When I thought about food in Singapore that has the potential to be further transformed, Dim Sum relentlessly came to mind. As a Dim Sum lover, I always make it a mission to try Dim Sums when I was overseas. You would be surprised to know that some of the best Dim Sums I had abroad was not in restaurants but in some kind of run down HK style teahouses. In Hongkong, Dim sums are sold everywhere and from my experiences, sporadic teahouses that I’ve walked into were quite good, incredibly comparable to the good ones in Singapore, which are only found in high end restaurants.
That kept me wonder, why can’t delicious Dim Sums be sold in coffeeshops in Singapore? We definitely have no shortage of Dim Sum stalls opening up in kopitiams but yet for those that I’ve ate, the standards are pathetic, to put it mildly. To be fair, I’ve even came across some really ambitious Dim Sum sellers in kopitiam doing business on a large scale trying to create some kind of Dim Sum mania but yet it never really went on to WOW the people and then the scripts ending are always the same, they can’t finish selling, so they kept it for the next day, then it wasn’t fresh, so customers didn’t find it outstanding and never come back again, blah blah blah. That is a clear sign that the market for Dim Sum in kopitiams has not yet mature, agree?
Unfortunately in Singapore, Dim Sum is one of those food that you have to go to a good restaurant for a satisfying fix. This reminds me of other exotic food like Tapas or Kebabs where it is a downright street food in the place of origin and where you can eat terrific ones for a few dimes but yet in singapore, you really need to go to some high end restaurants for it. Well but I can understand especially when ingredients for those food can be expensive since most ingredients used need to be imported and with that, sellers may need a high markup to compensate for slower flow of customers and so selling from a high end restaurant is the logical thing to do. But how can the same script be written for Dim Sum, has anyone the wisdom to enlighten?
Since I can be quite a big eater, buffet style of Dim Sum is always the preferred choice. Fortunate Restaurant or 幸福饮茶 at International Building in Orchard is one of those Dim Sum places that offers you quite an authentic spread of Dim Sum selection. The good thing about this buffet is that you will have 2 menus, a Dim Sum menu and other main dishes menu. Both of which will give you a combined list of about 50 items. For $16.80 that is a terrific value considering the fact that most of the items have succulent prawns as ingredients though on this occasion some of Dim Sum items we ordered seemed to have something that taste like carrots and it does looked like a cost cutting measure but most of the items were still quite good.
These are the Dim Sum’s we ate.
Black Bean Sauce Chicken Feet – Flavour was good, texture can be softer.
Food: 6/10 
Haw Gow – Retrieved from the cart and didn’t taste like what it was in the past.
Food: 6/10
Pai Kuat – Very good flavour and meat fell off bones easily as you suck it.
Food: 8/10
Steamed Beancurd Roll - This is one item that can give me an intense umami hit. The flavoursome ingredients(pork and prawns) wrapped with soft beancurd skin and steamed in some kind of delicious broth is one of those things I won’t get tired of eating.
Food: 8/10
Redbean & Banana Pancake – The star of the afternoon. So delicious that I ordered it again and again. This is no ordinary pancake. Seriously authentic, extra crispy on the outside with an interesting twist to the normal redbean paste. They added slices of banana to it and I can’t help but had about a dozen of it.
Food: 9/10
Fried Beancurd Roll – A little oily though the ingredients inside were quite good.
Food: 7/10
Fried Prawn Roll - One of my all time favourite Dim Sum item. Quite good here though there seems to be some carrots added to it this time round.
Food: 8/10
Carrot Cake – Texture was almost perfect though it didn’t came hot enough. Reckon would be better if it was served from kitchen instead of the cart.
Food: 6.5/10 
Guo Tie – Didn’t tried this though my partner said it was quite good.
Food: 7/10
Paper Chicken – Absolutely delicious! The authentic ginger flavour was so strong that I wouldn’t be surprise if the chicken had been marinated for a few weeks!
Food: 8/10
Stir Fried Seasonal Vegetables with Abalone Mushrooms – Sauce was good though the spinach was a little bitter. Luckily there was abalone mushroom to make this special.
Food: 7.5/10
Prawns Cheong Fan – Retrieved cold and a little harden from the carts. This was my first time eating cheong fan here that tasted like that.
Food: 6/10
Scallops Cheong Fan – Was good and a lot of scallops were used.
Food: 7.5/10
Scallops Har Gow – Outstanding though by this time, little space in our tummy was left.
Food: 8/10
XO Pau – Superb Pau that has all the wonderful ingredients you can ask for. I reckon if I can just eat 10 of this in my next trip, I would had recouped my $16.80.
Food: 9/10
Ordered some other dishes from the main dish menu like pig’s organ soup and many repeated orders of dessert.
It was an excellent meal though the customer service was quite bad especially when it got really busy. In the past, all the items are to be ordered and they’ll cook it in the kitchen before they’ll bring it to the table. But on this occasion they seem to have changed their serving style a little with several carts going around the tables. The good thing about push carts is that you don’t have to wait for them to cook it but then it can also mean that the food you retrieve from the carts are cooked long time ago and some of the items we got from the cart definitely did tasted like that. For that reason, push carts at Dim Sum places are not exactly desirable(at least for me).
Price: $16.80++ ($18.80++ for weekends) After 3pm is $1.99 per item.
Recommendation: XO Pau, all scallop items, pai kuat, paper chicken and many others. For desserts, the must try item is red bean and banana pancake!
Conclusion: Good value considering some items are pretty authentic. The customer service here isn’t the best though it only get real messy when it’s really crowded. For value, this earn top marks from me but if you’re more into things like customer service other than the taste of the food then this might score lesser.
Likes: Some items are authentic.
Dislikes: Sign of carrots used in some items. This affects the quality in some cases.Here
| Address | Overall Rating | ||
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Food: 8/10 Value: 8/10 Service: 6/10 Ambience: 8/10 Cleanliness: 8/10 Overall: 7.5/10 |
