Asia Grand Restaurant, Odeon Towers

The main draw of this restaurant as some of you may already be aware of, is the $28 Peking duck which was pretty much a steal considering how much other Chinese restaurants are charging for them. I'm also fairly sure that there isn't any other place in town that can match this place in price for that. That being said, one must also be realistic in expectations for such a Peking duck since it was going on the cheap. Wouldn't be anywhere close to top notch in terms of quality. I've definitely had better Peking ducks elsewhere but that being said, I've also never paid this little for one.

Peking duck aside, Asia Grand Restaurant (331 North Bridge Road #01-02 & #01-05/08 Odeon Towers) is also a pretty decent restaurant. The variety on the menu is sufficient if not too extensive in variety. Notable mentions from dinner included the bamboo clams with garlic, apple soup with fresh water fish and a certain lup mei fan which consisted of claypot rice with a variety of waxed meats which turned out to be pretty heart clogging.

We were informed that this dish (which isn't on the menu) is not available all the time. At the end of the claypot rice, a bowl of stock was provided to scrape the remaining charred rice from the bottom of the pot creating a porridge of sorts. I thought that was quite well done if not for the fact that there was coriander in the broth which really just killed it for me. From the desserts, the yam paste (orh nee) was surprisingly enjoyable, considering that I don't normally like them.

I missed out the photos of the soup and the Peking duck skin in egg rolls, so there...

meat from peking duck

The Peking duck as mentioned was decent. We opted for the meat to be cut up and served instead of the usual options of having them stir fried with rice or noodles or having them minced and served on lettuce. I very much prefer the meat sliced and served. This also educated us of how little remnants of duck meat was actually available from one bird. Also reminded me of that sad one at Golden Peony which had seriously pathetic leftover meat compared to the much larger plate here or even Hai Tian Lo. Seriously, I had doubts about having had the whole duck at that place. Even though the standards of the Peking duck here weren't comparable to the Golden Peony, this one actually felt more satisfying.

some vegetable with roasted garlic and dried scallops

These are mustard greens I think. It was a pretty light dish but the garlic turned out to be a bit more pungent than I expected. Good thing I didn't pop too many cloves in at a time.

bamboo clams with garlic and golden mushroom

These steamed bamboo clams were great - full of chewy tender meat along with golden mushrooms. The soy sauce and minced garlic worked as a common flavour paring to the shellfish. I can imagine polishing off quite a few of these myself.

salt and pepper pork ribs

I unfortunately didn't like their pork ribs. It could have been because I found the cut of the meat to be excessively fatty. Much more than I normally like. We opted for the salt and pepper option as the sweet and sour rendition sounded...boring and coffee sauces usually just sound more interesting than they taste. None of those I've had tasted like coffee or remotely so. I was thinking that this would probably be a good test of flavour for the ribs and I wasn't wrong. The flavour was simply just not outstanding.

assorted waxed meats (from the claypot rice dish)

These assorted waxed meats which are actually part of traditional claypot rice are quite commonly available and costly during the Chinese New Year. The assortment here includes waxed duck, lup cheong, liver lup cheong and waxed pork belly. All of which are fatty and oily and sweet with the exception of the duck which was very salty. Unlike the regular claypot rice, the meats and vegetables aren't mixed with the rice and the stock is used in sparing portions.

claypot rice

broth from the remaining claypot rice

yam paste

red bean paste pancake

mango pudding

The desserts which we had were average at best. So the mango pudding was really just a regular mango pudding which I didn't think much of. The red bean pancake was likewise unexceptional though it did have a much less chewy skin and I didn't find the paste itself excessively sweet.

In retrospect, while definitely not the best around, Asia Grand was a passably adequate restaurant. They quality as a decent location for family dinners. Hell, I can see myself coming back with my family. For their economically priced duck also.