Taste Paradise 味之樓 @ ION Orchard

Taste Paradise is in a modern chinese settings with a number of Chinese Emperors' portraits as a backdrop in the dinning area.  The dinning tables are laid with matching tablecloth and exquisite cutlery and china plates.

Dinning Area

Dinning chair and table

Century egg with Pickled Ginger in Chestnut Roll with Wasabi Mayonnaise (芥末皮蛋子姜卷) @$4.20. The name sounds delicious and the it looks appetising as well. However, its a disappoinment. The ginger is too tough that you have to practically tear them apart. The sourness of the ginger also overwhelmed the mayonnaise and century egg.

Century Egg Wasabi Roll (芥末皮蛋子姜卷)
Rating: 2.5/5

Taste Paradise Famous XO Carrot Cake (金典萝卜糕) @$7.80. The carrot cake is soft but the XO sauce was a bit disappointing.  Find the XO sauce a bit choking and overpowering, the spiciness cover the other taste.

XO Carrot Cake (金典萝卜糕)
Rating: 3.5/5

Their Steamed Chicken Claw with Black Bean Sauce (豉汁蒸凤爪) @$3.80 is very nice. The chicken claws had absorb the black sauce and skin is tender yet chewy, unlike some which can be too soft, wet and oily.

Steamed Chicken Claw with Black Bean Sauce (豉汁蒸凤爪)
Rating: 4/5

Steamed Pork Dumpling Siew Mai (香菇魚子蒸烧卖) @$4.80 is pure delicacy. The tenderness of the pork, the aroma of the mushroom and the refreshing roe definitely mark it different from the other Siew Mai.

Steamed Pork Dumpling Siew Mai (香菇魚子蒸烧卖)
Rating: 4.5/5

Crispy Spring Roll with Smoked Duck Meat (脆皮熏鴨春捲) @$3.80. The fried spring roll is so-so, the smoked duck meat taste like ham and a bit salty and dry.  Still prefer the usual spring roll that is more juicy with those bean sprouts and vegetables.

Crispy Spring Roll with Smoked Duck Meat (脆皮熏鴨春捲)
Rating: 3/5

Crisp-Fried Egg Plant Tossed with pork Floss (肉鬆茄子)@$9.80.  A bit costly and somehow not as fluffy as what we expect it to be.

Crisp-Fried Egg Plant Tossed with pork Floss (肉鬆茄子)
Rating: 3.5

Steamed Cheong-fun with Dough Fritter (蔥花炸兩腸粉) @$4.80.  The fried dough fritter is crispy but a bit hard. Maybe we should have pour the black sauce onto the dish instead of using it as a dip.  The cheong-fun is thin, soft and nice with the sesame.  They also provide some extra dipping sauce that goes well with the cheong-fun.  Think its average rating is purely our fault for not pouring the black sauce.


Steamed Cheong-fun with Dough Fritter (蔥花炸兩腸粉)
Rating: 3.5/5


Pan-fried Pumpkin Pastry (煎南瓜餅) @$3.20.  Was hoping that the pumpkin pastry will be something like what we had at Summer Pavalion, but its just a normal pumpkin dough fried pastry with some fillings.

Pan-fried Pumpkin Pastry (煎南瓜餅)
Rating: 3.5/5

No. 2 Orchard Turn
#04-07 ION Orchard
Singapore 238801
Tel: 6509 9660
website: http://www.tasteparadise.com.sg/

Reference other blogs on Dim Sum
- Summer Pavalion
- East Ocean

Reference an cheaper alternative for Paradise group
- Paradise Inn

East Ocean Teochew Restaurant 东海潮州酒家

East Ocean is one of the restaurants that we usually go for Dim Sum. Over here, the waitresses will be dishing out the more common dim sum for you to choose from. For the less common dishes, you will need to order from the captain.

What is dim sum without prawn dumpling and Siew Mai. The prawn dumplings (虾饺) are quite big and I like the soft skin which might just tear off if you are not careful. The fresh prawn dumpling goes well with mustard and their famous chilli.

prawn dumplings (虾饺)
Rating: 3.5/5


Their Siew Mai (烧卖) are quire nice, you can taste the tenderness of the pork and freshness of the prawn and roe.
 


