So it's no secret that I love dim sum.
And I'm not particular where I have it.
It can be at a coffee shop in Bedok Central, it can be at a coffee shop in Eunos, it can be at Crystal Jade or Yum Cha or Swee Choon or 126.
It don't matter to me just so long as the menu has variety and the prices make sense and are good.
There're times in my life where I wish I could have dim sum every day.
But no of course not- there's the diet to think about- and so it becomes a very pleasant surprise when I find myself (on a weekday evening) in a place where I've never had their dim sum before.
I've come to Peach Garden before for other meals at other times.
But dim sum?
And at 50% off?
Nope.
Not at all.
So here I was, at Peach Garden on the 5th floor of Orchard's Heeren, for a dim sum dinner at 6pm because a friend told me they were having this promotion (fairly new two month old restaurant and all) and it seemed like a good deal.
Can I tell you how delighted I was to see the plate of chye tow kuay radish cake on the table on a Monday?
And can I tell you how happy I was that we had ordered some of my favorites when it comes to dim sum?
There, in quick succession, came our orders of radish cake, yam puffs, beancurd skin-something, salted egg custard buns, and the puff with the big prawn inside.
It's not often that I get to have all this on the first day of the week.
Most of the time I don't even get to have this on the weekends.
So you can imagine just how much I enjoyed the meal.
The salted egg custard buns, when served, were warm to the touch and the custard lava flowed smoothly out when my chopsticks (with decorum) gently pried open the top of the bun.
So warm and smooth was the custard that I was tempted to put aside my chopsticks, pick up the bun with my hands, and gently slurp the salted egg filling out.
But I didn't.
Oy, I was in Peach Garden after all.
They've got standards in this place, that I know, in the sense that whatever's supposed to be crunchy is crunchy, whatever's supposed to be crispy is crispy, and whatever's supposed to be soft and warm is soft and warm.
Some dishes were a mix of both.
Like the radish cake, which, by the way, I absolutely loved.
See, the mark of a good chye tow kuay/chye kuay is that it has to be crispy on the outside, crispy at the edges, but soft on the inside.
Perchance that there had been disappointment from time to time (at some supposedly good places too), this one here at Peach Garden however was delightful.
Right from the moment my chopsticks pierced through the thin upper layer crust of the radish cake as I broke off a chunk, I knew it would be crisp and hot on the outside, warm and soft on the inside.
That same standard that marked the salted egg custard bun and the radish cake was there in the yam puff and the prawn puff as well.
Where at some other places I might have had lukewarm yam puffs with tough, chewy skin, the ones here were hot when served, and easy to eat.
And where at other places the skin of the prawn puff might taste artificial and icky, here it didn't have any awkward taste, and it was sufficiently crunchy as well. The size might have been small, but the prawn inside was huge.
Even the beancurd skin, which I thought sounded kind of ordinary, like no big deal, had its own significant charm in the way of a thin seaweed strip.
I didn't know a piece of seaweed this small could make such a difference in way of flavor, texture and taste.
But it did.
That tiny little hint of umami, maybe.
I liked it.
Sometimes it really is the little things that matter the most.
Like the seconds that mark the difference between a well steamed pau versus a non-fluffy one.
Like the seconds that make the surface of a radish cake crispy versus an overly soft, or overly hard one.
And like the little orchid petals garnishing the plates that bring a little bit of natural beauty to the bright, appetizing yellows of our food.