PaiGu

Despite the huge variety of food in hawker centres, sometimes it’s nice to take a break from food-court cuisine in the form of more upscale dining. Here’s a different look at eating in Singapore.

Lunch at a Chinese restaurant near work.

I didn’t get pictures of our first dinner, which was at Jumbo Seafood Restaurant and included such memorable dishes as the jumbo chili crab, deep-fried beancurd, steamed fish, liang ban jellyfish, prawns with cabbage, and seafood fried rice.

Dinner at Otto, an upscale Italian restaurant, the next night.

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Skyland de Shanghai (上海新天地) across from Pacific Mall is my new favourite Shanghainese restaurant. The food here reminds me of Zhejiang (浙江) Province, the food of my childhood. Heck, it was the food of my parents’ childhoods. I had driven by this place many times and even heard it recommended to me, but for some reason, I never tried it. Dinner last night left me wondering, “Why didn’t I come here sooner?”

The interior is modern and well-lit. The tables are quite close together but the semi-circle dividers give an illusion of spaciousness.

The menu was varied with bright, bold pictures of mouthwatering dishes. We started with a “dessert” as an appetizer, gui hua tang ou (steamed lotus root stuffed with sweet sticky rice).

This steamed dessert was soft and sticky with sugary juices, and the sweet glutinous rice complemented the slightly crispier lotus root. I have always wondered what dessert in Chinese culture really is, but now I know why I had such a hard time figuring it out. For most families, there is no distinction between courses, everything is set on the table pretty much at once. Sure, you have bigger dishes and smaller dishes, hot dishes and cold dishes, but the distinction is not as clear as in Western tradition. For example, here is a dessert that looks deceptively like an appetizer. Who would have thought of lotus root being a dessert? It comes down to a fundamental difference in technology: Chinese chefs don’t bake. Baking is very much a Western technology, and Canton baked desserts have been influenced that way. Traditional Chinese desserts are made much in the same way that all dishes are made, on the stove.

Next up was ban li shao ji (chicken with chestnuts stew).

This was every good as bit as it looks. Braised chicken with chestnuts is a common family dish in the Shanghai area. It’s an exceedingly simple recipe – just soy bean paste and salt – but the chestnuts add something very subtle and unique to the sauce.

The highlight of the evening, however, was the Shanghai special hot pot.

In this pot contained an elaborate combination of: dan jiao (pork in egg wrapper dumplings), pork in tofu wrapper, Lion’s Head meatballs, fen si (vermicelli), fish balls, dried ham (salted and air-dried as opposed to smoked) and various Chinese vegetables. It was glorious.

Another unique dish was belly pork in a fermented beancurd sauce. Fermented beancurd (or dou fu ru) is not as strange as it might sound. It is not pungent at all, instead it is very flavourful.

Belly pork is pork that has a lot of fat, and it is usually cut in big chunks with the skin still on it. Although this is probably not a dieter’s dream, the skin, fat, and meat goes really well together, especially in a dish like this that would need to be cooked for a long time until a lot of fat has melted into the sauce.

On the side, we also had a bowl of bok choy fried rice.

For dessert, we had lan gua bing (fried pumpkin pancakes).

They are made with glutinous flour and covered in sesame seeds, fried until golden brown. These were melt-in-your-mouth good, the best I’ve ever had.

Service could have been more attentive but no worse than a typical Chinese restaurant of this size. The prices are very reasonable (although a little higher than some of the other restaurants in Scarborough). There are a lot of unique, home-grown Shanghai dishes on the menu that I have not seen elsewhere. I would definitely come back, and next time, I’m bringing more people so I can try more dishes.

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Ambassador Chinese Cuisine is practically a landmark in Richmond Hill. Every weekend, dozens of Chinese families flock to Ambassador for an age-old Chinese tradition: dim sum.

A group of friends and I joined the frenzy one rainy Sunday noon. Given my preference for northern Chinese food, I hadn’t been to a Cantonese-style dim sum place in a long time. I let my friends do most of the ordering since they had been here before, I just sat back and prepared to eat.

Crispy shrimp cigars were spring rolls shaped like straws, with a single shrimp in each. They were so cute! The spring rolls were crispy and golden. Perfection.

Pan-fried pork and shrimp dumplings were a little burnt, but the wrapper held strong. The filling was average, mostly pork and chives with some little dried shrimps.

Pan-friend bean curd rolls had a vegetarian filling in a bean curd wrapper. The bean curd tasted surprisingly fresh.

Dessert in the form of steamed egg custard rolls arrived too early in the meal, but were light, fluffy, and not too sweet.

Steamed shrimp dumplings in a translucent wrapper sprinkled with roe, stuffed with plump pieces of shrimp. So tender, so delicious.

Steamed shrimp and roe shao mai, in a surprisingly tough egg wrapper. Not as tender as the steamed shrimp dumplings.

Jellyfish and mango salad was cold and refreshing. The biggest surprise? The jellyfish did not taste like canned jellyfish.

Steamed pork rice noodle roll. It was soft and delicious, especially with the light house sauce. If I knew how to make rice noodle rolls, I’d make them every day.

Another dessert that arrived in the middle of the meal, tapioca jelly cups, each with a different ingredient in the centre. One had red bean, one had egg custard (?), and one had a cream-coloured filling that I didn’t get to taste.

Coconut tapioca dessert, with chunks of real coconut, honeydew, canteloupe, and of course, tapioca jelly. Anything with coconut tastes good to me, and honeydew is only my favourite melon, so of course, I loved this.

Another bean curd roll, this time with a savoury ground pork filling that included wood ear (mu er).

This was also a steamed pork dumpling, but the wrapper is made of tapioca as opposed to flour. The filling did not hold together very well though.

The last to come was also the one we were dreading the most: curry octopus. One of my friends had ordered this on a whim/dare. It was a bad decision. The octopus was hard to chew and the curry was more messy than it was flavourful.

Desserts came at the same time as entrees, service was mediocre, but what do you expect from such a large banquet hall? At least the bathrooms were clean. The prices are reasonable, and (I am told) the quality of food is consistent, which is the biggest draw for its loyal customers.

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