Birthday Lunch Treat

I got older today. I work with a superly crazy and fun bunch of colleagues. If there's an occasion to go out for a meal, we will do it. So colleagues and I went to Holland Village to have a birthday lunch. We all have a common trait: Fellow gluttons. We ate so much things. Ate at 2 restaurants and took hundred over pictures. 4 of us were armed with cameras.

But since this is a photo a day blog, so I will put up a max of 4 today.


We went to "Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao". This is a nice place for chinese food here in Singapore. For namesake, we obviously ordered Xiao Long Bao. (chinese for Meat Dumplings, literal translation means Little Dragon Buns) They come in 2 pairs served in a bamboo steamer. The thing about Xiao Long Bao is that there is broth wrapped inside. White cabbage is lined below, to give the dumplings a fragrant cabbage smell.


This is the inside of the Xiao Long Bao. Ready to be devoured by me. The moment the dumplings are opened you gotta quickly slurp the broth. Yes, I have done that.

The taste: light savoury broth that is not too salty. The skin's not chewy, but soft and succulent, it is firm when you pick up with a chopstick, but it melts gently in your mouth. The mince meat is mixed with chives and served with ginger strips with vinegar.



We also had Beijing Duck (some called it by its old name Peking Duck). Eating Beijing Duck is to only eat the skin of the duck that is wrapped in chinese pancakes with light crisp long strips of Spring Onions and Cucumbers. Some places it is DIY, where you wrapped them yourself. As this is a little upmarket place, we have the wonderful ladies wrapped them nicely for us, and served on a platter.

The taste: the roasted skin is crisp and not too oily. It is savoury and very fragrant. The strips of cucumber and spring onions make the taste light and fresh. The skin is also light in taste and not too chewy. It gives you satisfaction when you bite it. The crispiness of the veg and duck skin together with sweet and savoury soybean paste in it, is simply heavenly.


What happens to the duck meat? Usually the restaurant will cook a dish for you. Most people will like it to be fried with noodles. Just like the picture above. Delicious. We opted for noodles, because this restaurant is famous for its La Mian - which means pulled noodles. It's dough that is pulled and stretch till they look like noodles.

The taste: Noodles are cooked just nice, not rubbery and chewy, but just right. The roasted duck itself is tasty, now with additional seasoning for the noodles makes this dish delightful.

Tonite, my sis will be treating me for dinner as well. Wonder where we are going. Hmmmm....