味之楼

Back at this restaurant again! We took the 12.30pm to 2pm timeslot and boy, was it crowded! Sour and slightly sweetened cucumber to start the lunch.Deep fried prawn with mango roll. Prawn is deep fried without the over powering taste of flour. As you bite into a piece, you begin to feel the subtle fragrance of the mango. Good try if you like fried stuffs that are not too oily. ($4.80)Mini egg tart. Not the best I have tasted in my entire life but the best so far in Singapore. It's cute and tiny and. Would be good if there's a bit more egg custard in it. ($3.60)Steamed custard bun. This is a must-have if you are a salted egg yolk fan like me. I love how the salted egg yolk custard comes oozing out of the bun when you sink your teeth into one of those. Have to be eaten hot. ($4.50)Steamed BBQ honey pork bun. I like how soft the bun is and the tender sweetness of the meat. ($3.90)Steamed cheong fun with prawn filling. I love the softness of the cheong fun. Some cheong fun that I've eaten elsewhere tasted like a whole chunk of flour soaked in soya sauce while this one doesn't. ($5.50)Steamed cheong fun with dough fritter. When you can't decide whether to have another cheong fun or a dough fritter, you order something that has both. Soft on the outside, crispy on the inside. I am surprise how the crispiness can be maintained in a pool of sauce. Recommended! ($4.80)Steamed chicken claw with black bean sauce. Good source of collagen and very very soft on the teeth. Just put it into our mouth and pull out the bones. Not much efforts required to separate the bones and the collagen filled skin. ($3.80)Continue in Part 2…Read More

I certainly am not aware of such a gem in Ion serving good quality dim sum. We went there on a Saturday afternoon for lunch and we had to wait for 45minutes before we are finally offered a table. However, the wait is worth it! Almost all of the dim sums that I had were good. We ordered egg tarts, century egg porridge, xiao long bao, siew mai etc etc. All are fresh and piping hot. I especially loved the egg tarts. They are so flaky and eggy, it is really tasty. I finished one plate by myself since there are only 3 in a plate and once you eat it, you can't stop.…Read More

Taste Paradise is one of my favourite places to go for dim sum. Each of their dim sum is at worst average and I haven't been let down by what I ordered this trip there. I ordered the siew mai, almond flakes prawn ball, custard bun, lotus leaf rice and the pan-fried pumpkin pastry. Of the five dishes, my favourites are the custard pau and the siew mai. The custard pau is the flowy saltish sweet custard which will ooze out of the pau once you bite into it. It is really out of the world nice. I also love the siew mai as it is made of fresh prawns instead of meat and the siew mai is also not very salty nor greasy. The only not so fantastic dish is the almond flake prawn ball. The two flavours just don't really match each other.…Read More

It must be posh interior fatigue that I was suffering from because the dim lighted luxurious interior with huge paintings of past Chinese emperors certainly didn't impress me much. But I must say it's definitely nicer than alot of the Chinese restaurants out there.Crispy Silver Bait - We got off to a great start with the crispy silver bait, as recommended by our waitress. The silver fish was crisp and sweet with a touch of sour. Portion size was quite small so get more to share if you have a big group.XO Carrot Cake - What used to wow me back then turned out to be sheer disappointment this time round. It was overly soft and I couldn't make out any savoury aftertaste. The only thing I could make out was the spice from the chilli, if you consider that a taste. I reckon your local hawker centre could do a much better job at a less than half the price for the same portion size.Roasted Pork - This dish of roasted pork takes edibility to a new low and I'm not kidding. Each tiny cube was literally one layer skin, one layer lean meat and two layers of fats. Sure, the skin was crisp but the pork taste was just too overwhelming (they probably didn't blanch it long enough) and they tried to mask it by seasoning it with more salt. Someone commented it was akin to literally biting into a raw pig and I can't help but agree. Gross.Peking Duck - At least the peking duck didn't suffer the same fate as the roast pork. It was decently crisp but overall could have been better. The crepes were a little too thick and could have done with less sweet sauce. Oh and the crackers that came alongside were just plain bland.We opted to have the meat fried with rice and it was average at best. Rather tasteless and a tad too moist with an evident fowl smell. Poor duck.Yuan Yang Prawn Ball - Finally a dish that presented a glimmer of hope - the yuan yang prawn ball, comprising of one wasabi prawn and one laksa prawn, served up in a martini glass. While both were big and crunchy, I personally favoured the wasabi prawn over the latter as the laksa seasoning did seem a little bland and lacklustre as compared to the more provocative wasabi.Garoupa in Two Ways - This was apparently the special for the day and it honestly didn't look or taste as great as what our waitress had described to us. Presentation wise, it looked haphazard at best with the steamed garoupa and asparagus occupying the centre and flanked by fried pieces of garoupa. Generally speaking, the fish meat was fresh but sticky (too much corn flour!) and not very sweet. I couldn't quite make out the delicateness of the fish.Tofu with Crab Roe - Another bordering on average dish. I appreciated the generous serving of crab meat shreds in the gravy but could have done with a little more flavour. ie. crab taste. Same goes for the tofu as well, which was barely in existence. One interesting/weird thing about the gravy was that it had a sourish overtone that didn't sit too well with either of us.The bill dealt a $360 blow to the 7 of us. Food quality was average but service was decent. I cannot fathom how an excellent dinner at Taste Paradise Mosque Street could culminate in such a poor showing at the Ion outlet. Looks like I'll be placing my trust elsewhere in future.…Read More