Siew Mai (烧卖)
Rating: 4/5 

  
Pan-fried Carrot cake (煎腊味萝卜糕). Simple yet nice carrot cake, the pan-fried gives some crisp to the surface, preserved meat add aroma to and gives a different texture to the soft carrot cake.

Pan-fried Carrot cake (煎腊味萝卜糕)
Rating: 4/5

We ordered the lotus root cakes 香煎藕饼 as we wanted to try somthing different. However, was very disappointed with our selection. You can taste the crunchiness of the lotus root but besides that, its only oily, oily and oily.

lotus root cakes 香煎藕饼
Rating: 3/5

Steamed Chicken feet 蒸凤爪. Find the seasoning a bit too strong, its a bit spicy, sour, sweet and a bit too wet and oily. I do like the additional beancurb skin added into the dish, which absorb all the gravy and make it very fragrant.

Steamed Chicken feet 蒸凤爪
Rating: 3.5/5

Steam rice rolls with deep fried dough (炸兩). You will need to order this from the captain and it will take some time to prepare. The deep fried dough is crispy yet not too hard and blends well with the soft steam rice rolls. The sauce is also the key element of the dish, nice!

Steam rice rolls with deep fried dough (炸兩)
Rating: 4/5

East Ocean inhouse Teochew chilli. Not sure what's inside the chilli, but there are some fried dried shrimps and its very fragrant. My hubby usually don't take chilli but he simply loved this.

Teochew Chilli

Pan seared Foie Gras (煎鹅肝)@$18++. The foie gras is crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.  The strong aroma, sweetness of the onion and creamy taste and texture is pure heavenly when it melts in your mouth. There is peach, blackberry and bread to clear and wake up your taste buds when it gets too "jialut" or over-whelming after a few mouthful.  It's definitely value for $$.




Pan seared Foie Gras (煎鹅肝)
Rating: 4.5/5




East Ocean Teochew Restaurant (东海潮州酒家)
1 Scotts Road #02-18 Shaw Centre
Tel: 6235-9088
Mon to Fri: 11:30am - 3pm, 6pm - 11pm
Sat to Sun: 10am - 3pm, 6pm - 11pm

Refer to the other blogs on Dim Sum
- Summer Pavalion
- East Ocean

Summer Pavilion - Ritz Carlton Hotel

Summer Pavilion, a fine chinese restaurant in Ritz Carlton hotel. You will definitely pass by Greenhouse restaurant and be welcomed by a tower of strawberries if you come in by the main entrance of Ritz Carlton. The price of the buffet in Greenhouse is steep, wonder if I will ever drop in one day to enjoy its lavish and sumptous buffet.

Back to Summer Pavilion... Its set amidst a garden, with its glass walls, it provides an elegant backdrop for dining. Well, we are not here for the refined interior or elegant settings but for its exquisite dim sum.

It has a fine selection of Chinese tea, we selected Shui Hsien (水仙), which is strong full-bodied Oolong tea but with a floral tinge in the aftertaste.

Shui Hsien

Before your dishes are served, they offered yam crisps which is quite appetising.  Its so thinly sliced that its almost transparent. You can still taste its crispness before it melts in your mouth.

Yam Crisp

Stewed trotter with Vinegar (八珍猪脚醋) @$6 per portion. The trotter are cut into small bite size, you can enjoy the collagen of the pig’s trotters skin, tenderness of the meat in one mouthful. There are also quail eggs and ginger to accompany the aged vinegar.  The vinegar is flavourful, unlike those which you can only taste sourness.
 

Stewed trotter with Vinegar (猪脚醋)
Rating: 4/5

Steamed Lobster Dumpling with Mushroom, Chinese parsley and Onion (龍蝦水晶餃) @ $2.50 per piece. The usual nice steamed fresh dumpling, but can't really differentiate the lobster from the prawns.

Steamed Lobster Dumpling (龍蝦水晶餃）
Rating: 3.5/5

Pan fried rice skin rolls with bean sprouts in XO sauce (XO醬銀牙煎腸粉) @$6 per portion, one of our favourite dish.  The XO sauce is super and strong enough for the layered skin rolls. The pan-fried gives texture and fragrant to the skin rolls while the bean sprouts add freshness to the overall dish.

Pan-Fried Rice Skin Rolls with Bean Sprouts in XO sauce (XO醬銀牙煎腸粉)
Rating: 4/5

Decided to try something different this time round. Was quite impressed with their use of yam, thus decided to try the steamed bun with yam, salted egg yolk and butter (芋茸流沙包) @$3.60 for 3 pieces. Enjoy the buttery taste, saltiness of the egg yolk and the creamy yam.

