Its Mom's bday celeb and supposed to check out Mooi Chin. But due to some last minute stuff that cropped up, needed to find an alternative makan place instead. Immediately, I thought of Jade as I rem reading great reviews about Jade.

And so, I trooped down to mt my family for dinner at Jade after a catch up session with an old friend who was back in SG for a break from London.

As we settled down in our seats, a male wait staff in suit immediately came over to set the table (i.e., served the stewed peanuts and condiments as well as remove the cover from the chopsticks). At the same time, he requested for our order for tea. Very meticulously, he brought us the tea cups and arranged them nicely for everyone of us before serving us the tea.

As Mom is more fluent in Canto, I let her do the speaking. Hee, I can barely manage a proper conversation in Canto so can only understand and order the tea in Canto. :P After flipping through the menu, Mom finally ordered the following dishes:

1) Golden Mushroom, Sea Cucumber and Fish Maw withi Superior Thick Soup 上汤海参金菇鱼鳔羹 $36 per bowl
- Thick tasty soup. Fish maw taste tad strong though. So a teeny bit off here.

2) Braised Beancurd and Fresh Mushrooms in Oyster Sauce 蚝皇三菇滑豆腐 $16
- mmmm...Smooth silky beancurd, can one ever have enough? :)

3) Poached Matrimony Vines with 2 Kinds of Eggs 白灼金银泡九杞 $16
- Understood from Dad that the matrimony vines (a type of veg/herb) are very good for the eyesight. Did a teeny bit of research and realise that its actually the leaves of Wolfberries. :) Its the dish that was polished off, gravy included. :P I still want to maintain my eyesight and not wear specs.

4) Chicken cooked in Chinese Wine $18
- Chicken parts cooked in chinese wine and served in a claypot. The meat could have been seasoned a bit more though and certain chicken parts a tad dry. Otherwise, its still ok.

5) Frog Legs with Ginger Slices $28
- This is the best dish of all. Most favoured dish among all of us. The frog legs are deep fried but yet still fresh and juicy as I bite into it. Mom's years of cooking experience said that its cos the frog legs used were not those pre-pkged frozen kind, but real live ones. Woah! The ginger slices are sliced very thinly and deep fried to a crisp. Seriously, anyone can eat this without fear of ginger. Just like keropok!

One point that I must mention is the plain rice served. Its quite fragrant and good to eat on its own by SG standards. Dad did his usual taste test and gave it a thumbs up, considering that he had his fair share of really fragrant rice overseas. Fragrant rice paired with good food above, yea!

Overall, it was a nice meal with good food and good service even though the price is slightly on the high side. Restaurant was full house and noted that the frog leg dish was quite a popular choice. As I was walking out of the restaurant, I saw lobster sashimi on a table. mmmmmmmm.

Photos

My parents and I have a thing for dim sum on Sundays. And we've been trying a number of Chinese restaurants around Singapore to find our fave dim sum restaurant. We've been to the cheaper, more "mass production" type eateries like Yum Cha and Tak Po at Chinatown, we've tried (and been ripped off) by Lei Garden at CHIJMES, and we've frequented Asia Grand at Odeon Towers, braving the days when they are so packed that our reservation requests get turned down.

Jade Palace has to be one of The Forum's best-kept secret, assuming that it's even still a secret at all. It's tucked at an inconspicuous corner in the basement, but tt doesn't mean you don't have to reserve seats - the place is really packed with every table occupied, and there was a whole queue of people forming outside when we walked out of the restaurant!

There is good reason for this though - the food is really good, IMHO. For dim sum, we ordered:

1) Century egg and sliced pork congee
2) Char siew pao
3) Siew mai
4) Deep fried bean curd roll with XO sauce
5) Deep fried mango and scallop roll
6) Egg tarts
7) Yam puffs

We also ordered a plate of a combination of sliced Japanese kurobata char siew, and roast pork.

The congee was awesome. I really liked the taste. The yam puffs were also quite a winner, all warm and soft and sticky and tasty inside. The deep fried bean curd was bean curd mashed with XO sauce, wrapped in rice paper and deep fried. Light on the palate, and quite delicious too. The siew mai was also not bad, but a little small. I suppose it's because they give you 4 pieces in 1 serving instead of the usual 3.

