A Noble Affair

Sorry for the lack of posts, you see, Ms Golden Mouth has lost her Golden Voice and has been on a porridge and fish soup diet for most of last week.  And Ms Golden Mouth hates porridge and refuses to write any reviews on that dish.  

Okay, enough with the writing in the third person, yes, I have been sick and have lost my voice for the second time in two weeks (can you imagine being on medical leave for 4 days in two weeks!).  So anyway, I did however manage to pop out for some dim sum when I was feeling better.  We went to Noble House by Tung Lok at UIC Building. To be honest, I was a bit hesitant to go at first as I knew it was by Tung Lok and that usually means it's on the pricey side. However, the bf wanted to go (hence, his treat!) and his friends also assured us that it was quite alright prices.

When you arrive at UIC building on a Sunday afternoon, you wonder if you are the right place, cause it looks like this run down office building and on a Sunday, the whole CBD area is a ghost town. Cue frantic calling of friend to check and double check that we were at the right place. At this time, the weather was also nuts and the heat was really getting to the me in my already weakened state. As we shuffled along to the lift lobby, we saw the big sign, NOBLE HOUSE BY TUNG LOK LEVEL 6. I guess they must face many people calling them asking if they were really in UIC building etc. heh.

Reaching the restaurant level, any doubts that this was a dodgy restaurant were cast away. The lobby is bright with a high ceiling, a vast contrast from the exterior of UIC Building which is brown and old looking. The menus were kinda strange, they had a "Healthier Choice Menu" which immediately got chucked away by us, they had some ala carte buffet thing going on, only their last order was 2.15 and we only reached that place at 1.30pm and there was also a limited dim sum dishes on that buffet menu, so we decided to stick to our original plan of ala carte dim sum.

The four of us ordered the following dishes
1. Egg tarts (4 pieces in one serving)
2. Char Siew Sow - Roasted Pork in Honey BBQ sauce in a light flaky pastry (4)
3. Har Gow - Steamed Shrimp Dumpling (4)
4. Siew Mai - Steamed Pork and Shrimp Dumplings (4)
5. Banana Fritters with Prawn (3)
6. Cheong Fan (Prawn) - Steamed Flat Rice Noodles with Prawns inside
7. Char Siew Pau - Steamed Buns with Roasted Pork in Honey BBQ sauce
8. Lotus Seed Pau - Steamed Buns with Lotus Seed Paste
9. Steamed Yam Cake
10. Lotus leaf Rice*
11. Porridge (this turned out pretty good~ hmm.)

The dishes ordered are actually my standard dim sum orders, depending on how many people I'm dining with anyway. Okay, I also wanted to order my chicken feet dish and the pork rib dish, but no one else at the table wanted it. I think these are really your dim sum staples, and any restaurant attempting to serve dim sum, must get these right.

Taste wise, this place did not disappoint. But that is really to be expected for any Tung Lok Group Restaurant. Prawns were fresh, but again, I regard this as a base level. When I eat dim sum, I do not expect the prawns to be anything but fresh. It's like when you order a fish from a seafood place, you'd expect it to be fresh rather than not fresh. The thing about this place is that the food is quite forgettable... really. Nothing really stands out as a must try or that will make me crave to go back there. It's more like a place I'd go if I were in the neighbourhood or if someone else suggested it, I wouldn't object. It's alright in my books. I've also googled some other reviews of the place, apparently, their dishes seem to draw better reviews, rather than their dim sum stuff. I might consider going back there if the bf's friends want to go back to review the regular dishes as well.

The total damage for that was about $95 or about $24 per pax. I still think its a bit over priced for something that is OKAY. Its good dim sum, but I don think it was value for money. Perhaps I am biased cause I really only like Yan Palace at Hong Lim Complex. I swear for what we ordered, it would only have amounted to The guys also brought up their other favourite place, Red Star also located in China Town, but I hate the noisy atmosphere there and I think that place is really mediocre in quality and definitely not worth the ridiculous 30 mins to get a table.

*The waitress kept telling us that they didn't have the regular lotus leaf glutinous rice but they had a small (her small was apparently something 6 inches round!) variation. So we ordered that and it turned out to be fried rice in lotus leaf! She also kept telling us that we might not want to order the paus cause that SMALL lotus leaf thing was quite a big serving. But the BF loves his paus so he insisted on ordering it. And guess what was the last to be finished.. the paus! cause everyone was so damn full by then... GRR..


NOBLE HOUSE

Level 5, UIC Building
5 Shenton Way
(S) 068808
Tel: 6227-0933
Opening hours: Daily from 11am to 3pm for lunch and 6.30pm to 11pm for dinner

Imperial Treasures

Met the bf, now to be known here as Mr Notastememory, for lunch yesterday at Suntec.  Since both of us were feeling a bit of a sore throat coming on (I am actually on medical leave for 2 days.. yes, I ended up being that sick), we decided we wanted something soupy or porridgey (okay actually I wanted something soupy, he wanted porridge.. I hate porridge!).  So we were walking over to our Number 1 choice, Crystal Jade, when we saw the Imperial Treasures place, which is almost exactly like Crystal Jade, only they claim to be Teo Chew styled cooking.  We decided to give that place a try and from the momemt the wait staff greeted us, it felt like we were eating in Crystal Jade!  It was all very weird.  From the table setting, the menu, the pictures in the menu etc, all almost identical to its number one competitor.  

