This is the 2nd time I've been to the restaurant within 2 months. The first time we were there, there were 5 of us and we enjoyed the dim-sum buffet and felt that it held good value given the quality of the food.

On our second trip there, based on my recommendation, 75 of us descended upon them (8 tables full) at noon for the dim-sum buffet. We had placed reservations one week in advance to let them know to expect us.

What followed was a disaster.... We ordered the dishes... They mixed up the tables and the orders... some tables ended up with missing dishes. For my own table, we tried to order again. After waiting 45 minutes, they told us that all our food had arrived?? Huh? What happened to our second order? You can understand that we were pretty upset. Service recovery was non-existent.

You can be sure that all 75 of us who went for a celebration (now it had turned sour for us) would never step foot in Hua Song again.

I had the opportunity to try out the buffet at Made In China recently. Located at Haw Par Villa, it had an interesting museum that was attached to the restaurant which showed how our grandparents lived when they first came to Singapore. An interesting piece of diagram also shows the estimate number of Chinese folk all around the world - even in the heartlands of Africa. But enough of that, I came here because of the reviews on the value dim sum and I am determined to get my money's worth, so here we go-

MUST TRIES

1) Fried Cuttlefish-balls - Wrapped in nice hot pieces of breaded crumps, this cuttlefish balls are a great way to start your meal and open up your appetite. The breadcrumbs do melt in your mouth when consumed hot.

2) "Xiu Mai" - The basic dish of most dim sum, this meaty steamed pork meatballs are nice and easy to consume without the overly strong pork smell.

3) Roast Duck - I am a little biased here because I love duck and so this is a must have dish for me. Tastes normal.

4) Chinese Cabbage - Not oily and good as a vegetable dish to compliment the consumption of the otherwise mainly meaty items

5) Fried Kway Teow - For those that like fried kway teow without the cockles you will enjoy this oily but unhealthy dish.

6) Egg Tart - Great to end your meal with this dessert, which is in a small portion and would not take up a large space in your stomach. The egg part does melt in your mouth when consumed hot.

TRY IF YOU HAVE SPACE

1)Carrot Cake - An average dish that you can get easily at most places

2) "Har Kow" - The shrimp dumpling, while looking a little strange with its greenish tinge, tastes good when warm. However, expect the skin of the dumpling to be a stuck on the paper base of the dish.

3) Sweet and Sour Soup - This is a thick starchy soup that is commonly served in most American restaurants tailored after Sichuan cuisine. It's nice but it will take up a lot of space in your stomach.

AVOID

1) Tofu in Sweet Sauce - The skin of the tofu is a little hard to chew and the sauce is too sweet.

2)Fried Rice - You can get this anywhere so why eat this here?

In conclusion, while it is not the best "dim sum" place that I have ever eaten at, this buffet offers an acceptable quality at a good value for the price point - not including the valuable lessons you can learn about our early forefathers at the museum. The only bugbear may be in the service, but because of the large crowd that day I amm going to cut them some slack here.

went there to celebrate a special occassion on a friday night.
the place was quite empty at 7pm, but became 90% full by 8pm+.
very spacious area with plenty of room between tables, but quite noisy.

following a colleague's advice, we took a stroll around the museum after placing our order.
True enough, after our little walk thru' the history of early chinese migrants, the first dish had arrived at the table.

my colleague recommended the fish maw - and it was out of stock.
i wanted the kobe beef - and it was also out of stock.
then i asked for recommendations... and the disaster began.

first, came the peking duck's skin with crackers.
(no sign of the meat - yet; the order was for 1/2 duck).
presentation was OK, and crispy enough, but only the cucumber strips and spring onion + sweet sauce arrived.
The small saucer of the egg/pancake skin came when i was in the midst of figuring out how on earth was i to use the duck's skin to wrap the cucumber and spring onion.
and the staff made no mention of what happened to the MEAT (?).
price: $24

next, the prawn with pumpkin sauce arrived.
my gf thought it tasted good and prawns' sizes were OK.
altho' i normally avoid prawns, i tried one, and the pumpkin sauce coating complemented the prawn taste well enough.
prawn-lovers, you'd like this.
price: $24

we enquired with the manager about the duck meat.
he said that if simply sliced, there would be no charge.
if fried, there will be additional charge.
we opted for the sliced one.

