Dim sum @ Crystal Jade Golden Palace

The dim sum here (290 Orchard Road, #05-10 The Paragon, tel: 6734 6866) was pretty good. Comparatively with the recent Shang Palace, I liked this much better. The latter location was a third more expensive than this place even with the early bird discount of 30% off. Food didn't pack as much omph as the one Crystal Jade Golden Palace did for the price. To be fair, there was also some creative differences as to how the dim sum dishes were interpreted.

Some of the noteable mentions included the light and crispy baked skins of the char siew sou; tender glutinous rice; creamy carrot cake with a crisp exterior and the delicious salted yolk prawns which were from the a la carte menu. Those prawns were much better than the ones in Xi Yan. The only let down was the goose liver pastry which while buttery, wasn't very tasty had barely any flavour from the goose liver at all. I'll have to remember to avoid that if I ever come back. There was quite a bit of the stuff which we haven't gotten the chance to try from the dim sum menu alone.

char siew pastry

siew mai

chee cheong fan with prawns

some goose liver pastry

har gao

pan fried carrot cake

some banana and prawn pastry

char siew bao

glutinous rice in lotus leaves

battered prawns pan fried in salted yolk

egg tarts

mango pudding

pan fried shredded taro, sweet potato and pumpkin with sugar

Didn't have much room for desserts so we settled for a ubiquitous mango pudding and a pan fried bunch of vegetables in sugar and ground peanuts. You read that right. Pan fried vegetables for dessert. Which came in surprising large portions considering that everything else was in small servings. Ended up feeling a tad too greasy to finish.

This place is worth a return visit though.