Feeling completely unadvertourous, I ordered their pork and chive dumpling noodle soup, i.e., Wanton Mee and Mr Notastememory ordered some beef brisket noodles.  When the food arrived, no surprises again, it tasted similar to the Crystal Jade cousins.. even down to appearance and portion.  The dumpling noodle broth was quite good, not too salty or oily, though I wish they gave just a tad more soup, cause after a while the noodles start to absorb the soup leaving me with lesser to drink.  The beef tendons were also quite good according to Mr Notastememory.  All in all, this is an okay place to go to get a quick lunch. Its also cheaper than its Crystal Jade counterpart. Total damage for the 2 bowls of noodles was under $20, including the towels, tea and taxes.

Will definately have to return to this place to try the other dishes when I'm feeling better. Also, we saw its cantonese outlet at Great World. Will post here when we manage to head that way.

See Food at Siglap

Went with the bf's family to the only place they seem to host family birthdays at, Seafood Station, at Siglap. I still remember the first time they brought me there, I was very surprised that such a place existed in Siglap. You see, Siglap (to me anyway, I live in the Western part of the country, so maybe I'm wrong) has always been associated with the cafe or casual dining area. In fact, most people living in the west refer to it as the "Holland Village of the East", although Easterners will probably try to tell you that Holland Village is the "Siglap of the West". Anyway, I digress, the point is, the whole of Siglap is littered with tiny food establishments such as Starbucks, Gelare, Liquid Kitchen, Killeny Kopi Tiam, Pizza Hut, KFC, Secret Recipe etc, all catering to the younger crowd and with tables set for 2 to 4 and then we have this Chinese seafood place. Seafood Station is a typical Chinese Restaurant, with tables set for groups of 6 and up, tacky paintings on the wall, and wait staff with equally tacky uniforms (this lot had the SIA styled shirts.. GAH!!) and the best part! it has a neon sign outside with a GIANT crab waving its claw!!!

so yes, when I first saw the place, I was like um, quite shocked. However, the food in this place is brilliant. For the dad's birthday celebrations, we ordered, deer meat with spring onion, cereal prawns, XO veg with mushrooms, 1 butter cream crab and 2 chili crabs & 12 man tous (deep fried buns). The cereal prawns was really well done, the oats used were light and a bit on the spicy side with no greasy filling. We actually enjoyed scooping the cereal onto the rice and just eating it that way. The prawns were fresh and easy to deshell (well for most of us anyway, the bf is clueless when it comes to deshelling prawns with chopsticks). The deer and vegetable was okay, nothing to shout about.

The crabs came last and they were really one of the best crabs I've eaten (yes way better than Jumbo Seafood). We ordered the butter cream crab cause the bf's sis does not eat anything with chili in it. So she always has a non spicy variation of crab (either steamed, butter or cereal). With the exception of steam crab, I feel that it's a real waste of a good crab. Cereal crab is really weird, cause the crab shell just prevents the oats from getting into the meat and so it feels like someone cooked the cereal separately and just poured it over the crab. The crab meat has not much taste done and no gravy at all. I mean, the point of eating crab is to have gravy to eat with fried man tou or just to have the sweet crab juices mixed into rice.. and anyway, I really have little respect for people who can't eat even a little spice when it's not a medical condition. I mean we are living in South East Asia you know...

Anyway, the butter cream crab was uh.. weird. It was generously coated with this sweet and limey cream paste which tastes something like a mix between salad cream and Japanese mayo. Its also thick and it really felt like those salad prawn things they serve you as part of the cold dish at chinese wedding dinners, only this was hot. Can you imagine hot salad cream? just weird. This dish fails in my opinion. I think its a real waste to mask the wonderful crab flavour with such a strong sauce.

Then came the main attraction (for everyone else anyway), the 2 chili crabs! I mean, even visually, this was a better looking dish, with colour and the viscosity of the gravy (otherwise known as CHUP!) just flowing down the crab shells. Not like the butter cream which just sat on the shell like the blob of butter. And of course, dish tasted great! While the fight for pincers between the 2 bros and dad were occurring, I just took the legs and starting digging out the meat to eat. I don really like to eat the crab pincers cause they're too much of a hassle to eat.. legs are easier cause the shell is softer and easier to break.. the pincer ones take too long just to get to the end result. So yes, the meat was succulent, with a strong crab flavour and the chili egg gravy was not too overpowering and also complemented the crab meat well. It's semi solid gravy means that the crab meat is soaked with the tomatoey chili liquid while the shell outside is coated generously with the more solid portions of the gravy. The gravy is also not too overpowering that it masks the actual crab flavour. The gravy is also perfect for eating with the mantou or placing on top of rice. It is not too spicy and not too oily that one will get tired of it. It is also irresistible enough to make everyone at the table attack the crabs with gusto abandoning any pretense of politeness by using cutlery. Any crab that makes people attack it with their bare hands and chow that that quickly is a 5 out of 5 star crab!

seriously, this is a die die must try crab joint. I've been there so many times and every time the taste is consistently brilliant. The total damage for the dishes ordered above (for group of 6) was slightly over $200. Not expensive at all.

Seafood Station
887, East Coast Road,
Singapore 459088
Tel: +65-6447 8885
Fax: +65-6448 3313
Email: seafoodstation@singnet.com.sg
http://www.seafood-station.com

Hmm it looks like they also have another branch at east coast..