Tang Dian Wang (Suntec City)

Like some earlier reviews I've also walked past many times, and finally came in for lunch today. This place always seems sparsely populated which has given me some caution before, but perhaps it's just because it's so huge. Anyway here's what I had:

Double boiled pork rib soup ($7.80++): The hotpots were at the front of the menu so I was somehow drawn to it. I found the soup a little bland, lacking flavour and too salty. The ingredients e.g. mushrooms a bit overcooked, and the pork was slightly tough (not really falling off the bone). I've had better and wouldn't choose this again.

Poached lettuce side ($5.80++): Also uninspiring. Not much more to say.

Overall: Well not bad but not good either. I wouldn't go out of my way to eat here again.

Came here with my family members for a late lunch today after visiting the Food Fair here. It was past 2pm and there were no lunch crowd and only 3-4 tables were occupied in the entire restaurant.

As we just had dim sum yesterday, so we decided to give it a miss by ordering the special set meals that were on promotions.

The ambience was good, very cosy and well lighted and with nice music. I like the ball-shaped lightings that were hung from the centre ceiling of the restaurant.

We ordered:

Spicy Soup with Hor Fun - In terms of spiciness, it was ok and it was served in sort of a claypot which was good to preserve the hotness of the food and soup. However, the ingredients that came with it was too scare, with some sotong, vegetables, 2 slices of fish and meat. Thats all! ($9.80)

Fish Slice with Noodles - Also served in claypot. Soup was bland and noodles were not Q (worse than maggi noodles) and have few slices of fish and vegetables. Fell below expectation. ($9.80)

Chicken Cutlet Rice Set - The best among all ordered. The chicken was well marinated and deep fried. The meat was juicy and tender. 2 small side dishes came along with it (steamed peanuts and stir fried long beans with small dry prawns and tau kua) and a soup. ($8.80)

Value for money...generally reasonable though the portion of the claypot noodles was a bit too small with little ingredients. We didn't order any drink as we have decided to go for some good coffee at Starbucks but surprisingly the restaurant does not serve cold water where later we found out that we have to pay $0.30 for it per glass! (so now they do charge for drinking water!)

Service was quite ok as we were given ample time to look through the menu before asking for order to be taken and staff greeted you when you came in and when you left which was good though the expression of staff was quite "mechanical" and "expressionless".

Overall, it was a fair dinning experience and no big "pluses nor minuses".

Went for a late afternoon snack one day.

We ordered from their Dim Sum menu as lunch orders were already over.

We tried their infamous Crispy Skin Duck and really enjoyed every bit of it. Although it is different to the ones at Crystal Jade or Imperial Treasure. The skin here is thicker. The flavour different.

We ordered quite a few baskets (almost everything on offer) of their Dim Sum, and found everything to be satisfactory.

We loved the quiet ambience and the nice lanterns and clever use of mirrors. No one is bothering you all the time and the staff are pretty attentive. You get to sit and chat for as long as you want over your food.

Towels and chopsticks incur extra charges - this is a really annoying bit. Service charge and GST are already separately charged. And now even the use of cutlery and napkins have to be separately charged? Should we bring our own cutlery? This aspect of Singapore dining is really embarrassing.

There were numerous times when we passed by this restaurant, thinking we must give it a try some day but never got around to it.

Finally made it a point to have dinner here and we were pleased with the meal.

First to arrive was 三丝炒面线 ($9.80), which was wok-fried mee sua with shredded egg, pork strips, mushroom, cabbage and beansprouts. There wasn't much wok hei aroma but it tasted pretty decent nonetheless, especially with pickled green chili.

The 脆皮烧鸡 ($10.80) was served with a condiment of Sichuan peppercorn salt. I tried a slice with it but didn't quite fancy the saltiness and the fragrance of the peppercorn was too faint to be impressive. Luckily the chicken was good on its own, what with tender meat and wonderfully crispy skin.

I found the rice in 烧肉咸蛋荷叶饭 ($6.80) to be sufficiently moist and fluffy but the serving of roasted pork, salted egg yolk and chestnut was too small. It could also do better with a deeper flavor since it was kinda bland.

Although the food wasn't exactly mind-blowing, it was tasty enough to make for a pleasant dinner. In addition, service was friendly and requests were met promptly. The best part was our spacious table, which I particularly enjoyed after having had a terrible dinner at a claustrophobically cramped restaurant just last night.

Note: Towel and water cost $0.30 each.

This place started out focusing on its soup, lotus wrapped rice and shanghai-style dim sum. However, due to less-optimal client base, Tang Dian Wang revamped its menu. Made it more casual, offered smaller portions and lowered the prices.