I come to this restaurant especially only for its dimsum. Usually I go there for lunch with my family every Sunday after my service. The dimsum is absolute even though it is pricey for each dimsum dish may cost about S$5.50 or more. I recommend those who like dimsum or chinese food very much to go down to this restaurant.…Read More

my dad brought the family to taste paradise for a nice meal. it's been a while since the family sat down and ate together. i order my usual but favourite salmon sashimi. how can a meal be nice if the nicest thing on earth is not ordered. their salmon sashimi is sliced perfectly. the thick and juicy slab of salmon is indeed mouth watering. the wasabi they served is authentic wasabi. goes hand in hand with the delicious salmon sashimi. it is just so refreshing!…Read More

Àbacus Beads: Made of dough formed of tapioca and yam, cut into abacus-bead shapes, which when cooked, are soft on the outside and chewy on the inside. The dish may be cooked with minced chicken or pork, dried shrimps, mushrooms and various other vegetables. The dish is stir-fried, seasoned with light soy sauce, salt, sugar and sometimes rice wine or vinegar (depending on taste).I had this in one of the hakka cuisine in this food court introduce by one of my friend, surprisingly addictive. I like it served hot and taste chewy and so flavourful! most important is not as oily as others i have tried.. It is worth a try because i heard that Àbacus Beads is very hard to made. and u don't need to order other food because it actually filled us up after a few mouthfuls!…Read More

I went with a few friends somewhere last year for the first time to Taste Paradise. The kids kept praising their soup and wanted more and we had a enjoyable dinner except the fois gras which was gamey. The next day then I was told by my friend who paid for the bill first that there were some discrepancies on the bill as we ordered a dish in medium portion but was served(not knowing it was a big portion servings) and charged the price of a large portion. I called the manager up and she was so helpful and compensate us for the inconveniences by giving us a 30% off the entire bill on our next visit where we had dim sums and it was so nice. I was skeptical of accepting her offer at first but we were very surprised even with the seats allocated to us was in a room and on top of it, she did make a point to check if everything was doing okay with us. I really applause her service and her attitude in this industry.:)…Read More

my hubby and i love trying out new food, we also love eating dim sum. we were shopping around ion orchard when we came across this lovely dim sum restaurant called taste paradise. i ordered the har gou, my favourite dim sum dish. their har gou taste really good, most probably due to the fresh ingredient they use. the prawn was crunchy and succulent. the har gou skin was smooth and not too thick. it was really delicious!…Read More

Continuing from my previous post.The salted egg custard is not salty at all. There is light sweetness in it and I like how it camouflage itself like a cupcake! Upon taking a bite, you will notice that the entire bun is filled with custard. This is a must have dish!Chicken feet has always been my favorite dish of all. This dish didn't fail me. The feets are so soft I could just put the entire thing in my mouth and pull out the bones without any efforts.I didn't taste any part of this dish so I can't comment much but it looks nice though.Leek that doesn't have strong leek taste. Again this dish is best eaten hot.I love egg tarts especially those I have tasted in Hong Kong. This little tarts doesn't taste the same but they came close. I like it that the egg custard is not hard and the pastry is flaky. It's also a good size so that customer can have the stomach to try other food items.Big succulent prawns wrapped in soft translucent skin. Need I say more??Didn't taste this dish too coz we ordered too much and couldn't stuff in any more food. Should have ordered in small quantity next time.Symbolically speaking, a birthday needs to have chang shou mian (longevity noodle). To celebrate mum's 60th birthday today, the service staff actually suggested ee fu noodles as it is easier to digest and the kids can eat. To be frank, I don't like ee fu noodles and will always give this dish up when I attend wedding dinners. But this noodle is surprisingly nice. I finished every bit of it. Could be the mini fried shrimps added into the noodles that gave it the fragrance and yummy taste.Initially, I find that the service is rather slow. But for some reason, after serving the 4th dish...the rest came faster than we could eat. I reckon it is due to the fact that we have a curfew to meet. We were at the first seating. So our timeslot is from 11am to 12.50pm. So when they are slow in the beginning and fast in the middle, we were forced to gobble down our food. What's great is that the service crew were helpful especially their captain (a guy by the surname of Ong...that's all I could see from his nametag). His explanation to our questions were very satisfying and best of all, he uses our dialect (Cantonese) to speak to us when he heard us speaking among ourselves in Cantonese. There were 11 of us spending a total of S$190+. I think the food is a good value for money. All in all, I will definitely head back to Taste Paradise for a few more visits with my friends. …Read More

