I'd known next to nowt about Huangshan, save the fact that it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and ohhhh yesssss, I would so love to visit it before I pop my clogs.

I certainly didn't know anything about the cuisine from this part of China - nor that the restaurant a stone's throw away from my gaff that had opened for business about 3 months ago was serving cuisine hailing from Huangshan. I have to admit that for the last 2 months, the restaurant looked chilly and forlorn sans customers, and I'd (wrongly) assumed that this must be some sort of indication of the quality of grub there.

I have been wrong. Shame on me. I should've given Huang Shan Restaurant a shot before anyone else had found out about this gem.

So today, I decided - after perusing the other reviews here - to arrange for my family to celebrate my dad's hatchday there. It was going to be an eye-opener for us all - for one, we'd never eaten Anhui cuisine; for another, my folks are convinced that my Joo Chiat neighbourhood is known for other less salubrious and delicious foreign delights.

By the time we arrived at 7pm, I was relieved that I'd called earlier to book a table - surprisingly, the restaurant was packed to the seams. We were ushered to our table by extremely friendly and cheery staff, who proceeded to assist us with our order with recommendation. We were hardly an easy company to please, since my folks are fond of their meat, and I'm the sole vegetarian at the table.

We ordered a number of dishes - a cold dish with mountain vegetables and tofu skin; chopped french beans with olives; tofu and mushroom balls in broth; the house specialty of Anhui pork ribs, hotplate fish with sweet and spicy onion sauce; and a special Anhui mountain veggie dish which was fried with breadcrumbs and served as a filled roll.

The cold dish was excellent - just the right dose of savoury flavour to compliment the fresh vegetables. The french beans was a tad on the oily side, but I understand that is the usual style for Anhui cuisine, and the chef is fast learning that the Singaporean palate may not desire so much grease. The tofu and mushroom balls were delicate and light. But my favourite had to be that Anhui veggie roll - it had a subtle tea fragrance to it that worked perfectly with the herbal taste of the mountain vegetables, and the fact that it was served as a crispy stuffed roll was ingenious. The staff was happy to answer my incessant queries about the veggies (these were special mountain vegetables that had to be flown from China; and yes, the tea taste is something Anhui is known for because of its famous Mao Feng tea - which we also had a pot of, and I thought was divine and delicate.)... and their eagerness to talk about the food demonstrated their knowledge of the cuisine - something that can hardly be said about many other food establishment and wait staff around these parts.

Given that I am not a meat-eater, I can't really comment on the meat dishes. Suffice to say that my folks loved them all - and even slurped up the sauces that came with the pork ribs and fish. I noticed how clean the bones from the rib dish was, which must be an indication of how tender and scrumptious it was.

For desserts, we ordered another Anhui specialty - steamed pumpkin pudding in lily buds and rice wine. I am hardly one for Chinese desserts as most of the stuff I find in restaurants are unnaturally sweet. The chef at Huang Shan Restaurant, however, clearly understood that the true art lies in bringing out the natural sweetness of the ingredients, rather than slathering it with saccharine syrup. The pumpkin pudding was absolutely fabulous, as you can imagine. What I want to know is: whatever possessed the first person who came up with the dish to think of pairing pumpkin with rice wine to create a dessert? What ingenuity!

And oh, to end off the whole wonderful dinner, here's what we call real service - I had casually mentioned during my booking of the table that it was my dad's hatchday. And what do you know... the staff remembered that, and presented us with a huge fruit plate at the end of the dinner, on the house.

The dinner didnt' get my pocket screaming blue murder too - it was $87.50 for a total of 6 dishes and 1 dessert. And that included the 10% service charge, which the staff well deserve, given their fantastic service and knowledge of their menu.

Will I be back? Oh yes. Hopefully within the next week. Do I despise my not having discovered this gem earlier since it's a stroll away from my house? Absolutely, and this will teach me a lesson never to judge a restaurant's grub by how popular or full it is!

(Oh and just to add - my folks were so impressed that they took namecards of the place to tell their pals about it. This has to be a sign, since they are soooo hard to please when it comes to good food.)