Mud Carp Fish & Beans with Arrowroot Soup ($19.80) is good for four to share, filling up to eight small bowls. The soup is well boiled, with rich sweet and deep flavours. Arrowroots and beans added a powdery texture to the soup. Makes it more satisfying to me. 

The next dish of Crispy Skin Duck in Hangzhou-style ($12.80) comes drizzled with sweet sauce, which tastes like those served with peking duck. The skin is well roasted and duck meat is juicy and good. Yummy!

However Steamed Cod with Minced Garlic in Special Sauce ($13.80) was ordinary at best. Garlic was not particularly fragrant and special sauce was tasteless. Nothing special, and will probably pass on this in future. 

Braised Beancurd & Eggplant in Spicy Szechuan Sauce ($12.80) was served in a claypot. Although beancurd texture was good, it was lacking in taste. It was ok only. 

Tang Dian Wang lives up to its reputation for its rice in lotus wrappers. The Silky Chicken & Mushroom rice ($6.80) was super fragrant. The combination of well-marinated chicken, natural mushroom flavour and lotus leaves all comes together and makes this rice dish very delightful. It has a very homemade feel to it. I love it!! 

Lastly, the Wok-fried Mian Xian with Assorted Shredded Vegetables ($9.80) was also very good. It was simple but full of depth (ie wok hei). Add some chilli sauce and it is perfect.

Chilled Water Chestnut Jelly Cake ($2.50) is a light and dainty dessert. It will be better if there was more water chestnut though. 

Verdict : In my opinion, this is a place to go for comfort food. Love the soup, rice and mian xian. The duck was also very good.

For more pictures, please visit http://sightsmelltaste.blogspot.com 

I like the noodles.

The duck meat is very tender and special.

But the staff do not seem professional.

It was one of those quiet weekday evenings that we headed to town to grab a bite while running some errands. Chinese food was on the list and Tang Dian Wang (汤点王)seemed decent enough for us to pop by for dinner. This Shanghainese restaurant is owned by the folks who brought you New York New York, Xin Wang HK Cafe, Thai Express etc - restaurants that leave much to be desired in my humble opinion. But hey, life is full of second (or maybe third or fourth) chances.

Prominently situated amongst the ring of eateries that circle the Fountain of Wealth in the basement, Tang Dian Wang practises a open dining concept where passers by and customers alike are free to let their gaze roam. The decor is decidedly modern Chinese with a nod to tradition in the form of round laterns hanging from the ceiling. During our visit, the place was barely a quarter full, though I can't say the same for weekends.

Roasted Meat & Salted Egg Fragrant Rice in Lotus Wrappers (烧肉咸蛋荷叶饭) - I don't usually order rice in lotus leaf wraps (荷叶饭) when dining out because of the high oil content but apparently Tang Dian Wang is known for it so I made an exception. Oily as usual but moist with a nice lingering aroma. However I did find the roasted meat way too fatty for my liking and overall a little too bland for my liking. Decent but nothing fantastic.

Prawns with Golden Pumpkin Sauce (金瓜奶虾球) - Initial impressions of this dish were good as the prawns were crunchy with a crisp along the edges due to the light batter coating. But it soon became nausea inducing due to the starchy and bland pumpkin sauce that masked any sweetness the prawns might have to offer. Overall a rather insipid dish.

Deep-fried Bean Curd with Bak Kwa (炸肉干豆腐) - The bean curd with bak kwa (dried meat jerky) was a let down honestly. Deep fried till crisp on the outside but lacking the smoothness that I was expecting. Granted, I could make out tiny shards of bak kwa embedded within but they were too little, too small to have any impact on the dish. Although bean curd is one of my favourite dishes, I gave up after the second piece.

Sauteed Horfun with Seafood - The humble horfun(河粉) was the most unlikely star of the evening with its silky smoothness and hint of wok hei. Another plus point was the relatively fresh seafood that it came served with. On the flip side, I did think that the egg gravy was a little too starchy for my liking, which added to the nausea from the earlier dishes.

The 2 of us chalked up a bill of about $65 for dinner which I felt was a little pricey given the quality of food. Every seemed to be heavy on the starch/flour which made me squeamish after a while. Service was okay but that's not enough reason for me to ever step in again.

See all my pictures here.

Had walk past this place for many times but never try it as there's too many nice food outlet in Suntec. Finally went on 30th May with my family to celebrate my mum's birthday.

We ordered the following:

Chicken soup with pear $5.80- This is really delicious, the soup is really tasty, the sweetness of the pear really enhanced the chicken soup, it's on my must order list when I visit next time again!

Bitter and sweet almond with old cucumber soup $5.80 - It was one of the chef recommendation, nice, but not as good as the Chicken soup with pear.

