Dim sum at Crystal Jade Golden Palace 12 years later...

What a coincidence! Crystal Jade Golden Palace was the second place in this month at Paragon where the last time we had visited was 12 years ago. The other was Akashi.

It occured to me as I was typing that this picture above will mark an era in the history of a time to come when we were graced plagued by Nurgle a pandemic and restaurants had to use markers to denote social spacing.

I was told that previously, we were served the kung fu tea (工夫茶) after we had placed our order. Today, we didn't get them until we asked.

Century egg porridge was served first. This was well done and creamy like how good congee is. 

Char siew sou was competently done. The pastry was light and flaky. I would have liked for it to be more buttery though.

Didn't like their scallop dumplings (帶子饺). We asked about coriander in the items we ordered and were told that there was none. I inquired specifically about these when they were served after seeing suspicious green bits and they apologised for forgetting that these dumplings had a little bit of them. They certainly didn't forget to not charge me for their forgetfulness though. There was more than a little bit of the coriander.

Even though these were scallop dumplings, there were only some small pieces of scallops on the top of the dumpling. The stuffings were prawn. And coriander.

Was recommended by a friend to try their Teochew styled pomfret porridge. Nice. The broth was savoury, flavoured with dried sole. 

Char siew was competently done. Have had better and worse ones so this kind fell in the between spectrum.

Har gow's pretty nice here. Liked that it wasn't small, the skin sufficiently thin and the prawns were chunky inside.

Not Imperial Treasure good but still pretty nice.

My fault for ordering this - deep fried salted egg prawn fritters in rice rolls. I deconstructed it after the first piece because it felt too greasy. Not much prawns inside considering the size of those fritters in rice rolls. *cues memory of rice rolls from Xin Cuisine*

This was double boiled morel soup in coconut. Nicely salted with a hint of sweetness, light flavour from the morels and coconut. Clear and not intense. Enjoyed it but won't order again kind of thing.

Fu pei quin (腐皮卷) was okay. Not memorable though.

Enjoyed their char siew bao. Skin was soft and fluffy enveloping that scalding meaty sweetness inside. Nicely done if I might say.

Braised chicken feet with black beans were pretty decent. Like a number of their other dishes, I get this feel that they're just okay and not exceptional.

Egg tarts are probably not a forte here. These were egg tarts with bird's nest. The crust was unsatisfying-ly bland with no aroma from a good bake nor butter. Kinda underwhelming.

I tend to compare Crystal Jade to Imperial Treasure because of their history. To be fair, a comparison for Golden Palace should be made with the Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine just to be a little more equal. You know what I think? I think that there's more finesse in the food and service standards at Imperial Treasure.