we had barely finished the peking duck skin and just one prawn - and the soups came.
(their speed is astounding - with a jumbled sense of order, tho').

i had thought soups should come first.
we had 2 soups, one was a recommendation by the waiter (sorry, my mandarin is not up to standard to attempt any translation) - i just agreed to it, since it was their "special", according to him.
my SO (significant other) had another soup (a herbal one) from the menu.
both tasted exactly the same - with one being more oily, probably due to the pork in it.
price: $10 x 2 = $20

in quick succession, the "jade tofu" and vegetable with crab meat dishes arrived.
the "jade tofu" dish was 4 square pieces of tofu, with grinded dark green vege on one side, hence the "green jade" term.
mushrooms sat on top of the tofu - and below the tofu, was some vege
- cai xin, i think.
the taste is just "normal" - bland, if not for the sauce.
(retrospectively, i should not have ordred the other vege dish.)
the other half of me was wondering why was i not pre-warned about this during ordering time.
as a result, we had 2 "vege" dishes.
price: $18

i had requested that "bo1 chai4" (spinach, i think) be the vege used in the vegetable w/crab meat dish.
just imagine the standard cantonese spinach with oyster sauce dish, with a generous portion shredded crab meat all over the top.
taste = OK, but my gf found sand in some of it. uggh.
price: $22

now, our table was stuffed with the 2 vege dishes that we had yet to start on, and were busy trying to finish the prawns.
right after we finished the prawns, the bee hoon with crab meat came!
this was another recommendation by the waiter.

we then enquired AGAIN with the waitress about our peking duck MEAT.
(2nd time!)
still no sign of it...
we wondered if we had not asked about it, they would make no mention of it, and not serve it at all?
or had it been happily gobbled up elsewhere?
cos' it was taking farrrr tooo loonnng to get the MEAT.
i mean, how long must a chef take to slice the meat AFTER taking off the skin?

now, the beehoon w/crab meat - the same type of shredded crab meat used for the spinach was applied onto beehoon here.
taste was exactly the same + an extremely powdery / flour taste, in 2 small bowls, 1 for each person.
it was HORRIBLE.
to think that the waiter could recommend this, knowing that we already had the spinach w/crab meat.
price: 2 x $8 = $16

finally, the duck MEAT came.
it was the LAST dish to arrive and it was VERY VERY DRY.
i've had better stuff at Spring Court (tho' they charge extra for slicing up the duck meat).

we could not finish the food and requested for the duck meat and tofu to be packed for takeaway.
they promptly packed it neatly into plastic boxes and into a plastic bag, delivered to our table.
unfortunately, i discovered later, that there were tiny spotches of the duck's sweet sauce all over it - i only realised when my fingers felt sticky all over after holding the bag for a while.
yucks.

Overall, service was spotty.
the waitress would ocassionally come top up our tea, but after halfway thru' our dinner, they're really hard to get hold of.

they don't even give you fresh plates after each dish, considering the prices that they charge.

while clearing away our plates, one waitress even cleared away my gf's spoon so fast that she had no chance to protest.

oh, there's also a visiting staff called Mr. Housefly.
he kept dropping by our table to check on our food and had the gall to suggest that he taste some of it.

even with the 10% discount for hsbc credit cards, the money could have been better spent elsewhere.

Yet another restaurant that is populating our museum dinning scene. My last museum restaurant at Chef Chan's was an absolute hit, this time it is an absolute miss.

First off lets say the place is not the easiest place to get to. If you have no car you have to walk all the way into Haw Par Villa after taking a bus. If by car, you have to figure out where the hell it is in Haw Par Villa and how to get there. You can actually drive all the way in and park at the restaurant car park so don't park down the villa and walk...

Getting to the location is a hassle but it didn't dampen the spirit of looking for "new" restaurants to try. The restaurant itself is housed together with the Hua Song Museum which describes and depicts the early Chinese immigration all over the world. Decor and museum setting in all cool but slowly getting a bit stale as more and more museum restaurants popping all over the island museums. The good thing is you can order food then walk around and look at the exhibit instead of waiting at the table for your food to show up.

