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The cravings for dim sum meant that i am always on the lookout for places be it restaurants or eateries which can answer to my stomach’s calling. Victor’s Kitchen has been around for quite a while now, and has been labeled with the “good dim sum at affordable price” tag.
Located at Sunshine Plaza off the corner atBencoolen street, it is a no-frills, grab-your-seats kind of place.Victor’s is divided into two seating area, with both holding a maximumof maybe fifteen people each. Seats are limited, you must be preparedto queue up for them, and squeeze in the small seating area. Well, morelike a small eatery than a cafe or restaurant kind of environment.
Chicken & Sausage in Glutinous rice ($4)
I always like glutinous rice, dim sum style. Opening the leave thatwrapped the rice, the aroma of the glutinous rice flowed out, and itwas just so good. The chicken was tender and the chinese sausagepalatable, the fragrant and soft rice, all the combinations made theglutinous rice a praiseworthy dish.
Tasty Queen size Siew Mai ($3)
You don’t say you eat dim sum if you did not order siew mai and hargau. Nicknamed the queen size siew mai, its actually the normal size iguess that’s why they didn’t named it as King size siew mai instead.
The pork meat in the siew mai is very lean, not those fatty type. Theportion of prawn to pork is actually very low, so not much of prawntaste, its the more porky kind.
Victor’s King prawn dumpling ($3.80)
Prawn dumpling or har gau, another mainstay in the dim sum menu. Theskin of the Victor’s King prawn dumpling is rather thin, and the prawnsinside looked like its going to burst out anytime. The fresh prawns goeasy on the palates and always welcome with second helpings.
Carrot cake with XO sauce ($3.80)
I was rather amazed when i saw the Carrot cake with XO sauce served.For one i wasn’t expecting the carrot cake to be literally soaked in xosauce, i thought it will be something like the one i had at PeachGarden, or Yan Ting, but i guess again, there isn’t any “fried” or“pan-seared” attached with the name here.
The name’s scallop, sausage carrot cake with xo sauce, but i hardly hadany hint of the presence of scallop and sausage in it, and i think istill preferred my carrot cake to be fried than soup. Nonetheless, theamount of XO sauce given was rather generous, and i guess its more of apersonal issue, some might just fancy this over the normal fried carrotcake.
Oyster sauce Char Siew Bun ($2.80)
I preferred my char siew bun to be those restaurants-type where thereis three parts one. There’s no trace of oyster sauce in the char siewbun, or maybe i happened to miss the flavor.
Nevertheless, the char siew bun is still quite soft and fluffy, thejuicy char siew captured within is also enjoyable. Not the best charsiew bun i had, but it will suffice.
Milky Custard Bun ($2.80)
I am getting warm up to Custard bun nowadays since i used to onlyflavor char siew bun when i had dim sum. You know a good custard bunwhen you see one, hot milky custard oozing out of the bun, tempting youwith both visual and taste.
However, the case is not to be with Victor’s Milky custard bun. Toutedas their signature dish, i was totally disappointed with the one i hadhere. Maybe the ones at Victor’s don’t ooze out, but for the custardbuns to come cold is another complete matter all together.
Having heard many wonderful things about their signature custard bun, imust said i was shocked by the revelation in the quality of the buns.Maybe its a case of a bad hair day, but i’ll give it a chance andre-visit to try it again the next time.
Spare Ribs rice ($3)
I’m not even sure if i want to elaborate on the spare ribs rice. Firstthing first, the rice is hard, too hard. I do understand that ribsbeing ribs do not have much meat, but this one, the pork ribs were noteven tasteful. A waste of 3 bucks, kindly ignore this if you ever go toVictor’s.
Phoenix Porridge ($3.50)
The century egg porridge or pi dan chow is transform in the name ofPhoenix porridge. However the majestic name did itself no favors with arun of the mill watery porridge. There are bits of century egg andchicken chunks, but i don’t see the point in paying $3.50 for anaverage small bowl porridge.
Deep fried spring roll ($3)
The deep fried spring roll is pretty decent, with the usual mix ofturnips inside. The vinger dip was a commendable mention, with theslightly sourish sauce going well together with the deep fried stuff.The spring roll was crispy and you could hear the “crisp” sound withevery bite you took.
Char siew cheong fun ($3)
The trails of a good char siew cheong fun are smooth and silky skin,which comes with juicy char siew. However the skin of the cheong fun orrice roll is rather thick, i’ll prefer it to be slightly thinner. Thechar siew within the cheong fun is still acceptable.
King prawn cheong fun ($3.50)
I think we over ordered, which results in having another one, the Kingprawn cheong fun. I presumed the prawns are the same as the ones in thehar gau, and they are fresh and good, pity the skin of the cheong funthough.
Total Bill is $51.1 for 3 person. Victor’s kitchen isdefinitely affordable and rather cheap with its array of dim sumserved. The maths work out to be around less than a dollar per piecefor most of the items, which can be a good place for your dim sum fixif you want something cheap and not bad.
Victor’s Kitchen is a case of hits and misses. Howeverthe misses hit me more because i had high expectations of the placesince there are much rave about the dim sum here. With the silkycustard bun as the biggest upset in this visit, it is likely i willvisit the place again in the future, to prove whether its a fluke orone-off thing.
The place is small, and they don’t take any reservations, do go atearlier timings or be prepared to queue a while for the seats. Its alsoadvisable to go in small groups since there aren’t much space and tableto accommodate a large crowd.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuinefeelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call anadventure!
