Tallest ‘Yusheng’ ever. [Review of Xi Yan Restaurant]
For this year’s family dinner, we headed down to Xi Yan Restaurant at 38A Craig Road.
Excellent choice for business dining, family/friends gatherings and other private events as they only have 6 tables in total. The whole experience was fantastic, and I can say it’s the most exquisite food I’ve ever tasted.
Neatly tucked away in a row of shophouses along Craig Road, Xi Yan Restaurant was hard to find. I climbed up a flight of stairs with little candles laid by the side and when I opened the door into the restaurant, I stepped into a quaint little space decorated with paintings and rich red velvet drapes. There were vases of flowers placed in the centre of the tables.
Enough of the place, now the food!
The menu for our 10-course dinner; I was pleasantly surprised that they even had a customized menu ‘for Mr David Lau & Guests’!
Xi Yan’s signature Yusheng
This is the tallest and tastiest yusheng I’ve ever eaten! The tower of salmon sashimi topped with roe totally rocks! Plus the salad greens, wild rockets etc really made this yusheng a refreshing combination.
The completed yusheng, ready to be tossed high and rough!
They used different ceramic cups for each person, made it feel homely :)
Golden oyster nuggets in tarocurd sauce
This was really yummy! The oyster was juicy without a fishy taste. The presentation is just lovely, with the oyster set in little paper boats.
Greenhouse Tomatoes in Wasabi Sesame Sauce
This has to be their best-selling dish! The tomatoes were so sweet, and the special homemade sesame sauce made it so deliciously fragrant. I bet even if you disliked tomatoes, you’d fall in love with this.
Stir-fried Kimchi Prawns with ‘Nian Gao’
I loved this too! The yellow sauce is actually cheese, so this dish is cheesy and savoury. There was no usual strong sour taste of kimchi, it tasted more like pickled cabbage. But this was the portion served for about 10 people, so I only had 2 prawns, some niangao and a kimchi! I want more!
Roast Chicken with Kaffir Lime Leaf
Fantastic. The skin roasted to a golden crisp, and the meat tender and flavourful. Loved it!!
Zhenjiang Spareribs
I heard that this dish had to be ordered 2 weeks before date of dinner! It’s sweet (maybe a bit too sweet for my liking), and tasted a bit like brown sugar marinated spareribs. But good nonetheless :)
Shrimp paste Fish with Pomelo Sauce
The fish was a little dry, but the sauce was good. It’s really interesting to use pomelo for sauce, but I can say it worked.
Abalone Ginseng Chicken soup
Stir-fried Mushrooms with Pickled Cucumber
Palm Sugar Ice Cream on Pandan Rice with Coconut Cream
This totally rocks. I’ve never tasted such a nice ice-cream combination ever. Imagine, ice-cream with glutinous rice?! But here it is! I would love to go back for this again, cuz you can’t find it anywhere else.
The wines and champagnes for the night.
My uncle is a wine connoisseur and dinners with him cannot go without excellent wines and champagnes. I love dinners with him cuz that means I get to drink top-notch wines :)
Ending the flawless experience with a toast!
There, there’s the host on the extreme right, leading with the toast.
This is private dining at its finest. Get to know more about Xi Yan at their website here.
I’m already thinking to book my first reservation with them when I get my first pay-check. ;)