Steamed Yam bun
Rating: 3.5/5

My #1 ranked dim sum in summer pavilion - pan fried shredded yam with pumpkin (金瓜煎芋絲) @$4.20 for 3 pieces, the reason why I'm back to this restaurant. The fragrant sesame, crunchy shredded yam on the outside and soft yam and sweet pumpkin inside, giving multi-layered taste and texture. Simply yummy!


Pan-Fried Shredded Yam with Pumpkin (金瓜煎芋絲) Rating: 4.5/5


Congee with Pork and Preserved Vegetables (皮蛋瘦肉粥) @$4 per portion.  The preserved vegetables are chopped up so that every mouthful is filled with its fragrant.  The pork used is not just any sliced pork but roasted pork and skin which definitely add flavour to the congee.

Congee with Pork and Preserved Vegetables (皮蛋瘦肉粥)
Rating: 4/5

Double-boiled Shark Cartilage Soup with Fish Maw (花胶燉鯊魚骨湯) @$16 per portion.  Best to call the restaurant in advance to prepare it before you come so that there are more time to prepare the soup. The soup is thick and rich, a good source of collagen.  If its being simmered long enough, you can actually taste the stickiness of the collagen from the soup.




Double-boiled Shark Cartilage Soup with Fish Maw (花胶燉鯊魚骨湯)
Rating: 4/5

Finally its the dessert.  This dessert is not in the menu, got to know of this delicacy few years ago during a dinner - blended yam with vanilla ice cream 旭日金沙. The blended yam or sherbet is refreshing and cooling with a different texture to constrast the smooth vanilla ice cream. You can also dunk the wafer into the yam and vanilla ice cream and eat like a kid.



旭日金沙
Rating: 4.5/5

The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore
7 Raffles Avenue Level 3
Singapore 039799
Business hours
Lunch: 11:30am -2:30pm
Dinner: 6:30pm - 10pm
Tel: 6 337 8888 

Reference other blogs on Dim Sum
- East Ocean
- Taste Paradise

JPot - Hotpot Singapore Style

Steamboat had never been my favourite. However, I had been to JPot at least 5 times, initiated by friends, colleagues or family.

Initially the price for JPot was attractive, set lunch starting from $9.80++, you can also get a decent set dinner with less than $20.  With the new menu that is more expensive and with less variety, there is really not much motivation for me to revisit this restaurant.

Recently visited JPot again because of a friend's birthday. We settled for a 2 person dinner set A which ends up to be $60+ after tax and service charges.

Each person has an individual hotpot and get to choose from a variety of soup bases - JPot Superior Broth, Porridge, Laksa, Bak Kut Teh, Herbal, Tom Yum and vegetarian.  We get the JPot Superior Broth and silky porridge.

They also offered a bar of ingredients and sauces for you to freely mix and match for the steamboat dip. The Jpot soy sauce, fried garlic and spring onions are my usual pick. It will be better if they can offer (instead of upon request) more dipping saucers to satisfy the need of variety of sauces for different meat, just like the way we are pampered for buffet.

JPot Soy Sauce and Garlic Chilli Sauce

My dipping sauce

Seafood - live prawns, sliced red garoupa, sliced cuttlefish, scallop, hand-made fish noodle. The prawns and fish are fresh. My favourite is the scallop, if you can spot the thinly sliced little pieces of scallop from the picture. Besides Vietnamese pho, there are also spinach with Enoki Mushroom included in the set.

Set Dinner A

Freshly sliced and marinated Meat, we choose Pork Loin and marinated chicken.  The Pork loin is nice, just like shabu shabu.  The quail egg are to be mixed with the marinated chicken before cooking to enhance its tenderness.

Pork Loin

Rating: 3/5

JPOT
1 HarbourFront Walk #01-53
VivoCity (Lobby F)
Singapore 098585
website: http://www.jpot.com.sg/

Mon - Fri
Lunch: 12 - 3pm
Dinner: 6pm - 11pm
Sat, Sun and PH
12 - 11pm

Sho Teppan - ION Orchard

Chanced upon Sho Teppan while we were looking for a casual lunch at ION Orchard.  Sho Teppan is a no-frills casual dinning with an interesting no-chef concept. They only need waiters and waiteresses to seat you at the bar counter, take your orders, pass you a non-stick pan and some pre-prepared food ingredients to cook-it-yourself over induction heaters. 