After the last dim sum at Zhou’s kitchen , it took some time before i regained my craving for our “ Chinese tapas “. And this time round, i chose Kam Boat since my friends wanted a convenient location. Marina Square it is, howaccessible. I must admit, when i first heard that Kam boat dim sumkitchen was in Marina Square, i was thinking where it was, since inever saw it everytime i went MS. Right, Kam boat location is very easyto find, if you are coming from the underground citylink. Upon comingup the escalator, they are at the entrance of MS, breeks cafe is alsothere.
The restaurant interior was smaller that what i expected from theoutside, still it could seat about 50 thereabouts. Simple furnishingsooze a cosy feel, and we were quite surprise that the restaurant wasbarely filled on a Saturday afternoon. The lightning was very good, infact one of the few places where i only took a few snaps and i’m happywith the photos.
Note that they have discount of 30% for dim sumon weekends 230-530pm. The prices i stated are all their original pricebefore discount. Most of their dim sum are around 4 bucks, and after30% discount, its around $2.80, which is rather cheap.
Steamed prawn dumpling ($4.20)
I loved the jade-colour basket, which exuded a feel to enhance theflavour of the dim sum. The steamed prawn dumpling didn’t allow us tohave the best of both worlds. The prawn within was crunchy and whole,but the skin was a tad thick, and sticked to the teeth. But with thediscount, the har gau was barely a dollar each.
Steamed Xiao Long Bao ($4.20)
I was never a big fan of Xiao Long Bao (XLB), this one here was allright, the soup stock gashed out of the skin when we took a bite, buthaving had one of the best and most expensive XLB before, this onepaled in comparison.
Rice noodle roll with shrimp ($5.60)
If it wasn’t for the 30% discount, i would feel that the shrimp cheongfun was too expensive. The shrimp, like the one in the har gau, wascrunchy, rolled within the cheong fun, and together with the lightsauce, made a good start for our meal.
Steamed siew mai with mushroom ($4.20)
The notable difference between Kam Boat’s rendition and the norm wasthe addition of mushroom. Like the one i had at Zhou’s Kitchen, themushroom didn’t really enhanced the flavour of the siew mai, since theporky and prawn taste was so strong. But it’s a nice change.
Steamed barbecued pork bun ($3.50)
I think most kids don’t like char siew bun since they always had it forbreakfast. But i always couldn’t resist ordering char siew bun fromrestaurants since theirs were always so good!
Steamed chives dumpling ($4)
This was one of the more unpleasant choice, since nobody liked chives, i’ve no idea who went and ordered this.
Deep fried prawn dumpling with salad ($4.20)
You know, deep fried prawn dumpling is always good, especially so when you dipped in the slightly sour salad sauce. Shiok!
Deep fried prawn with mango roll ($4.20)
Besides salad, mango’s another good combination with fried prawn. Thedeep fried prawn with mango roll was crispy outside, crunchy with theprawns, and fruity with the mango.
Pan fried meat dumpling ($4)
Meat dumpling or “wo tie” is often eaten together with ginger andvinegar. But since i didn’t like eating ginger and vinegar, i ate it onits own, and it was not bad.
Pan-fried carrot cake ($3.50)
The pan fried carrot cake was nice, charred on the exterior, and softinside. Personally, i felt that pan fried carrot cakes must show somechar, if not the whole taste wouldn’t be there.
Deep fried seafood roll with mustard ($4.50)
The bee hoon or whatever you called that, which wrapped around the deepfried seafood roll, provided the crisp crunchy bite. Although deepfried, the seafood roll didn’t lose its freshness. The usual scenariofor deep fried stuff would be overly oily, but this one was not so.
Baked mini egg tart ($4.20)
For some reason or the other, dim sum restaurants never seem to servetheir egg tarts big. All came in mini size, how did they suppose wewould be satisfied with the tiny, petite egg tart? Nonetheless, themini egg tart was done exactly what i liked, the egg custard fillingwas soft, slightly “wet”, and the skin was crispy.
Steamed chicken feet ($3.50)
I never ate chicken feet, so you need to try this one out yourself.
Steamed Glutinous rice ($3.50)
The Chinese sausage or “la chang” injected the salty taste and enhancedthe fragance of the glutinous rice. A vital ingredient for allglutinous rice. The mushroom, meat and rice portion was generous.Defintitely worth a try.
Total bill was $64.05 after a 30% discount for 4person. There was some items like the steamed prawn dumpling and siewmai which we had two basket. We didn’t really order a lot since afriend was late and the last order was around 515pm. Still, Kam Boatwas surprisingly good, much better than what i expected. The locationis very accessible, the dim sum is cheap after the discount. And ithink i’ll go back again.
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuinefeelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call anadventure!
24th Sep '08
Hmm. where should we go for supper?! It's Bedok 85 Minced Meat Noodle!! Can't remember who suggested it, but it's definitely no regrets. haha. Loke drove us there and we were worrying about the parking and finally decided to be a risk taking entrepreneur by not putting coupons! whee lol.
Back on track. We settled down near the parking area, ordered, waited, crapped awhile before the food came. oh yeaaaaa.. the bar chor mee is simply deliciousss.. the noodle is too shuang3 kou3. haha The soup made up of minced pork, meat ball, wanton and other suspending residues which i can't figure out what they are, makes the soup cloudy but at the same time tasted really gdddd =)
All in all, it's a must try for supper regulars!!!
p.s. BOSS is SHY.. haha only manage to catch a backview of him! maybe can blackmail him with the front shot. =X
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