It's my dad's birthday and he's a pork person when it comes to food. So, this an opportunity to visit Hua Ting after I've heard so much hipe over its roasted suckling pig. You've to pre-ordered the pig at least one day in advance. One suckling pig is good for 4~6 people.

Hua Ting had won many food accolades in the past years under the management of their Master chef, Chan Kwok, who had won the Asian Ethnic Chef of the year 2005. He sure had brought with him, good Cantonese cuisine from Hong Kong.

We were ushered into a small private room with high back chairs. The service standard is good. A waitress stayed with us in the room to serve all our needs throughout the dinner. My visit to Hua Ting last night sure leaves a good impression, food and service included.

The following were the dishes on we have eaten.

1) Roasted suckling pig - This is why we come to this restaurant after the hipe I've got from friends. The crispy skin from the pig is sliced off the pig's body. In Hua Ting, a little piece of "bun" is laid over the crispy pig skin and coupled with some spring onion. This combination taste nice with the char siew sauce. I've had a couple of pieces wth the XO sauce that was provided and it taste good too! The rest of the pig can be used for fried noodles or fried rice.

Some tips for folks who likes good suckling pig but without the frills. Yan Chuan Roaster (S) Pte Ltd. Tel :+65 67472623. They cater to delivery for all events. Try to ask for smaller size suckling pigs over the phone. Smaller size ones taste better. Do call to check out the price, pig's price fluctuates.

2) Shark's bone soup - This is a dish that do not need extra condiments. The soup is boiled using shark's bone, mushroom , with some seafood and some Chinese herbs. This is a taste of all the natural ingredients in the soup and there's no need for pepper, vinegar or soy sauce to enhance its flavours


3) Pan seared venison with mushroom - The meat is tender and with the gravy, its easy to eat. However, I can taste a slight hint of tenderizer and the gravy is not enough to cover it. Its still good though.

4) King prawn in preserved olive stew - This is a private dish that was off the menu but was recommended by the senior waitress who took our orders. The preserved olive stew gives the prawn an exquisite taste.

5) Stir fried Asparagus with XO sauce - Simple as it seems, my dad finished off 2 portions on behalf of my wife who underestimate the spiciness of the XO sauce. My wife got a very low tolerance for chilli :)

6) Fried Ee Fu Noodles with the pork from the suckling pig.

7) Desert : Black glutinous paste with vanila ice cream.

For photos and more details see :
http://4-the-love-of-food.blogspot.com/2008/09/hua-ting-really-some-refined-cantonese.html

Hua Ting is the kinda place that inspires hushed whispers of its gastronomical pleasures, even amongst the jaded business lunch clientele. We would go more often if it was located closer to the CBD, or if we had the luxury of longer lazier lunch.

Food: The deepfried white bait was light and crisp, and the shark cartilage soup was comfortingly, nourishingly pleasing. The baked mango with chicken tart completely won my jaded dim sum palate over, and the mixed platter (roast duck and two other items I forget) was excellent, as was the baked silver cod with honey. The mango pomelo dessert was decent, but the egg white puffs with durian were quite disappointing, according to those who tried it.

Service: Excellent!

Ambience: Great place for business lunch. And just lunch in general, heh.

This beats other hotel dim sum joints hands down.

I was there on Thursdya, July 24th, 2008 with 7 others and we had the wasabe prawns and duck eggs (excellent), pork ribs (poor, recommended by waitress, quite salty), soup (cannot remember the name but poor for Hua Tung standard). Overall most of us were not happy with the quality of the food and was wondering if we should ever go back there.

We were tired of eating at the usual suspects for our dim sum fix and decided to try Hua Ting.

Our party of six had a nice cosy corner of the restaurant and the ambience was great! Not too noisy and not seated very near any other table (something you don't get at crystal jade for example. Crystal jade is reserved for when I want to be kaypo and listen in on other pple's lives). The only thing was that the wait staff were not too attentive with re-filling our tea cups. Had to keep getting their attention.

The dim sum was v good. It was very tasty and fresh (what else do you need in dim sum?). I particularly liked the pan fried carrot cake and baked mango with chicken pastry. Ymmy!

Wasn't too expensive as well, at about $25 per person.

Visited this place couple weeks ago to the raving reviews on HGW.

Century Egg Porridge - $8 for one small bowl
Prawn Dumplings (Har Kau) - $1.60 per piece
Siew Mai - $1.60 per piece
Char Siew Bao - $1.30 each small bao
Cheong Fun - $4.80
Carrot cake - $1.30 per piece
Glutinous Rice - $1.95 each small ball
Chicken feet - $3.90

Other than the dim sum being a little bit on the salty side and expensive side, it is overall ok. You get a better and bigger bowl of century egg congee at Crystal jade at a lower price so that you might want to skip the congee. Understand this is Chinese fine dine but still...century egg congee is century egg congee not worth $8 for a small bowl.

Personally, in terms of dim sum I am not impressed. Maybe I was expecting a lot after reading all the good reviews here... I should go back and try the ala carte menu some time but when it comes to dim sum I am going back to Red Star and the push cart. The whole feel of having dim sum at Red Star, the food and, the price is just better for me.