Bar Counters - Cooking & Dinning Area

To get the best of both world, we ordered a Stir-fried Wagyu Beef and Black Pig Steamboat (Kurobuta pork ShabuShabu).  The stir-fried Wagyu beef is simply yummy. The beef was thinly sliced, topped up with mushroom, carrots, onions and some sauce and you decide how u want your beef to be - medium rare or well done. Wagyu beef is juicy, tender and is a perfect match with the white rice.  One set of Stir-fry Wagyu Beef is around $20+.

Stir-fry Wagyu Beef
Rating : 4.5/5

The black pig steamboat is so-so only, totally over-shadowed by the stir-fry wagyu beef.  We started off with the stir-fry first as it get cooked much faster, maybe we could have requested the waiter to switch on the power for the stir-fry only after we are done with the steamboat.
We also find the soup a bit too sweet.

Black Pig Steamboat
Rating : 3/5

Will definitely go back for the stir-fry wagyu beef again :)

2 Orchard Turn
#B3-19 ION Orchard
Tel: +65 6509 9969
http://www.shoteppan.com.sg/

Tampopo Deli

Tampopo Deli is a Japanese pastry shop at the basement of Liang court.

Cream Puff
The signature pastry is the cream puff. They are very popular and are usually snaped up quickly. Once they are sold out,  the deli will display the next bake time to inform customers the expected wait time.

The top layer of the puff is cripsy but yet the puff is still soft. The vanilla custard cream is smooth, rich and has a tint of vanilla scent.  The silky cream oozes out with each bite. I usually eat it cold as i loved the cool creamy taste of the filling.
Rating : 4/5

Cream Puff

Vanilla Cream

Tea Time
Light cottony soft cake, you can feel the lightness of the cake. There is fresh cream at in the center of the cake to give it an extra refreshing taste. 
Rating : 3/5

Tea Time, Scoop Cake, Cream Puff

Scoop Cake

Another signature of Tampopo Deli is its scoop cake. Its a fresh cream chiffon cake topped with strawberries, apricot and orange. The cream is rich and fragrant.

Scoop Cake
Rating : 3.5/5

Tampopo Deli
177 River Valley road
#B1-16 Liang Court
Tel: 6338 7386

Barcook Bakery (吧台料理）

Heard that Barcook bakery had open a branch at The central. Went there to buy the unforgettable rasin cream cheese bread.

The Central Branch

Did not find the raisin cream bread, so we bought the cheezy Cube ($1.30) and a Bar'nana Choz ($1.40).  Were expecting the cheese to be soft as the raisin cream instead of in the form of cubes (even though the name is cheezy cube).  Its the salty version of the raisin cream with large cubes of cheese  and I like those small little bits of baked cheese on top of the bread.  From the Barcook website, the cheezy cube is exclusively @ The Central branch.  As for the Bar'nana Choz, the chocolate is smooth and plentiful, however, the taste of the bun, chocolate and banana just doesn't blend well together as what we expect them to be.

Bar'nana Choz
Raing: 2.5/5

Had decided to go to the main branch at Hong Lim Complex the next day to get the raisin cream cheese. Quite lucky that the queue is short and they have 2 trays of freshly baked raisin cream cheese hot from oven when its my turn.

Hong Lim Complex

It's not difficult to see why these flat bread are so prized. The raisin cream cheese bread is definitely worth the trip here. Bread is soft, sweet and the filling is smooth, creamy and cheesy. Simply yummy! Best to eat it hot when the cream cheese is still soft and silkly.

Raisin Cream Cheese Flat Bread
Rating: 4/5

Creamy Cheesy filling

Barcook Bakery (吧台料理）

The Central
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#01-09/10
Singapore 059817
Tel: +65 6222 6588
Mon-Fri : 8am - 9pm
Sat : 9am - 9pm
Sun/PH : 10am - 9pm

Hong Lim Complex
Block 531, #01-54
Upper Cross Street
Singapore 050531
Tel: +65 6533 6588
Mon-Fri : 8am - 7pm
Sat/Sun/PH : 8am - 4pm
Website: http://barcookbakery.com/bread_gallery