Red Star Restaurant

Red Star Restaurant is conveniently located at Chin Swee Road, which is just a short 5 minutes walk away from Chinatown station. Usually flooded with diners, especially the elderly who came to gather and reminisce the nostalgic ambience. I love how they are still using the classic quaint pushcarts, which contains trays and baskets filled with freshly made dim-sum.

More often than not, Red Star Restaurant has always been the preferred choice when it comes to choosing a dinner place for dear grandma's birthday. Besides serving your usual dim-sum fix in the morning, this Mandarin restaurant which is opened by four well-known chefs in the 1970s, whipped out pretty decent Cantonese classics as well.

For example, their signature Yam Basket topped with assorted ingredients is a favourite of many. Its crispy exterior covered the soft, piping hot yam cake, matched with a couple of savoury seafood and vegetables, this delectable dish is one of the must-tries. Chicken with Assorted Vegetables was a tad bland for my liking. Nevertheless, I like the unique idea of combining ham with chicken chunks, topped with creamy egg sauce.Fried Fish Slices in Sweet and Sour Sauce was average. Nothing to rave about, as I usually do not eat fried fish slices, but when I do, I love it when it's soaked in broth.We also had their spinach leaves, which turns out to be too clumpy. I just wished they'd put more eggs in it.一品锅, also known as Royal Pot consists of an array of vegetables and seafood, including a generous portion of the luxurious sea cucumber.Generally, Red Star Restaurant is an ideal place to head to if you want the nostalgia it brings, which is great for family gatherings, especially when there are elderly. Other than that, food and service were pretty average, as there are definitely better ones out there.

I love to see the folks enjoying their dim sum early weekends. This is a good place for weekends family breakfast.

Food
Siew Mai is tasty and not so much of fats as compared to outsideEgg tarts are well made. Crust is thick but its very cripsy.I never fail to ordered its fong zhua. Tastes sweet & spicy.The Char Siew Su fillings are good enough. Not Stingy.Service
Its the folks that are serving us. They sounds unprofessional and like to chat in cantonese among themselves. Service is not as good as before. It's hard to find a seat and once you got a seat, there is no one to attend to you - as in give you the ordering card.

Ambience
Being a weekend place for folks, the place is very noisy with voices from all corners and directions. Good in the sense that there is a crowd and it has a very family feeling.

Price
Price is abit steep but i dont mind paying for such dim sum place as i like the folk's crowd.

SGD 20(Breakfast)

For authentic Cantonese cuisine,my family goes to Red Star Restaurant .The dishes are all my family's favourite. The Sea cucumber cooked with Gai Choy in an earthen pot.Sometimes the sea cucumbers are not cooked to sufficient softness for my mother and she would complain they are too hard.But this time the dish has some softer ones for her.The Gai Choy is delicious with the flavouring and freshness of the seafood.Equally fresh was the mixed vegetables of french beans and vegetarian " meat".The Tou fu topped with fish and prawn meat steamed in egg white was fragrant.It is simple yet delicious.The Yam Bowl is a must have.The bowl of vegetables, cashew nuts and bite-sized chicken complemented the wonderful yam basket. The deep fried chicken is as always soft and tender. However the deep fried prawn was "bad". The prawn was wrapped in too much flour and my mother commented that it did not look like this when she had it way back.The dessert was mango with pomelo fruit. But it was watery.We had it at a stall and it was thicker and much nicer.It could have been so much better.The bill came up to $160. It was a great gathering with great food .[IMG:

2012-09-29

Went to patronise this restaurant for dim sum as breakfast during a holiday after doing some research online and noticed that this restaurant is quite popular and has pretty good ratings. Queues were seen outside the restaurant after reaching at about 9am plus. Waiting time is not too long around 15 to 20 minutes. This restaurant is quite different from other dim sum stall as the customer will automatically crowed around the dim sum trolley to take the dim sum instead of the staff pushing the trolley to your table. Fastest finger first, if you are slow, the popular dim sum such as the xiao long pao, har gao will be taken up within a minutes or less. One of the dim sum that I like is their durian pancake and the egg tart. The durian pancake is actually a cold dish which is made of durian puree wrap with the egg crepe. The durian puree has a nice durian fragrance, has a soft and thick texture. As for the egg tart, it has a very crispy and flaky pastry. The egg custard has a nice custard aroma, soft and smooth texture. And is a must try dim sum !! Price ranging from $3 onwards.

On sunday, had dim sum at red star restaurant for lunch. Reached at 11.15am, the queue was long. I queued for about 30mins to get a table for 10. Most of their dish tasted average. However, their lotus bun is nice. Their egg tart is a little too sweet and taste of vanilla essence is very strong. They can't really place order, so we can only get what we want from the trolley that walked past our table. This slowed down the ordering process. Waitress are mainly elderly, in addition to the hectic afternoon, i would say that the service provided was acceptable. There are a few dishes in the menu i wanted to try, but the trolley for it didn't pass by my table. Therefore, never get to try.

