Min Jiang @ One-North

We just celebrated my mom's birthday here.

The ambience was a little weird with Christmas music being played in the background, but still, al fresco dining in the cool evening breeze was enjoyable. The lamps were a little too dim, barely illuminating the dishes and thus not doing the food presentation much justice. There was a little difficulty reading the menu at the beginning and signing the bill at the end...

The service was good, except that my dad commented that he would have much preferred the waiter to lay the Peking duck condiments on the table before launching into his explanation. As the waiter was explaining while he held the dishes in his tray, all three of us were craning our necks to see what he was referring to... and as he was speaking right over our food, one can't help but wonder how much of his saliva went into our condiments :)

Food was impeccable. Duck was one of the best we've tasted, the double-boiled abalone soup was flavourful and the tofu-mushroom & crabmeat dish was a delight. Even the duck noodles at the end packed a punch.

Bill totalled around $45 per person, which we thought was a steal for such great food, relaxing environment and attentive service.

Definitely coming back.

The ambience here is very pleasing and soothing. Just try to mentally block out the cars passing on the nearby road, which is just beyond the shield of trees.
The Peking duck was very tasty, though not as tasty as the duck in Beijing itself.
The restaurant is truly beautiful though.

So, the rich mate decided to give me a fine-dining treat in the far end of singapore as a very belated birthday meal. He tempted with the lure of juicy peking duck in 3 different versions in Min Jiang and I agreed without hesitation.

The highlight of the meal to me would be (1) Margarita on the rocks & (2) Wrapped Peking duck.

The remaining of the duck was used to stir-fry with black pepper and wrapped in crepe with spicy sauce. The stir-fried duck was a tad too dry (whatever happened to the juicy promises?) and the combination of peppers with it was just too much for me. We ordered a side dish of dumplings, asparagus with scallops and for the life of me I don't remember the third dish. The vegs were ok, the dumplings' skin were slightly too thick (believe me, Din Tai Fung was much better in this) and the third dish must be too forgettable to warrant memory space.

My friend called me ungrateful when I mentioned that this was not worth the money. Oh well, there goes my last ever treat from him.

Service is excellent, I must say. But Min Jiang is a place meant only for bringing foreign friends for a fine-dining chinese cuisine to give them a 'WOW'. It will not be able to draw the locals who knows what good local food really should taste like.

I arrived for dinner with great expectations because my parents always said they wanted to try out Min Jiang.

Mediocre. Mediocre. Mediocre.

We got the set menu at $88+ per person x2 for the three of us to share. Ordered some other dish as well. Appetiser was all right(I don't know what it is) and sharks fin soup was salty but not too bad.

Then the hairy crab dish arrived. Waitress kindly opened the crab for us but the hairy crab was dismal. The taste was lacking and there wasn't much of the meat to eat(which was ok). Lots of crab roe though. I didn't like the crab roe. The sauce for dipping didn't go very well with it either. However, as hairy crab dishes are typically prepared steamed, if it tasted bad, the problem lies with the crab and not the cook then. I am not an expert with crabs but my taste buds were not delighted.

The next dish was some mushroom and fishcake... Oily and salty. Not to mention weird. Fried rice was oily and salty too... But it was edible. Spinach tofu dish was OILY too.

Maybe we ordered the wrong set today. Maybe the chef was in a bad mood.

Fried mantou was good though. But I have yet to find a restaurant that can screw up even the mantou.

Service was painfully slow even though the staff tried to be accomodating. We left without eating the dessert because my father got pissed off by the mediocre food and how slow the dishes took.

I will not return again. I understand that this is a well established restaurant with followers who enjoy their food. However, my experience was disappointing.

I really didn't like the hairy crab :(

As an Ang Mo, I thought it was a good place - the food is delicious (the Peking Duck, obviously), the dumplings almost beat those of Din Tai Foong and the wine list is pretty serious...
Well, highly recommended !

Excelent food and ambience, servicea bitslow sometime but overall a very good place for dinner

I was skeptical of the place due to the mixed reviews that are on this website, but through word-of-mouth, I decided to give the restaurant a chance and I am certainly glad that I did.

My first dish was their Peking Duck, succulent and juicy, which left us feeling that half a duck was not enough for 4 hungry people! We had their sweet and sour prawns, Min Jiang noodles and the remainder of the duck we had with bean sprouts.

The prawns were amazingly fresh and big, the thought of it makes me hungry! The Min Jiang noodles were very tasty, much better than most noodles that I have had at restaurants. The bean sprouts was okay but seeing as how that was just to use up the remaining duck, I really didn't expect much of it.

