Yi Dian Xin Hong Kong Dim Sum ( 一点心港式点心 ) @ Kovan

I love having dim sums. Dainty in bite-sized morsels (usually), easy to share plus there's variety. Ranging from steamed to deep fried and sometimes baked. A group of my friends wanted to meet up and someone suggested dim sum, so we Googled for one that is of a reasonable price. Yi Dian Xin was suggested and readily agreed.

We met on a weekend at about 11am and the coffeeshop was rather packed. Teo Seng Eating House (潮成餐室) is a smallish coffeeshop within walking distance from Kovan MRT. About 8 minutes walk.

stall front

various photos with artists / newspaper clippings

Yi Dian Xin is nearer towards the drinks stall. To order, one just need to fill up the order form and indicate if you'd be dining-in or to take-out.

order form

wait for it to buzz

As the food may not be ready at the same time, we took what we could and the rest was delivered to our table by the friendly staff. We tried carrot cake, chee cheong fun, steamed pork ribs, chicken claws, siew mai, lo mai gai (x2), porridge, fried beancurd fritters, fried you tiao with mango, fried prawn dumplings, and lava buns (x2). Lots of food for four pax for brunch.

dim sum spread

porridge (house special)

The porridge that we ordered was indicated as Chef's choice. Basically, it is somewhat like a 艇仔粥 (ting zai porridge) with the inclusion of squid strips, fish strips, pig skin strips, and peanuts. Natural tasting, so put a few drops of soy sauce if you'd like. As expected, porridge was thick, smooth and gooey.

lo mai gai 糯米雞

My favourite of the lot, was the 糯米雞 (steamed glutinous rice with chicken, char siew, and mushrooms). Perfectly dark, tasty and chockful of ingredients. Each grain of the glutinous rice was good and none of the 生米 (uncooked rice) nonsense.

The biggest surprise was in the form of the carrot cake. The version here is soft, round and steamed. The usual Hong Kong dim sum versions are those square, pan-fried versions with diced dried shrimps and chinese sausage bits.

Another must-order would be the 流沙包 (liu sha bao or lava buns). I wasn't careful the first time and it 'exploded' onto my palm. Goodness! The fragrance of the salted egg lingered on to the fingers until it was washed off. Very good lava buns.

salted egg custard lava buns 流沙包

For Kovanites, it is good to have stalls selling quality dim sums instead of the kopitiams run-of-the-mill kind, in the neighbourhood area. Just waiting for ex-Chefs of restaurants to open up more hawker stalls in neighbourhood areas. Come to West, ok?

We observed that there is another stall in the coffeeshop that seemed very popular and with long queue. The queue for First Street Teochew Fish Soup stall was never-ending from 11am to 1pm. Let me know your feedback for those that have tried!

Yi Dian Xin Hong Kong Dim Sum

Address: 012 Upper Serangoon Rd, Teo Seng Eating House, Singapore 534750
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yidianxin1kovan/
Contact: 9168 5587
Business Hours: 
Daily 7:00AM to 3:00PM. Closes on Tuesdays.

Hei Wan @ Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong

Was feeling rather tired after walking around countless of alleys and shops. Passed by this dim sum place called "喜運", so we decided to go in and try (part of our to-do in Hong Kong was to eat some dim sum...). The lady asked us to wait for 5-10 minutes for a table.

shop front with menu board

take-away area

While we were waiting, we saw people coming in and ordering "鸡饭" or chicken rice. Not the hainanese chicken rice but the dim sum/soup restaurant type of steamed rice with chicken. The chicken pieces looked succulent and tender. Very fragrant too!

Soon, we were called and seated inside.

table setting

A flask of tea was immediately placed on your table as soon as you sit down. Next came the cups, plates and chopsticks. The waiter will also place a bowl for you to rinse the utensils with the tea. The tea from the flask is also our drinking tea for the night.

We ordered a variety of dim sum such as quail's egg siew mai, har gao, custard bun, century egg and lean meat porridge, soup of the day, salted fish meat cake with steamed rice, fried beancurd with mushroom fillings, fried springrolls, charsiew cheong fun, dong po beef balls and chicken feet. All are just single orders, so some of the items I did not get to try.

century egg, lean meat porridge

yummy porridge, flavourful

salted fish meat cake (pictured without the rice), nicely fragrant and not too salty

charsiew cheong fun, with rather thick layer of skin

assorted dim sum

quail's egg siew mai

har gao

har gao

chicken feet, nice sauce and tender feet with a bite

xiao long bao

fried beancurd skin with mushrooms

fried beancurd skin fillings

dong po beef balls, huge!

dong po beef ball

tender and nice

fried springrolls

fried spring roll with prawns and fruit

custard bun

not the type that we wanted!