The deep fried mango and scallop roll was either hit and miss, depending on whether the mango piece inside was sweet or not. If it was sweet, you got a flavourful blend of soft and sweet mango with chunky scallop in a crispy wrap. If it wasn't sweet... you got bland and crispy. The char siew pao was not bad, but ordinary. Like the egg tarts. Not bad too, but a little ordinary. It's hard to find exceptional egg tarts, I think. They have to be piping hot and crispy, which really depends on the time that you order them.

The roast pork was lovely though. The skin was crunchy, and I loved the blend of the layer of fat and the meat at the bottom, with the spicyness of the mustard. The Japanese char siew was also not bad, but I think I prefer the local char siew more. The former does melt in your mouth because of tt layer of fat, but you can't eat very much of it without feeling slightly sick from all the fat.

And what better way than to wrap all this up with dessert? I ordered almond cream, which I generally like all the same. And they served us complimentary fruits - papaya, mango, watermelon and apple.

Service was also warm, friendly and very efficient. All in all, a great place to come for food. And while our search for the best restaurant to have dim sum in Singapore still goes on, Jade Palace currently ranks up there at the top.

Just returned from dinner at Jade Palace in celebration of Father's Day. My father had 2 main criteria for the night: good Chinese food and no corkage charge. Thank goodness for HGW (so yes yes all of you are so crever) - spurred on by the positive reviews I was happy to find out that they did not charge corkage so proceeded to make a booking for this evening.

We had the lobster & seafood set menu ($55/pax) which included:

- Roasted duck and jelly fish combination - the duck was very good

- Shark's fin soup w/ seafood - no complaints here - although we've had better

- Sauteed scallop & honshimeji mushroom w/ shrimps egg sauce - excellent wok hei going here - mushrooms were lovely

- Crispy sea bass fillet w/ garlic & pepper - a real winner, this one - the batter was very tasty and crispy, and the fish tender and fresh

- Stewed lobster & noodle w/ ginger & spring onion - very good, comparable to Peach Garden's version

- Dessert of the day - here you get to choose from an array. We had the ice cream with black glutious rice and mango sago w/ pomelo. All good.

To be honest I'd never heard of Jade Palace before running the search on HGW but the place was packed (and I hear this is on any given weekend - not just because of Father's Day). An excellent find, and I look forward to trying their claypot rice next which had a section dedicated to it on Jade Palace's menus (noticed that many had ordered it and also highlighted as a must try in HGW reviews).

Good dimsum. Great claypot rice. Wonderful lobster braised noodles.

Prologue:
I've got to be honest here. I've been a regular of this restaurant for over 4 years. I'm a Gen-Xer, so naturally, it was the parents that introduced me to the restaurant. Parents, the Post-War Generation, they don't blog, nor do they bother writing reviews. So this review is dedicated to them - My Parents.
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Jade Palace Seafood Restaurant is firstly a Chinese restaurant. It serves excellent AND CONSISTENT quality Cantonese food. Whether it is your humble "lup mei fun" (Claypot rice with preserved meat) or your "high class" sharksfin soup, they do it very well here.

I've been here for lunch (ala carte dim sum, set menus and ala carte), dinner (set menus and ala carte) and birthday celebrations. The dining experience has always been positive with well-prepared food (=fresh ingredients, cooked properly), good and efficient service and this feeling of "comfort" that most restaurants don't evoke.

In terms, of food, this means that it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that your fish will be served half cooked or that the manager will BS his way out of the situation by claiming that Hongkongers eat their fish that way and thereby, insinuating that the Hongkongers don't know how to eat their fish and that I don't know the difference between a cooked fish and an under-cooked one. For free insults and bad food, you may like to patronise the Chinese restaurant on the 5th floor of Takashimaya, with the fish tanks and escalater outside the outlet.

Here's my opinion on the dishes that I love:

1) Sharks fin Broth - Thick and creamy (not from starch) with huge chunks of sharksfin (not the one string type). The broth has a strong character derived from a well-cooked stock (don't ask me what type of ingredients, I eat...not cook...er....cook that well).

