My brothers, mother and I stayed at Mandarin Orchard Hotel. Whenever my family visits Singapore we always stay there. At the reception lobby there was a huge gingerbread house which literally was constructed out of bits of REAL gingerbread. While it is visually stunning and impressive, I thought it was a waste of gingerbread because it obviously cannot be consumed.
Upon arrival we headed for dinner at a classic favourite whenever we visit: Din Tai Fung. Located at the bottom floor of Paragon shopping mall, it is a must try! Specialising in steamed dumplings, Din Tai Fung is extraordinarily good and everything we ordered that night tasted 10/10. We ordered fried rice with fried pork chop, the vegetable appetiser, 2 dumplings, double boiled chicken soup and the Dan Dan noodles.
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| Fried Rice with fried pork chop |
The fried rice is not the typical kind you get in Chinese restaurants in Australia. Instead of the usual soy sauce it relies heavily on eggs and simple seasoning. Boy was it delicious! It tastes cleaner and the succulent, well seasoned fried pork makes it a perfect meal on its own.
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| Vegetable appetiser with sliced tofu, bean sprout, sliced mushrooms, chillies, rice noodles, and chives in vinegar dressing |
The appetiser is light and refreshing but it has a bit of an acquired taste which might not appeal to non- Asian consumers. It is textural with the crunch of the bean sprouts and mushrooms and slippery bits and pieces of vegetables coated with the vinegar dressing.
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| Double Boiled chicken soup The double boiled chicken soup is a stuff of legends. The broth is savoury, clean and delicious, and the chicken is well cooked. |
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| Dan Dan noodles Out of all the dishes we ordered, the dan dan noodles would be on the bottom of the list but it was still edible and I suppose somewhat satisfactory. The sauce had peanuts and a rather strong nutty flavour which I did not expect nor like that much. The noodles were however really nice.  |
The image won't let me add a caption, but this dumpling flavour is a new item on the menu. It did not have the delicious soup inside the dumpling but rather is stuffed with chopped mushrooms and truffle oil. Hearty, savoury and a must for mushroom lovers, it did taste good but I prefer Din Tai Fung's soupy dumplings.
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| Pork mince soup dumplings
Excuse the missing dumpling (hungry brother snatched one before I could take a picture!). This is the classic pork mince dumpling. Encased in the super thin dumpling skin is steaming, super delicious soup and pork mince. OMG. It is life changing.
After dinner we walked around a bit. We also went to the amazing food hall in Takashimaya. It has the best food stalls and some bakery shops. Mom bought some awesome egg tarts which she had to queue for.
The egg tarts taste amazing! There is a minimum of 4 tarts and a maximum purchase of 16 tarts. They are served fresh from the oven so are still warm. The crust is incredibly buttery, the centre sweet and eggy, delicate and gooey, it all melts together when you bite into it. I reckon if the custard has the nice char like on those traditional Portuguese egg tarts it would be more visually appealing but the outstanding flavour and aroma of the tarts compensates for that. Clearly Singaporeans agree with me because there is always a massive line for the stall.
For dinner on the second night we ate at a super traditional Japanese restaurant called Anzu at Takashimaya. It only served deep fried foods for that night which I was kind of thrown off about since it's not really healthy (I am really really really particular with what I eat, ensuring it is always healthy).  |
At the start they gave us a bowl filled to the brim with super finely shaved white cabbage and a few salad leaves on the side. I was super happy about that! They also had picked radish for us to nibble on which was sweet and had a good bite to it, and a bowl with sesame seeds and a molter and pestle to pound it. The smashed sesame seeds then is to be mixed with a sauce for the tonkatsu.
Brother ordered some katsu set with deep fried shrimps and pork. It came with rice, miso soup, picked vegetables, and red sticky rice on the side.
Other brother and I shared a katsu hotpot, with deep fried pork simmered in delicious sauce. It's not exactly hot pot but the presentation is awesome, with the cool-looking pot. Like the dish above it came with the same side dishes. The simmering sauce was savoury and quite salty but full of flavour. The whole dish was cooked with eggs which soaked up the sauce well. Super delicious but it needs to be eaten with rice or else it might be too salty for most.
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| Entrance of the Anzu restaurant |
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