idea how much each dish cost. Considering the food that we had, I felt it was worth the money.

The partition room was built in a way that there was just enough room for walking to your seats. Not so comfortable, I thought. Service was not thoughtful enough. We called for the dishes and suddenly it was like everything was on a fast mode. 5 to 6 dishes appeared one after one at once and we were like competing with the chefs. Our plates were all filled with bones and shells but the waitress did not change our plates. I was for a moment the waitress, distributing the new plates to the people.

See previous

entries.

285. Joy Garden Restaurant

Joy Garden comes under the Qian Xi group of restaurants. It is located in the new Jurong Safra Club. It's very spacious. Being a weekday night, the whole place serving only 2 tables seemed pathetic. Luckily....

Roasted Pork @$9.50

It is on their daily menu, not just for dim sum and I wondered how fresh it is. The skin was very crispy. A tad too fat but it went well with the wasabi mustard.

Fried Beancurd with Chili Sauce @$9

Self-made beancurd has had fillings in it. The sauce was separately served in a bowl. But it was not just sauce, minced pork was added in the sauce. This way of serving is quite good as the fried tofu still preserves the crispyness while it was on the way to the serving table and not turned-soggy if the sauce was drizzled before served. It was not oil-ladened. Unfortunately, I only find the taste mediocre. Didn't wow me. A dispensable dish.

Roasted Chicken (half) @$18

Roasted chicken was decent. Meat was not dry nor was it juicy. It was considered good but still I repeat, the best I had was at Boon Lay Raja.

Chinese Spinach with Eggs @$12.80

Eggs - century egg, salted egg and egg. I find Joy Garden's the best amongst those (Atlantis, Ah-Yat) I have tasted. A generous serving of eggs was added. I liked it.

Steamed Cod Fish with Bean Sauce @$18.80

Black pepper corns were added and hey they are not spicy! It only has a mild black pepper taste. I find them a nuisance. Firstly, I felt they didn't enhance the taste of this dish. Secondly, when I bit on them, it gave a false felt like an accidental bite into plastic. I personally felt they should not have put in the pepper corns.

Fried Ee-fu Noodles @$10

Simple as it looked, I applauded for this simple dish. The noodles were done 'al-dente' ? It was tangy. Wow, I thought. Most of the time when I have my ee-fu noodles, they were either too soggy, too oily or they were tasteless. The fried ee-fu noodles here was delicious!

.....the service was good and prompt. Food was comforting and price was reasonable. I find the food variety very limited. For my case, I will most probably grow sick of this place after 2-3 times because of the limited choice of food.

Total bill worked out to be about $102 for 5 pax. Safra card members get a 10% discount.

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Joy Garden Restaurant
Safra Jurong
333 Boon Lay Way
#3A-02
Tel: 6316 9595