Mia's Review: Tim Ho Wan @ TPY

And so, we also did the number 1 favourite pastime of Singaporeans: Crazily queuing up for food, by visiting Tim Ho Wan!

Even though the branch at TPY is rumoured to be less crowded, CL and PS were still very sweet to offer queuing up for the 6 of us as early as 930 in the morning, when the restaurant opens at 11am! And even so, they were the 4th in line! When I reached at about 1050, there was already a snaking queue ending right at the escalator, of which 1 round of the restaurant seating is insufficient to manage.

So my point is, be it PS or TPY, be ready to queue for an avg of 2 hrs. 

Upon getting the order list from the staff while in queue, the girls literally went on a crazed ordering spree, ordering 2 sets of erm, almost everything. Alright, I exaggerated. But still...

Tell me this is manageable by 6 frail damsels.

That aside, let's get down to business. Here's my take on Tim Ho Wan. :)

First up, got to be their famous chair siew bun. The most easily understood description of this bun for those who haven't had the chance to try it yet, will be a polo bun styled char siew bun.

If you can see, the top of the bun is covered by this layer of crispy flakes, just like a polo bun, albeit less buttery. The bun itself, apart from the crispy flakes on top, is soft and relatively thin with the insides filled with a generous amount of sweet tender char siew. Having char siew as one of the food listed under 'I will rather not eat' and definitely no fan of a char siew bun, I can still easily conjure up a GOOD for this bun. 

But, to queue 2 hours for it? Nay.....

Next up, is the must eat 3-combo at every dimsum place I visit. The fried carrot cake, the har gao, and the siew mai. (Not a fan of pork, yes. But somehow siew mai must tag along with har gao. There's no other way to it.)

My verdict on this three: Common. 

The fried carrot cake is actually nearly crossed the line of disappointment, in fact. It's soft, yes. Very soft in fact. But it's also pretty bland, not flavourful enough, and not crispy at all on the outside. I might even have disliked it if I didn't find the container of chilli sauce right beside me at the table. 

The har gao and siew mai are pretty much just any har gao and siew mai we can find at other restaurants that need not queue 2 hours to get seated (For example, The Cathay, Crystal Jade or DTF). I'm sure this tells you everything you need to know.

 Next up, cheong fan. We ordered a total of 4 variations of cheong fan: Char Siew, Prawn, Liver, and the remaining one that I coudn't really remember but it's a plain one with some sesame oil. (Liver and plain ones not in picture)

These cheong fan, once again, were good but not fantastic. Just, commonly good. The rice flour skin were very soft yet not mushy and the filling were tasty.

But, can you get cheong fan of the same standards elsewhere without the need to queue for 2 hours? Yes, you can. 

 Next up, is this rather unappealing glutinous dumpling, which I have no idea what it's called. Asked the girls, but those who made the order couldn't remember. Nevertheless, it's just a glutinous rice ball with some meat filling inside. However unattractive, this is quite good. the Glutinous rice skin was fried till crispy and yet still sticky and very chewy. The meat filling inside is moist, tender and a blend of sweet and savoury. I didn't really enjoy the filling that much, but I really liked the dumpling skin. :)

These prawn dumplings were fried till amazingly crispy with real prawns wrapped within. However, the additional toppings that made these fried prawn dumplings slightly more special were the wasabi mayo and ebikko. The wasabi mayo tasted pleasantly minty rather than the 'stinky' pungent odour I hated wasabi for. However, in my opinion, they didn't really bring out the taste of the prawn dumplings. I'll still prefer them with just a good quality chilli sauce.

 This Ma Lai Gao is extremely soft, fluffy and sweet! It simply melts inside your mouth and releases their distinctive brown-sugar caramel-ly sweetness. However, it was a tad too sweet for my liking, and the sweet flavour of it kind of clashes with the rest of the dim sum. Nevertheless, I can totally see myself enjoying this Ma Lai Gao with a cuppa good kopi siew dai. :)

Lastly, how can we miss out my favourite dessert, Osmanthus (Jelly) Cake? Every piece of the soft, 'crumbly' jelly is stuffed generously with the osmanthus bits and wolfberries, making it very sweet and yet not 'artificial'. To be honest, I enjoyed this the most and if I weren't so full by the time this was served, I could have easily gobbled down all 3 pieces in mere seconds. I can never get enough of osmanthus flavoured stuff! :)

So to sum up my verdict on Tim Ho Wan, I'll say it's good for an 'experience'. Even though I'd actually only queued for 10 minutes this time round, and regardless of how much I love their osmanthus jelly cake, I will never consider queuing another 2 hours to get them, ever again. 

So was Tim Ho Wan a yay or nay for you? Drop me a comment and let me know!

Till then,

Mia.

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Mia's Review & Update: The Cathay Restaurant

I should be reviewing Seventh Heaven first, but I decided to jumble it up a little and do The Cathay first. In fact, I've just visited the restaurant yesterday afternoon with J and Ling for a dim sum lunch.