Celebrate mum's birthday today at Taste Paradise. I quite like the food and the environment. The porcelain china utensils are very pretty. Makes the dining experience more unique. For drinks, we ordered Chrysanthemum tea so that the kids can drink too. The tea came in a very pretty silver pot with a long nose.Pork rib...mini version. They made the meat so tender it melts in my mouth. Not too many of those black bean as it can be quite salty if too too much is added.Condiments to go with the congee we ordered. The crispy crackers can be eaten on its own if you don't like them soggy from soaking in the congee.Soft on the outside, crispy on the inside. Love it that the sauce is not salty so it's easy on my tongue.Crispy spring roll that isn't really very oily. You know how some spring rolls tend to be soaked in oil. I like the crunchiness when I bite into the spring roll.Those little dumplings are good eaten when it's piping hot coz the skin hardens when it turns cold. Taste quite similar to that of Din Tai Fung.Scallop is said to have wrapped inside the cheong fun. But I didn't taste any scallop. Maybe I should taste this dish again to find out again. But the cheong fun is really soft...simply melted in my mouth. Don't even need to bite Alright, ran out of space to post pictures. Continue in Part II.…Read More

for photos and more reviews, visit http://littlemomentsofmylife.wordpress.com/ (:finally i visited taste paradise for dim sum!!!!! (: i've heard about it a looooong time ago, but it's really difficult to get a reservation there! :( i called quite a number of times, but it was always full. finally this time i could get a reservation, but they only gave me two available timings 11am and 2pm. omg. oh well, for good food! (:i have to start with my char siew sou ($3.90 for 3) first because it was the best thing i tried that day. it was really really really nice. i'm not kidding you. yes, i am a fan of char siew sou, so it would most likely taste good to me, but this one was really special. the pastry was absolutely delicious! it was slightly sweet, and crumbly just-so that it fell apart in my mouth. the charsiew inside was coated with the wonderful sweet sauce which was absolutely lovely. ohmyyyy! really, you HAVE TO TRY IT. it's the best char siew sou i've ever eaten.most of the dishes we ordered were actually pretty much the usual fare. like chee cheong fun with char siew ($4.80). but there were also variations on this, one of which i found quite interesting was the scallop version ($5.50). and i also liked the wok fried cheong fun with XO chili sauce ($5.80, see picture below)! it was fragrant, infused with the XO sauce (:mostly ate the usual har gow ($4.80 for 4), siew mai ($4.80 for 4) and char siew bao ($3.90 for 3) which were pretty standard. the egg tart ($3.60 for 3), unlike the char siew sou, was nothing to shout about.the steamed shanghai pork dumpling with foie gras ($7.80) was something different which we tried though! i thought it was pretty interesting (:the pan-fried pumpkin pastry ($3.20 for 3) was pretty yummy as well. crispy on the outside, spongy inside, with a nice smooth pumpkin paste in it.i read about taste paradise having really awesome custard buns, but why did i not see it on the menu?!?!?!??! :( aww!and we couldn't leave the place without dessert! not when there were so many nice-sounding goodies on the menu! i say 'nice-sounding' cos i was disappointed with my dessert :( sighhhhh. they should really have some sort of description in their menu :( bleargh. i guess it's just me. but in case you're like me and hate the taste of almond jelly, DO NOT order the steamed mashed taro served in young coconut ($8.50). it sounded absolutely delectable, and looked gorgeous. but the moment i popped a spoon of it into my mouth, i nearly spat it out because of the almond taste. YUCK :( it's actually oh nee, which i like. but why why why did they did to add in the almond. this is what i call 'complete redundancy' -.- they just destroyed a perfectly wonderful dessert! :( so anyway, bottomline is, if you like almond, by all means, order it. if you're like me, stay FAR away. : …Read More

