Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Din Tai Fung, Royal Coppenhagen Tea Lounge, Roland Restaurant

After my checkup with the gynae, I walked over to Paragon Shopping Centre for a bit of lunch.

DIN TAI FUNG @ PARAGON

I originally wanted to have shimbashi soba (I am still in a Jap food phase)... but there was a queue and Mei Mei was hungry... so I went to Din Tai Fung. There was a queue too, but the lady said it was only a 5 minute wait and I could place my order first so that the food would arrive shortly after I sat down.

OK, so I did. and yes, the food arrived quickly.


Appetiser of shredded vegetables (SGD2.50). It was an interesting medley of things - seaweed, beancurd, beanspriots, crunchy and savoury. It was doused in lots of sesame oil, making it fragrant but a bit overwhelming. I would have liked to taste the other flavours too, like vinegar, chilli.



Chilli Crab dumplings (SGD5.80, or SGD4.80 with Citibank). I thought this sounded interesting so I ordered it to try.




It was filled with shredded crab meat, with a little soup that was not at all spicy.




Their signature xiao long baos - They were nice, thin skin but resilient enough to be picked up with chopsticks without disintegrating. But not enough soup. I remember now why I am not that impressed by the xiao long baos here. I like my xiao long baos very soupy and these do not have much soup. Only maybe 1 teaspoon.



I felt dissatisfied with the xiao long baos I ordered, as they weren't as good as I expected. So although I was rather full by then, I ordered another dan dan mian (SGD6.50). It was one of the cheaper noodle options on the menu, as it is served plain, with a savoury peanut sauce. DH likes dan dan mian now. He ordered it both times we went to Crystal Jade Shanghai Palace at Terminal 3 Airport.


I found the noodles very nice, good bouncy texture, and fragrant with peanutty flavour. The crispy crushed peanuts were a nice touch. This is a good one.


ROYAL COPPENHAGEN TEA LOUNGE


I have never been to Denmark, but I would love to go someday.


This place is hidden inside Takashimaya, so I have never been there.


I was tired and wanted to rest my feet a bit, so I popped in here to get a drink. No more armchairs available so I had a normal table and chair instead.

Their guarantee of good food and drinks, on beautiful Danish tableware.



Chey, but my hot chocolate came in a normal boring old porcelain mug! The teas and coffees came in fine china, with beautiful prints leh. SGD5.5o. It arrives with a good head of foam, and is very sweet, by my standards, so don't add any sugar until you have had a sip.


ROLAND RESTAURANT

This is one of DH's and my favourite restaurants because it's air-conditioned, big and spacious, the food is good and reasonably priced.


We ordered the usual stuff - home-made spinach beancurd, and crab bee hoon soup. You can find my past pictures and reviews here and here.




We also ordered a new item, recommended by their waiter: live scallops in a garlic black bean sauce (SGD16). They were sweet and nice, and were a little spicy.



Only grouse was that they did not arrive at our table piping hot. But otherwise we liked it very much.


Cutie likes the crab bee hoon here. It's the thick laksa bee hoon, which is very slurpy and nice with the hot crab broth.




What's that on your hand, daddy? A callus?



Yes, they both enjoyed their dinner, and you can tell!







4 comments:

D said...

Don't you guys remember the day when Roland was Sin Leong and they had their special USA duck? haha... those were the days =)

Anonymous said...

so i went to din tai fung once and on the menu was this thing called 'taiwan beer.' "what kind of beer comes from taiwan?" i asked innocently. nobody knew, so i ordered one anyway and it came shortly. its name was indeed 'taiwan beer!' good stuff nonetheless.

Chandelier said...

Oh i wanna try tea in that Taka place..had been aiming so long but yet to arrange a date...

Anonymous said...

when is ur baby coming?