I would definitely go back to this place again for their lovely duck and other dishes as well. It's the best duck I've ever eaten in Singapore!

The hot and sour soup was excellent - spicy yet smooth. For mains we had ma puo tou fu - ok but too salty. The stir fried kai lan was about the only item we ordered that was not soaked in salt. The steamed fish was fresh and tasty. Menu seems ''limited'' - some fish as well as vegetables on the menu were ''not available''.

The xiao long pau was average.

The peking duck was disappointing. The marination or seasoning must have been inadequate - the strong unpleasant smell of duck was too overpowering.

Let me start by saying how I had sort-of high expectations for Min Jiang @ One North. I expected it to be a swankier, finer version of Min Jiang at Goodwood Park. In all, I was disappointed. Perhaps I should not have had such high expectations to begin with.

1. The service at Min Jiang has some high notes, but lacks the finer touch. Some staff are unable to speak or comprehend proper English well. One even wrongly described the dish that was served - as we were a little puzzled. The captain was attentive and friendly but the same can't be said of the rest of the staff. Maybe its a traditional Chinese restaurant thing - but the clanking of expensive cutlery when placing, the complete ignoring of the blatant need to change plates after 3 dishes and the thumping of plates and drinks when serving gets to me a bit.

2. The food. The food is average by all standards of comparison. For some reason, I felt everything felt extremely oily - even the Tofu.

We had the following dishes:
A. The Appetiser Platter - which has all the recommended stuff - lobster medallion, scallop, and a wasabi chicken and fried eel. Quite disappointing overall. I felt the chicken was the most original and solid one out of the 4. The scallop and the Lobster did not really amaze. The description on the menu way outdid the actual taste. The humble chicken was the most well done. I originally thought it was prawn!

B. Hot and Sour Soup - Averagely Decent

C. Sea Perch - We had it done 3 ways and I would say it all turned out very oily tasting and I had to have multiple gulps of tea to wash down the oil from it.

D. Deep Fried Sole in Milk crumbs ( I think) - Oily again

E. The Spinach Tofu - Decent, very soft, but the outside was overfried, making it a bit too crisp. It felt really oily too for some reason.

F. Camphor Tea Duck - opted to give the Peking Duck a miss, since we didn't have one "booked" and didn't want to start begging for it. Was good and tasted like a sturdier version of Peking Duck. Same as I remember from the original Min Jiang

G. Pork Belly - Average at best. I think I've tasted better. Also beware that the mantou bun that is supposed to come with it is actually some fusion interpretation and its a "stick of mantou flour" So if youre like me and need your pork belly with a good ol' mantou bun, you'll have to order that separately.

H. Also, Tea comes at something to the tune of $10 a person if you let them pick what Tea.

All in all, don't think we will be visiting it any time soon. Hei Tien Lo at Pan Pac and Summer Palace at Regent is a tingle more expensive but a whole lot better. Not just the food, but the service makes you feel all happy to part with those few hundred bucks for a 2 hour meal.

On the high side, Ambience (minus the service) was good. We had it alfresco and even as a typical air-con loving singaporean, I must say the alfresco was well received by my parents too!

I recalled that there was this one night that I was being summoned from my lesson in a nearby university to help my wife and friend finish this delicious fowl dish. After listening to the taunts over the phone, I whispered a good bye to my professor and sped over to, this fowl of a place, Min Jiang in Rochester Park. Since I was just doing a good deed by helping to finish the food, I did not pay...... :)

The Peking duck is a must try. Due to its popularity and the chef's insistence of still doing a good job of preparing this fare for you, PLEASE CALL TO BOOK YOUR DUCK! I've had Peking ducks from else where but having it in all alfresco style, in a restored Colonial style bungalow set among the greens, is quite a refreshing feeling. How do I express that feeling......hmm how about imagining you're a duck being liberated....ok cut the crap!

The Peking duck is served with many condiments and of course, it includes the tangy popiah skin that we wrap the duck skin with. Dip it into the special sauce that is provided, close your eyes and then let it slide into your mouth ...... Mouth watering climax achieved!

In another occasion, I had a family lunch and we were seated inside of the bungalow, on the 2nd floor. The duck was still good and the air conditioning was most welcome. I wouldn't encourage an alfresco lunch in our humid climate.

The original Min Jiang is at Goodwood park hotel. I won't go try it though as I feel adamantly that the same food will taste better with a good ambience.

Visit my food diary at......
http://4-the-love-of-food.blogspot.com/2008/09/min-jiang-one-rochester-what-fowl-place_09.html