A year ago, my first visit to Taste Paradise wasn't bad at all. Close to a year later, I thought it would be a great place to take M & R who had been wonderful in helping with various things for me in the last few months. Unfortunately, the repeat visit didn't live up to expectations. What we thought was a great corner table turned out to be awkward and caused more discomfort than anyone would have thought, with servers crossing over our heads to serve and clear. Personal space is so underrated these days that's it's a pet peeve of mine, and all the more so at a restaurant touted to be more exclusive than the others. You can take the girl out of public housing but you can't....Jellyfish with a spicy sauceStarters began uneventfully, with a chilled and crunchy jellyfish dressed in a tangy spicy sauce. Ordinary but in a pleasant way, and a nice way to cool down from the humidity out there.Century egg with a lime sorbetThen, this one got me. 5 diners, 4 servings. Despite repeated instructions and Q&As, we were finally told, after being served, that each order only has 4 servings and the kitchen cannot add one more measly spoon on the plate. I have heard that you cannot size down a standard order, but surely you can size up based on the number of diners. For an establishment of this supposed calibre, quite appalling. Their solution was to bring us another order with 4 servings, to which I said "forget it". While we were being polite waiting for the 5th spoon which never came, the sorbet had melted away to a watery slush, making this a non-event. Classic sharks' fin in superior brothAs some say: Saved by the bell. We were distracted by the next course, which is their signature specialty. A wholesome bowl of non P.C. sharks fin soup served in a stone pot. Still good after a year and a generous serving of fins (even if not the top notch dorsal kind), the broth is really the winner. Perhaps I thought it a tad less impressive than the first time around since I was sub-consciously seething from the previous non-event.Braised beef cheek with Foie GrasThis is a tried and tested combo. It's hard to go wrong especially if you have a good piece each of the cheek and the foie. While they were both admittedly pretty decent cuts, I thought the accompanying glace was a tad too glazed, almost oily, but without the undertones of a good reduced stock. So you leave this with a sense that there were shortcuts involved.Seafood and black truffle noodlesThis sounded awesome on the menu. And when it came, I thought "wow", that certainly looks like something even a good Italian restaurant would have to seriously contend with. Alas, a bite and all is given away. It was greasy, indicating a much lesser grade than extra virgin oil was used. Truffles were underwhelming and was the bits of seafood. While I was grateful for the small portion since I was getting full, I thought that neither the quality nor the quantity merited the price tag. Disappointing.Jelly cubes in Calamansi and sour plum This is a nice finish but again, if you compare to presentation from a year ago, you can see the lack of effort in even trying to dress this up. A bland looking dessert although they left the tacky dry ice effect intact. Ah well, since we are meant to go beyond skin deep, perhaps we might forgive the fact that this girl came out for a date looking her worst but thankfully was smart enough to be able to allure with enticing conversation. But, really?We were pretty well fed for the price, but would I go again? Well, it really depends. I think they have to up their game to be able to compete in an increasingly tight market of improving Chinese cuisines in Singapore. If I know I have better options of service and food, the location alone is certainly not enough to entice.For the original post, visit edeats.blogspot.com…Read More

Eggtart: a bit too flaky. it collapses too easily.蝦角: this is very good. the skin is just nice, not too thin, not too thick. prawns inside were big and delicious.燒賣: this is excellent. very very tasty. the roe would just explode in your mouth when you bite on it. The meat chunks are not too big and it has a good proportion of meat, prawn and mushroom.小籠包: this is not very nice. there wasn't much soup in the bao although the taste is pretty okay. you can definitely get better xiao long bao elsewhere.鮮蝦腐皮卷: The taste is pretty okay but it lacks the taste of the beancurd skin. Could be better.流沙奶皇包: this is another excellent dish. the custard really flows out.Service was good. The waitresses refilled the teacups almost all the time and we did not have to wait long for the food or bill.…Read More

I brought my family and girlfriend to taste paradise to yum cha as well as to celebrate my mother’s birthday. The dim sum there is really superb! The chee cheong fan is not like the normal ones you eat outside where it put sweet sauce on it. This one is drenched with a special gravy. The gravy is sweetish and saltish. But not too salty. The custard bun is another delicious dish that you must order. The bun is very soft and the custard is not too sweet. Really delicious. Their xiao long bao is reall good too, the skin is really thin and the soup is really tasty! Everyone was satisfied with the meal there!…Read More