Dian Xiao Er

It is indeed a pleasurable and welcoming experience being invited to food tasting at one of the better known Dian Xiao Er Restaurants at Bishan. They have 10 outlets and each have similar but uniquely differing décor and ambience. I heard they would customize the dish to the customers based on what they learnt from them … This differentiates them from just any other restaurants like most Chinese always do … Relationship building.Last week’s dinner menu was a variation of Set-B, with the replacement of Luxurious Abalone Treasure Pot, ending with a treat of dessert. The Cold Double-Boiled Hashima brings the pre-festive meal to a close and it was a beautifully crafted suggestion.Last week’s dinner menu was a variation of Set-B, with the replacement of Luxurious Abalone Treasure Pot, ending with a treat of dessert. The Cold Double-Boiled Hashima brings the pre-festive meal to a close and it was a beautifully crafted suggestion.Simple as it is a lot of preparation goes into this appetizer. After pouring in the ingridients and sauces, normally by the diners themselves, the dish need to be toss and as high as possible. Prosperity Salmon Yu ShengThis Teochew-Style raw fish salad popular amongst Chinese during Chinese New Year (CNY) is supposed to be served on the 7th day of the Lunar Year but nowadays, people just love to savor the dish even before CNY. The tossing of ingredients symbolizes prosperity and longevity and what a way to begin the year of the Sheep / Goat at Dian Xiao Er.Shark’s Fin with Crab Meat and ConpoyI thought I never get to taste Shark Fin again in a restaurant … In fact I felt a little guilty as I believe in conservation but the taste lure me away. The delicately prepared double boiled broth with crab and conpoy just brings out the flavorfulness of the soup.Signature Herbal Roast Duck with Ten Wonders SauceNot exactly like roasted goose I tasted in Hong Kong but definitely more than a substitute, in fact a must try. This tender succulent duck is roasted with Ten Wonders Sauce. We also get to try out the other 2 sauces: Angelica Herb and Wild Ginseng. My personal choice of sauce to go with the Ten Wonder roasted duck: Wild Ginseng. I give this dish 5-starSautéed Baby Lobsters with Pumpkin SaucePumpkin Sauce to go with Baby Lobster … What a choice! I love the taste of the unique blend coconut with salted eggs and the infusion of spices simply goes very well with pumpkin sauce. This dish would have gotten better rating if not for other better dishes ahead … I would give this a 4-star for now.Prosperous Braised TrottersAmong all the dishes, this dish brings out the best of the best from Dian Xiao Er …The Braised Trotters just melts in your mouth. The dish is beautifully presented with greens and goes very well with green broccoli, peas and mushrooms.Chinese dish should never goes without fish and I must say the size of the Pomfret certainly raise eye brows and gives everyone more than a fair share. This Pomfret steamed in Cantonese style together with thinly sliced spring onions, carrots, ginger, onion and chives truly brings out the aroma of the fish.Luxurious Abalone Treasure PotI would have placed this as my number one dish, had the mushroom and pea also been used in the Braised Trotter but its certainly makes one feels rich, enjoying the luxury of high society dishes ... No wonder this dish is a treasure pot. The wholesome sauce goes very well with black moss and the tasty and crunchy sea cucumber, simply compliment with the tender succulent abalone.Double-Boiled Chilled HashimaLast but not least, our dessert was the Double-Boiled Chilled Hashima … What a refreshing ending. The idea of this dessert originates from the term “Hasma”, related to frogs … but the extra smooth, refreshing and sweet Hashima, just makes one forget the origin instead one feel heavenly and completely fulfill after a sumptuous dinner at Dian Xiao Er.…Read More