2012-06-03

Decided to have dim sum for breakfast with my family. Thus we headed over to red star restaurant for their dim sum breakfast. The menu items are quite similar to other restaurant, what every dim sum menu should have they do have as well. But their food are good, fresh, and ingredients used are not stingy. Food came fast after our order, and because it came in the bamboo basket, it was still hot.

You will be surprise on how thick the biscuit crust which they have for their egg tarts. Even though it is really thick, but I can tell you it is very crispy and full of the fragrant from the butter and milk used in the making of it. The egg custard is very smooth and not too sweet, and also it is generously topped into all the egg tart's crust. One piece of it is definitely not enough to satisfy you. Normally I will buy at least two pieces and a cup of fresh brewed coffee to go along with it. Do note that this restaurant is really crowded during weekends' breakfast hours.

2012-04-12

SGD 1.50(Breakfast)

Look at the spread of Dim Sum on table! It's just the beginning! The service crews will go around with a push cart and you choose your pick of food. Convenient and efficient! I would personally recommend their siew mai, char siew bao, mango prawn, chicken in paper. Other dim sum they serve are comparable and are not too bad too!

Though this place is famous for its dim sum, I don't think the dim sum of this place taste great. In fact, I am quite disappointed (given that I have high hopes) with some of the dim sum, such as the yam ball, banana and shrimp roll, egg tart. The yam ball is too oily and banana and shrimp roll is not as crispy as I have expected (the one at Yan Palace tastes better).

Nevertheless, I feel that the duck and crispy pork taste quite good. Hence, do give it a try if you visit this restaurant.

2012-03-30

SGD 32(Lunch)

My dad bring us to eat dim sum again.This one is not bad.It is very crispy,and the meat inside is also quite nice.
Dip with some chilli sauce make it taste nicer.I like this fired oat too.
The cha siew covered with a thick and crispy oat.
It really taste nice but is a bit oily.This fried prawn is also not bad.Mut dip with some mayonaese.I like this too.It is very soft and nice.

The unique selling point of this restaurant is the traditional way of selling dim sum, which is to use a trolley to move around the restaurant shouting to potential customers the name of the dim sum on the trolley.egg tartchicken feetI love the chee cheong fun! It is so soft that the piece of flour simply melts in my mouth the moment I put it in. The sauce that comes with the cheong fun was also provided sparingly...my cheong fun seems to be swimming in the sauce. Recommended!!!

Look at the spread of Dim Sum on table! It's just the beginning!
The service crews will go around with a push cart and you choose your pick of food.
Convenient and efficient! I would personally recommend their siew mai, char siew bao, mango prawn, chicken in paper. Other dim sum they serve are comparable and are not too bad too!

a group of us had some tim sum early morning

we had a few which includes steam dumplings.. steam cha siew bun.. har cao
steam carrot cake.. prawn rice rolls and a cold plate dish which consist of 3 layer pork and sweet and spicy jelly fish

their bun was really soft and consist of tasty cha siew. carrot cake was really soft and not sticky.. the prawns were fresh and the rice roll were thin enough and soft

really had good tim sum at this place =)

Woke up bright and early on a Sunday morning for some Dim Sum with my gf. Had been wanting to do so ever since we had Dim Sum at Yan Palace some time back. This time we decided to visit one of the old names in Dim Sum - Red Star Restaurant at Chin Swee Road. Located on the top floor of a HDB flat, Red Star is one of the very few Dim Sum places that still serves Dim Sum in pushcarts, just like the old days. The interior in itself is reminiscent of the 80s. We got there at about 0830hrs and the place was more than half filled (It can easily seat about 200+ pax).

It would be sheer madness if I were to review everything I ate, so I'll just list out what I find is good and what isn't. You might probably want to avoid the Xiao Long Bao because the skin was a little too starchy and the filling was too dry. The Chee Cheong Fun was a little too rough for my liking and could do with more filling. The Banana with Shrimp Roll was rather unique, with the sweetness of the banana complementing with the taste of shrimp. Other than that, the rest of the items were pretty normal.

The 2 of us paid >$40/- for the meal, which is expensive by Red Star's standards, considering the last time we ate there, it only cost us about $30. They probably increased the price or something. However, having said that, they are still quite reasonable for the average quality of food that they provide. So if you are looking to relive the old days of the push cart or wish to have Dim Sum as early as 0730hrs, then this is the place for you. As for me I won't be rushing back to patronise anytime soon as I'm still reeling from the shock at my bill. Yan Palace does seem like a more viable option now.

I visited Red Star restaurant to sample their wide range of dim sum that has been raved about by my group of friends. I went there during their lunch hour, and had to queue up for quite some time, but it was worth the wait, since the food made up for it. I remember ordering siew mai, har gao, chicken feet, century egg porridge, yam balls, mango pudding, chee cheong fun (prawn&char siew), carrot cake, char siew buns, glutinous rice and many others. I really loved the chee cheong fun, as it was just so scrumptious! I really recommend patrons to try those, and grab them fast! I realise in that restaurant, even though the dim sum pushcarts go around the place, everyone would rush to the pushcart lady and take the dish on their own. Shows how popular the dim sum is, really. Their carrot cake was pretty good as well! Definitely a must try!