My first trip is to the washroom... not that there is anything to see there but I mention this because on the way there, you pass by the kitchen and I count 2 very young cook working and 8 cooks smoking / playing cards or something outside the kitchen. First warning sign.... usually when cooks are gathered during dinner time not working it can't be too good a sign.... granted it is a 2 table dinner whole night.

Not knowing what to order we tried to get the manager to recommend but not too much help we got. In the end we decided on the Peking Duck ($24 for half), double boiled soup of the day ($10 each pax), French beans ($14) and, Special bean curd with mushrooms ($18) as well as Ee mien with duck meat.

Maybe we didn't order the right dishes but the food is at best average and at worst not really edible.

Peking Duck is a missed for sure. No carving the duck in front of you if you are expecting it. The ready cut almost cold limp duck skins are served with keropok on a plate along with the skin and condiments. The staff leaves it on the table then disappears. Wait a minute, I rather expect them to set the whole thing up, ie wrap my peking duck for me. Perhaps I am expecting too much as all my previous experiences with peking duck is served fully. Serving it aside it really doesn't taste even half decent it being cold and limp. Perhaps the two young blokes in the kitchen not really trained to do this?

The second dish - a double boiled soup with sea cucumbers, fish maw, conpoy and mushrooms is alright. I can finish it so it is still a pass though not exactly my idea of a $10 bowl of soup.

French Bean is way salty to be eaten by itself so gotta go with rice on this. I think this is a poor selection of dish on our part. Still if you serve it , it has to make it.... this one not really there.

Special bean curd with mushrooms is a "tung lok" dish, the head chef being from tung lok previously explains it all (also available at Siang Hee). Anyway, this is one poor rendition of the Tung Lok one. The tofu seems to be an "overnighter" - it is hard and almost "tau kua" (firm bean curd) hard on the surface. The sauce is bland as well. Just about the only redeeming thing about the dish is the boiled spinach that covers the bottom of the dish...

Ee mien with duck meat....one word: YUCKS. Didn't finish even one bowl of it. Too much msg and too "powdery" in texture. I expect better standard from a tze char.

Service is spotty as well. Service staff could not tell us which credit cards have discounts being non Singaporean- she just stood there didn't know what to say at all we have to call out to other staff to ask. Little attention is paid to the only 2 tables for the night - forgetting to give side plates, overcharging the bill then forgetting to give credit card discount after informing them of overcharging....all the little things but for a higher end Chinese dinning I expect these issues to be non existent. More expensive than Tung Lok but less service and lesser quality food.

Total damage $85 after 10% credit card discount for two. Not really expensive per se but just a plain unsatisfying bad meal.

I agree with the other reviews that this is a very interesting place. I've actually not come across a restaurant like this. What struck me right from the start was the entrance. It looked like the house of a Chinese Mandarin. The interior was polished and a good mix of modern and traditional. You can also take a tour which recounts overseas Chinese - very interesting.

Now to the food - hits and misses. I enjoyed the fish maw soup which was thick and very rich. You get good chunks of fish maw and lots of other good stuff. The wasabi prawns were also presented very nicely in a little bird's nest like shell. Yummy...

The 'award winning' Peking Duck with foies gras was however a real let down. The pairing just was wrong with the foies gras over powering the Peking Duck. The cracker under the foies gras also made eating hard as you had to bite through something hard to get to the soft foies gras.

The other two dishes we had were groupa braised in sharks bone stock. Very interesting as fish isn't usually cooked like that - its usually fried or steamed. The stock was rich and not bad but I just don't know what it really did for the fish. Did it make the fish taste any different? Not to me. The Mee Sua or Bee Hoon type dish we had though was pretty good. Again, cooked in a rich stock, it was nicely presented and had lots of flavour.

Price tag though was a real shocker, $202 for the 3 of us! Ouch! I'm not sure if its because we ordered the more 'exotic' stuff that the manager recommended us or because this is the normal price of the food. Is it me or is Chinese food in Singapore getting more and more expensive?

Overall, a good dining experience that you don't usually get. If you're working in the West, an interesting option to bring your business guest. My only suggestion is that you look closely at the prices before you order.

ps. also an interesting option for weddings. They can take up to 20 tables.