If you are taking a train to Junction 8, Dian Xiao Er is located in B1, which is linked to the MRT line heading towards Marina Bay. It is in a small corner near the tonic shop and NTUC. Diao Xiao Er first had it's first outlet in Chinatown and 10 years ago, it expanded to Marina Square and since then, Dian Xiao Er has focused on expanding in shopping centres, such as Junction 8. Dian Xiao Er has private rooms like this, which I had the tasting session in, it provides a lot of privacy. Additionally, they have rooms to accommodate up to 40pax, so be sure that Dian Xiao Er can accommodate your extended family.1. Prosperity Salmon Yu ShengThe first dish of the food tasting was the yu sheng, along with oil and plum sauce, it was a very savoury dish. It can be purchased at an ala carte price of $42.80++. Lou Hei! The salmon in this dish was Norwegian smoked salmon, as such, it adds a salty touch to the sweetness of the plum sauce. 2. Shark's Fin Broth with Crab Meat & ConpoyThe Shark's fin was very flavourful and yet not salty. Customers can also request this dish to be switched to a more environmentally friendly fish maw. You can definitely taste the shreds of crab meat in this broth, and even without vinegar, it was a very hearty dish.3. Signature Herbal Roast Duck with 3 Flavours (Angelica Herb, Ten Wonders, Wild Ginseng)I had never seen a more shiny roast duck skin before, I could tell immediately that this was going to be the best roast duck I have ever eaten. The skin was so crispy, almost like a flaky croissant and the meat was succulent and juicy!The duck was roasted with the herbs inside the duck and the herbs are then extracted and used to brew the herbal sauces. So if you order a ten wonders duck, it would be stuffed with ten wonders spices and then served with the ten wonders sauce. Typically, the sauce is poured over the duck, which might result with crispy duck skin becoming soggy. Joanne, the Dian Xiao Er representative also mentioned that you can request for the duck and sauce to be served separately.The Angelica Herb was said to be the least "strongest" herb, so I tried it and indeed it wasn't as strong as the other two sauces. The ten wonders herb was the next sauce I tried next and I liked it the best. The wild ginseng sauce definitely was pure ginseng with wolfberries. I didn't quite like the ginseng sauce as it really washed out the taste of the duck. I would recommend first timers to try the ten wonders duck with the ten wonders sauce.4. Sauteed Baby Lobsters with Pumpkin SauceThis was a new dish to my taste buds. I love lobsters and these baby lobsters definitely met my expectations of freshness. They came right off the shell with my chopsticks, so it's pretty easy to eat them. Do note, that this dish is cooked with curry leaves, coconut and chilli padi, so it can be a abit spicy. You can however request for the spiciness to be toned down to suit your taste. The sauce itself tasted strongly of salted egg, I couldn't actually taste the pumpkin in the sauce. It is a sweet and tangy sauce with a tinge of spiciness. But as I ate my second baby lobster, I started to realize that the spiciness increases exponentially. For this dish, Dian Xiao Er will serve the number of baby lobster of 2-3 pieces per pax.5. Prosperous Braised TrottersThe braised trotters were very soft and tender, pretty sure you don't need teeth for this dish. There are also fried oysters in this dish, which I found very generous of them. The brocolli wasn't hard as I had expected it to be, it was pretty soft. For most dishes with oyster sauces, I usually feel quite thirsty after eating it, but it wasn't the case with this dish. Apparently braised pig trotters is a very common Chinese New Year dish in Malaysia, so one of their Chefs decided to introduce this dish to Dian Xiao Er's Chinese New Year menu this year. Should this prove popular, it will remain as a main dish on their regular menu. It is always good to know that the chefs have a strong say in the menu, that shows that they take pride in what they serve up.6. HongKong Style Chinese PomfretProbably the biggest pomfret I have ever seen, but even though I couldn't taste the fishiness at the begining, I realized that I could smell the fishiness of this fish at the end. Nonetheless for a group of 10, we managed to conquer one side of the fish and then, for second helpings, we flipped the fish over. This should give you an understanding of how big the fish is, since my photo does no justice to it. Joanne explained that this was a top grade pomfret that is steamed with shallots, ginger and spring onion.7. Luxurious Abalone Treasure PotWhen this dish was served up to our table, everyone pretty much was amazed, at the "treasure" in this dish! This dish is normally served in a claypot, but to show the extent of the treasure, for this food tasting session, Dian Xiao Er served it on a plate. The sea cucumber was slightly harder than expected, the fish maw was very soft and almost gelatinous in texture. 8. D-Boiled Hashima It was a subtly sweet cold dessert which was a very refreshing end to the hearty family style meal. The hashima was boiled with rock sugar and red dates.…Read More