We paid in total about HKD185 for the meal. So each pax was about SGD6+. Cheap and good.

Hui Lau Shan @ Hong Kong

Passed by this dessert shop while we were walking aimlessly around Mong Kok (or at least I think we were at Mong Kok....) We were pretty tired from all those walking around and not to mention, thirsty too. So what better way than to go in and have some cooling desserts!

signboard

The shop was pretty small in size, but we managed to get a table for us 5 pax.

menu

Service was brisk and very soon our orders came.

all time favourite mango pomelo

nice and smooth

They were having a special combo and it comprises of three small items. One of my group members got that for himself.

special combo

glutinous rice balls in mango soup

ice cream and jelly

Cold birdnest soup with hashima at HKD53 (less than SGD9)? Why not. Got one to try.

cold bird nest soup

birdnest

hashima and lotus seed

First time having hashima or snow jelly (or in reality, dried fallopian tube from a species of frog..ugh!). It tasted soft, and on its own nothing funky (thankfully!) The soup was sweet and cold. Nice. Lotus seed was still crunchy and birdnest was rather gooey. Drink everything together with the soup and it made a refreshing dessert.

The mango desserts there were as nice as whoever that had tried Hui Lau Shan (许留山) would say.

Yung Kee @ Wellington Street, Hong Kong

First thing we did in Hong Kong (on a day trip from Macau), was to look for lunch. Someone suggested to eat roasted goose and I thought, "Yea, why not."

My friend led us towards Lan Kwai Fong and this restaurant is easily recognisable from across the street.

roasted goose, char siew~

entrance to the restaurant

a poet and goose?

certification

menu

maybe super rich customers sit near the dragons?

We took a lift to Level 3 and was promptly shown our table. It was about 12pm and there were many unoccupied ones. Probably still early.

We were served century eggs with ginger soon after we arrived. The waitress said it is a specialty in their restaurant. Nobody in my group said anything, so we just accepted it. I reckoned its like being served peanuts in Chinese restaurants, ie. chargeable.

century eggs with ginger

I like 'pei dan' or century eggs. So this dish was enjoyable. First time having smooth and soft center for century eggs. Their version of century eggs here do not have the usual pungent taste. It was actually nice!

yummy yolk~

My table is a bunch of budget conscious tourists (after all, we flew by budget airline....), so we ordered just two dishes; meat platter and vegetables, and a pot of tea and a round of white rice.

pot of Pu-er + chrysanthemum but why is the English wordings called "Pu Li"? No idea man.. 

vegetable with oyster sauce (choi dam in Cantonese)

soft and crunchy stems

meat platter with various sauces (attentively placed near its matching meats by the waiter)

ta-dah! Roasted goose!

pork slices

char siew

jellyfish

The jellyfish was actually quite bland tasting. Char siew was nice and soft although not charred. The roasted chicken was not as tender as the char siew. The pork slices was nicely refreshing when dipped in the vinegar sauce. The roasted goose, well... I guessed the good stuff comes from its oil? There's a layer of fats underneath its skin that oozes flavours when bitten into. Goes well with rice. Otherwise, its meat was kind of tough and reminds me of duck meat.

roasted chicken on steamed rice

condiments for roasted chicken was simply oil, ginger and spring onions equals to yums!

roasted goose

yummiest part of roasted goose was.. the skin?

Guess how much we racked up for this meal? A grand total of HKD918 for 5 pax! That is like SGD$30 per pax?! Whoa! After we paid, the bill only stated the total and not the individual charges for the dishes. But I remembered from their menu that the plate of vegetables costs HKD75, a bowl of white rice is HKD14 and the century eggs should set us back like HKD10 per head.

Service was efficient. We just need to lift the lid of our teapot and in less than a minute, someone would zoom in and remove our pot to refill the water.

I think we were pretty hungry and finished our meal in less than 40 minutes. On our way out, we saw many people waiting for their tables.