Roasted Meat & Salted egg rice wrapped in Lotus leaf $5.80 - quite good too, with lots of ingredients inside.

Crispy Skin Duck in Hangzhou $10.80 - Nothing to rave about, the meat is a bit dry, below my expectation.

Drunken Chicken Roll $6.80 - Quite tasteless, don't really taste the alcohol.

Mian Xian with Shredded carrot $8.80 - This is nice and tasty, my 2nd favourite dish here.

Fried crispy beancurd with oats $8.80 - Another disappointment, just bland tofu with not so nice oat.

Slice cod fish with celery $16.80 - This is a light but tasty dish, but the portion is a bit small for the price.

Salt and pepper whitebait $8.80 - The whitebait size is too big, prefer the one from East Ocean.

The staffs are quite friendly, but when I asked one of the staff for plum sauce to go with the whitebait, he brought me ketchup instead, and he don't really understand what is plum sauce, even when I repeated in both mandarin and English, in the end he seek help from another lady staff.

I noticed that among all the dishes I've ordered, the nicer one are not in the chef recommendation list.

Will definately be back for their delicious soup!

Finally, I got the chance to settle down here having passing this restaurant umpteen times. Though it was a Shanghai restaurant, there was the modernity touch (e.g. colours and design). Nonetheless, the barely audible songs playing was 1980s Chinese songs.

 

My friend and I ordered:

-       Steamed Cod Fish Mian Xian (This was recommended by the waitress and not reflected in the menu. It is a MUST TRY! Order it with Seafood or Scallops instead; it will have a sweet seafood taste. The noodle was soaked with generous 花雕酒 – hua tiao jiu - which made it more scrumptious with the cod fish and steam egg white at the bottom. Not suitable for those who detest花雕酒)

-       金式竹笙鸡汤 (When served, it looked nothing spectacular. Upon tasting, the rich aroma of the chicken essence and the generous serving of 花雕酒delight me.)

-       烧肉咸蛋荷叶饭 (Each grain of rice was infused with herbs and dark soya sauce. Hard to find such a flavourful rice. Thumbs up!)

-       Chinese Borsch Soup – 汤点王罗宋汤 (It was not appetizing to begin with of all the visible miniscule fats floating around. Soup was good.)

-        Pork Dumplings Noodle (Norm.)

 

-       Water Chestnut Drink (It was indeed a home-made recipe. It was infused with other Chinese herbs but the main ingredient – chestnut – flavour seems to vanish. Hmm…)

-       Chrysanthemum Tea (Same as the above drink)

The pickle served was peanuts. It was warmed and brewed for long. It obtained the mushiness and the herbs infused into the bean. I like it!

 

The service here was not that spectacular. They are not particularly attentive to customers but rather on non-mobile objects.

 

 

  

meL

‘Food itself is very personal; do not be affected by what I have written. Try it instead and tell me.’

 

Tang Dian Wang Shanghai Restaurant, from the name you should have somehow guess that they serve Shanghai cuisine. What is the commonly found in Shanghai cuisine? XLBs!

They used to have another outlet in Bukit Panjang Plaza but now replaced by Xing Wang Hongkong Cafe. Thus, there's only one main restaurant in Suntec city.

The Ambience

Very classical and contemporary setting. The restaurant is very spacious and the lightings liven up the atomsphere. I think they want to create a relaxing and romantic feel.

The Food

The menu is printed on a pc of paper laid on the table. Choices are quite a variety-dim sums, main dishes, appetitizers.

I ordered :

1X steamed mushrooms dumplings

1X pan-fried pumpkin cake

1X cabbage roll with mushrooms

The steamed mushrooms dumplings come in set of 3. The skin is crystal clear, sticky and chewy. The fillings were so little- some cubes of carrots, mushrooms and chestnuts. I really dislike the skin as it is too sticky and chewy and almost taste-less. I feek that the skin plays an important role in a good dim sum.

Pan-fried pumpkin cake

The outer layer is a little crispy but i would prefer it to be a little charred. The sweetness of the pumpkin is there and i could see some small pumpkin cubes. However, the proportion of flour to the pumpkin cubes seems to be 70 : 30. I think they also added sugar to balance off the taste.

Cabbage roll with mushrooms

This is one of the popular item listed on the menu and it's recommended. There were 4 cabbage rolls, fully wrapped with generous of chinese mushrooms, button and other types of mushrooms. The cabbage rolls were lightly steamed and served with their broth. I was take aback by the ''enormous-looking'' cabbage rolls and each roll is filled with so much mushrooms. They taste good with the broth. For those who loves chinese mushrooms would love this dish.

Service

The service is good, efficent and the staffs are very polite.