2) Snow Crab Steamed with Egg white - Unlike the Singapore cooking style for crab (yes, I mean the over-rated chilli crab and black pepper crab), the flesh of the snow crab is so sweet that sweetness penetrates the gravy that comes with the steamed egg white. The day I was treated to this wonderful dish, the restaurant had just received it's delivery of the crustacean, that when it was steamed.....waaaaaaaahhhh....it was a real treat for my tastebuds ....(as I'm writing this, the flavours are on my tongue, as if I'm eating it as I write)

3) XO mee pok - Some people may like this, some people won't. Those that don't will find that the noodle has too much alkali or that it's pointless paying $15 a plate (single portion) for mee pok or that it's nothing to rave about. "Other people" aside, those who try and like the XO mee pok will enjoy the taste of the XO and chilli blend that makes the noodle taste so yummy. The texture of the noodle can range from slightly over cooked to cruncy perfection. It's a tiny inconsistency that I tend to overlook because I'd usually be quite stuffed by then to fault them.

4) Almond paste ("Hung Ngun Woo") with Glutinous rice balls stuffed with Sesame Seed paste - Not for those allergic to nuts. This dessert has a smooth texture and is not as sweet as found in most Chinese restaurants. I would say that out of the whole of Singapore - Lei Garden and JPSR - have the best almond paste - respectively

3 reasons to order Set Menus at JPSR:
1) Business meeting over lunch/dinner. You want to get down to talking about golf, shares, cars, business, sign the contract (in sequence), the least you want to do is to fuss over the menu. The set menu will set you back by $50 per person nett but the cost of not looking cheap and looking like you know your food - priceless.
2) Eating with friends. You want to just talk rubbish, enjoy your wine and have good food that matches the wonderful company you are with. You don't want to bother to impress your friends because they already know that you are what you eat.
3) Value for money. Don't worry about spending that $50-60 per person (before corkage) on your business associate, family or friends. It's worth it. They look at long term business, so they aren't about to fleece you with cheap fish on the menu or under-feed you with smaller portions. I've never left that restaurant feeling less than stuffed.

Second, JPSR is your on-site wine purveyor. The most hospitable Manager/Owner of the Restaurant, will be happy to discuss the finer points of wine and if you are a regular, would recommend a wine suited to your tastebuds - in Cantonese. Prices for a bottle is not going to be more expensive than picking a bottle yourself at your favourite bottle shop, but you can be assured, that the restaurant owner/manager is too savvy to risk long term business by introducing an inferior bottle to your table.

Service here is not intimidating and although not perfect (eg waitress sticks her hand across your face to replace a dirty plate 2 seats away), it resonates a feeling of "familiarity" - like they know your name, remember the wine you drank before, the favourite dessert, whether we like red or green chilli with our peanuts. Places like Lei Garden also have the same level of service - this lies with key staff that do "client account management" in addition to "order taking".

JPSR against 2 of Singapore's popular Cantonese restaurants:

JPSR versus Lei Garden (next to California Fitness-Orchard):

Alike: Both serve good set menus and quality food.

Differences: Garden is more marketing savvy with regular promotions on their set menus. Service at JPSR is consistent whether during busy or lull periods whereas you tend to get huge gaps in service consistency when Lei Garden is busy.

JPSR has private rooms - one of which is in the wine cellar - guaranteed to add ambience to the dining experience.

JPSR versus Hua Ting:

Differences: Hua Ting has a rather "upmarket snooty" personality that forces one to focus on the quality of food and "ambience" as opposed to the wholistic experience.

Hua Ting probably has better Peking duck than JPSR. But dollar for dollar, I'd say that Hua Ting charges 20% more than on similar food items/portions.

From a business perspective, if I want to "Wow" my client/biz partner that I've got loads of money and also fine taste in dining...ie I want to show off....I'd take people to Hua Ting.

If I want to portray that I've got heart and I value relationships more than money, I'd go to JPSR.

Savvy????

This place is overall good for family and business gatherings. Take the time to build a relationship with the people here at JPSR, they'll love you back.