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2013-09-30
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This was my very first visit to Yan Ting at St Regis and it will probably be my last visit for a very long time to come (unless they come up with something new / special). We were there on a weekday lunch and the restaurant was not that crowded, with only a few pockets of people chowing on dim sum. Comfy sofa seats, mood lighting and impeccably polite service sets the mood for this posh Chinese restaurant. The food, however, was quite a letdown.Let's start with some of the good ones first - Pork
This was my very first visit to Yan Ting at St Regis and it will probably be my last visit for a very long time to come (unless they come up with something new / special). We were there on a weekday lunch and the restaurant was not that crowded, with only a few pockets of people chowing on dim sum. Comfy sofa seats, mood lighting and impeccably polite service sets the mood for this posh Chinese restaurant. The food, however, was quite a letdown.
Let's start with some of the good ones first - Pork & Century Egg Porridge 皮蛋瘦肉粥 ($9.00) was tasty and smooth, and reminded me of the kind of congee you get in Hong Kong. The pork slices were also very tender even though they were quite thick.
Another dim sum item I thought was quite good was the Steamed Prawn Dumpling ‘Har Gow’ 蝦餃 ($6.80). Its skin was thin and moist and the prawns were fresh and crunchy. However, considering the price that you are paying here, I could easily find a cheaper (and equally delicious) alternative.
The Siew Mai 燒賣 ($6.80) however, was suprisingly bland. It's very seldom that I taste bland siew mai, but I guess they were going for the more 'health conscious' palate because this siew mai really did not have much of a taste to it.
I was drawn in by the novelty of charging Xiao Long Bao by the piece and decided to order one 小笼包 ($4.00 for 1 piece) to try. Encased in an individual basket, the 小笼包 looked just like your regular sized dumpling and wasn't particularly huge or anything. Biting in, I found that it didn't have much soup inside either which was pretty disappointing. The meat tasted healthy and overall had very plain, natural flavours with hardly any seasoning.
Both the Char Siew Pau 叉燒包 ($5.00) and Baked BBQ Pork Pastry 叉燒酥 ($6.00) tasted quite normal too since they both make use of the same char siew filling. The good thing about the 叉燒酥 was that the pastry was very crumbly as it should be but the steamed pau was not as fluffy as the menu pointed it out to be.
Their Salted Egg Custard Bun 流沙包 ($5.80) looks really good with the slightly orange colored skin but inside, the lava was a little too diluted and light, not the rich, thick flowy salted egg yolk that you would expect for the price.
Finally, we couldn't leave here without having tried their legendary Chee Cheong Fun 猪肠粉 ($10.00) which costs 10 bucks no matter what filling you choose - we picked the scallop one since it seemed like the most "value-for-money" option. Turns out, it wasn't as legendary as we had expected it to be. The rice roll was a bit too thick and it wasn't as silky smooth as it should be.Overall, if you're looking for a healthier Dim Sum choice, then Yan Ting would probably be your best bet because I have personally not eaten such plain and bland dim sum before. It will probably suit the palate of the older generation but adventurous foodies like me, really get no kick out of dim sum like this.
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