Dim sum at Phoenix Garden (#05-30 Ngee Ann City, 91 Orchard Road, tel : +65 8058 7038) from a couple of visits. Don't know when they opened but I never even knew that they existed until recently. We stumbled upon a one-for-one dim sum deal going on which operated with a limited menu. By the time this post is published, they would have closed the current premise because the last visit was their last day of operation.
A little bird whispered that they had to relocated because of the increase in rent.
There's a drink on the menu call Black & Black which is described as Guinness + British Black Currents. I was wondering what the latter was until the wait staff mentioned Ribena. 😂 Anyways, the stout came in a can, was poured into a glass with the British Black Currents and we had to stir it ourselves. I kinda enjoyed it though.
Pan fried radish cake's pretty decent. There's strips of radish within and pork (or was it chicken?) floss without.
Pretty edible Yang Zhou fried rice. Needed more salt. Or perhaps fish sauce.
Seafood fried rice we had on another occasion had better salting resulting in a moreish and savoury flavour. The only seafood in it were diced prawns and scallops.
Xiao long bao was also decent quality. While I couldn't tell how it fared against
"the local benchmark" (
😂), it wasn't far off from those standards.
Got an order of the fried 腐皮卷 after learning that there wasn't any coriander or Chinese parsley in them. The stuffing was prawn paste and this was much better tasting than I had imagined.
Competent siew mai with a good mix of flavour from both the pork and mushroom stuffings.
Some nicely done vegetable dumping which were mostly filled with chopped mushrooms with truffle oil.
Har gow stained with butterfly pea flower. Tasted just like regular competently done har gow. Skin was a little thicker than what we generally prefer but it's not a deal breaker.
No 红油 in their 红油抄手. These were more akin to 水饺. The heat was mild in the vinegar sauce. Not bad tasting but these weren't 红油抄手.
Salted yolk lava buns quite nice. This was how they looked the first time we had them.
On the second occasion, the buns were of a different design, charcoal infused and grey.
I liked both versions we had. No flavour differences for sure.
Char siew bao with brown sugar skin. I could smell the brown sugar faintly but not taste them. But pretty good tasting bao though.
They also had this 寿桃 buns that were filled with yam paste.
Beneath the peachy surface, creamy grey sweetened yam paste.
Orh nee was thick with a creamy coconut milk over. Not very sweet. Not bad also.
Happy with their mango sago pomelo too. This place isn't fancy. The food shows. That being said, the quality was not bad at all.