The restaurant is located at 2nd level of The Cathay, easily within sight as you come up from the escalator. Be sure to make reservations when dropping by on a weekend, J did a last minute reservation and we were only given a slot 1 hour after our planned meeting time. 

First up, yes the chilli. They have the perfect chilli sauce as dips for the Har Gao and Siew Mai (and other dim sum we dip in chilli sauce). Just spicy enough to not be biting on the tongue, with just a barely there hint of slight sweetness. It's just my type of chilli. :)

FYI, DTF's chilli is the exact example of what's totally not my type of chilli. I never used the chilli as dips when I'm at DTF. 

And what's behind the chilli is just a small sauce plate of pickled i-really-have-no-idea-what-is-that-thing. Well, just pickles. Nah, not my type of pickles either. I only like tsukemono (Japanese pickles), nothing else. 

First up, the cheong fan with crispy thing. Yeah, it's so not the actual name of the dish, but that's the most apt description of this dish. Strongly recommended by J, this dish is the first to be served. Ling and I had the same reaction, "Huh, where is the crispy thing?" 

Our answer came in the form of a resounding cackle of the crispy thing when Ling bit into hers just as I was getting a piece for myself. They're wrapped inside the cheong fan! 

Needless to say, the cheong fan is smooth, yet not (disgustingly) mushy. I won't say it's Q (chewy), but it's definitely soft yet able to hold up the crispy thing wrapped within without slipping all over the place. The sauce is just as yummy as any cheong fan's sauce we get from all the reputable dim sum places. In case you're wondering, the crispy thing is actually rice paper (popiah skin) folded and deep fried till crispy and just slightly golden brown such that it doesn't have the strong toasted taste to it, which might have overpowered the overall taste of the cheong fan. It's also able to hold up the crispiness for quite some time despite being wrapped inside the cheong fan and literally enveloped in moistness. Definitely is a brilliant creation, a must try!

Another more special dish will be this carrot cake with beansprout in XO Chilli Sauce. Yes, I'm a sucker for carrot cakes and whenever I see it on the menu, I must order it! Which is why I did, despite it being rather pricey at $10 for a pretty small serving. To be honest, I was expecting the bigger, squarish cut of carrot cake topped up with a dollop of XO sauce and beansprouts when I ordered it. Hence, to see it being served in hawker style was quite a surprise. Nevertheless, the carrot cakes were cut into huge pieces and seemingly lacking in minute bits of carrots and dried shrimps. 

In other words, this is really a hawker style fried carrot cake, albeit raised up a notch in terms of class (atas-ness) by cooking it in XO sauce. 

The carrot cakes were extremely soft, at times even crumbling when picked up by the chopstick. Chewing will be truly redundant only if they were cut into smaller cubes, for they'll easily be mashed up and 'melted' off in the mouth. Being generously drenched in XO sauce, every bite is savoury with just a slight tinge of spiciness. Flavourful. However, value for the money? I'm afraid not. Sometimes, being simple can be a winning point too.

 And the common dimsum: Siew Mai, Har Gao, Xiao Long Bao and Liu Sha Bao. All going at $4 plus per order.

You can see that while their siew mai, har gao and liu sha bao are of normal sizes, their xiao long bao is actually pretty big, with a lot of soup kept within! Comparing them to the other best on my list (DTF), theirs is obviously bigger, with softer skin (see how they're slightly translucent at the edges), and a whole lot more soup, which justify their bigger size. There were 2 spoonfuls of soup in mine! The ingredients wrapped within also seem to be significantly more, as I have trouble eating the whole dumpling in one bite, something which I can do with DTF's dumpling.

The Liu Sha Bao is also slightly different from those I've eaten at most of other restaurants. Their filling is much more runny, which kind of shocked me when it started dripping all over the place when I tore the bun apart. Although having the exact same creamy savouy taste of the salted egg york custard filling as other liu sha bao, the texture of the filling is less solid and grainy, a very distinctive texture of liu sha bao's filling in general. I would have taken a picture of the runny filling if I could, but I was creating a mess over my plate so I didn't.
While others may dislike this liu sha bao due to the watery filling, I actually prefer it as the somewhat icky grainy texture of most other liu sha bao is exactly what has kept me from truly enjoying the awesome taste of this brilliant creation.


And after the dim sum lunch with the girls, I went shopping! $100 spent in 10 minutes. :)

 Meet my new friend, stripey. That's her cousin, Rainbow,sitting beside her. Rainbow will be moving to Ade's place next week.

And my favourite shopping item.... Nope, not going to show you what's inside. :p
But La Senza is having this awesome bundle promotion. 3 bras for $100 and 8 panties for $40 (older seasons) or 7 panties for $55 (newer seasons). And they'll be stuffing you with this bundle voucher of $10 off bra bundle or $5 off panties bundle, so they're actually going for $90, $35 or $50. Mind you, one of their panties is priced at $13. So what are you waiting for?

Till then,
Mia

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