Xin Wang's Scrambled Egg Rice

It was a poster at the front of the cafe-restaurant in Suntec City that attracted my attention. 

Xing Wang hasn't had much of a good deal in recent years so I didn't want to miss this one out. 

Plus there was a drink. 

Xin Wang is probably one of the few places on this island that still wields a cha chaan teng vibe. There used to be more, but there're way fewer now. Also, I'm not really sure what defines a cha chaan teng- you'll only know after you step in- and Xin Wang, with her decor, her brightly colored furniture, her lights, her big picture menu and her layout, grants you a hint of that vibe. 

Her menu, by the way, is quite elaborate. 

I always find it very difficult to make up my mind when I'm there. 

Sometimes I want to have the baked rice.

Other times I want to have the curry chicken. 

Or the appetizers. 

They're a place that has dim sum, but then there's plenty of Rice dishes, including fried rice and the like, then there're also Noodles in the form of soup and fried, and bites that range from the big to the small. On one side of the menu you've got the Baked Rice and the Western offerings of Chicken Chop, and Steak, and Fish & Chips but on the other side you've got Century Egg Porridge, or Thick Toast served with butter and honey, and French Toast as well. 

Their desserts, if I'm not wrong, might not be so plentiful- probably a few selections of three or four- but they've got quite a huge offering of drinks. 

Most of the time I tend to go for the Papaya Soup Bee Hoon with Chicken Chop, but today I had been intrigued by the new introductory dish of Scrambled Egg Rice with Fish, so that's what I ordered. 

It might look like a simple dish, but the egg is smooth, almost silky, it's soft and tasty and clean-tasting, and because there's literally no sauce (I think you're supposed to ask for some) you can taste the full flavors of the egg, the rice, the little leaves of cabbage at the side, and the fish. 

I was actually rather glad that the Kopi-C got served first. 

After a long day, to have this cup of semi-sweet thick coffee calmed me down and I found myself being able to enjoy the meal better. 

Maybe next time I'll mush up the egg with the rice, eat it together, and see how it tastes like. 

But I know I'll stick with ordering the fish over the chicken and the beef. 

Their fish might not be very thick, chonky pieces, and they might not be as soft as other fish slices elsewhere might be, but, contrary to what I was afraid of, the fish was fresh enough, they've got enough taste to it, and even the slight saltiness of the fish works well with the rice and the egg and the whole combination of it. 

Yum Cha @ Yum Cha

We hadn't been to Yum Cha in what was I think the longest time ever, so, yes, glad I was when told that this afternoon we would be having high tea buffet there. 

Yum Cha has been, to me, one of three places that automatically come to mind whenever I think of having dim sum on the island. That doesn't mean that I don't like the others. It just means that I tend to be more selective than I used to be.

That being said, I'm quite happy with a char siew bao from the coffee shop. 

Or a lor mai kai. 

Perhaps that's why a buffet like this makes a special occasion for me. 

Amongst some of our regular favorites there were a couple of new dishes on the menu this time, so we decided we'd give them a try. 

One of the new dishes was this little basket of spinach skin-wrapped siew mais. To be honest it was really like the regular siew mais that we always order, except that instead of the yellow skin surrounding the meat, you get green colored skin instead. I'm not sure if I could taste the spinach (maybe someone with more sensitive taste buds would be able to) but the color definitely zhnged up the regular siew mais a little bit. 

The other dish that we thought was unusual were these tangerine shaped balls. 

At first I'd thought they were sweet potato balls- I mean, from the looks of it they seemed to be like those deep-fried snack balls that are popular in Taiwan and Thailand and on the island you can go to Maxwell Market to buy. 

But as it turned out (if I'm not wrong) they were cuttlefish balls. 

Now, how they managed to coat, and make these balls such a cheerful shade of orange, I don't know, but they were pretty to look at, and nice to eat. 

There was, too, this basket of little pieces that were what I used to call 'Money Bag' when a child. A 'Money Bag' is called simply because it looks like one, and basically is a piece of pastry wrapped around a ball of meat, tied with a tiny little bit of pandan leaf strip, then deep fried. 

There were also a couple of other unusual dishes that we ordered this afternoon.

There was a basket of charcoal black truffle har gow that looked like had been sprinkled with gold dust. I'm not sure what the charcoal black does, but there was a slight hint of truffle in the skin, and it went very well with the prawn inside.

There was a basket of siew mais that I thought had been fried with the same kind of batter that were on the yew kok yam puffs, and which were really nice tasting. 

And then there was the basket of deep fried puffs that had been wrapped in the sort of pastry that falls like snowflakes every time you take a bite, and which you have to afterwards scoop up with a spoon.

I don't think we ordered very much after that, save for this little plate of fried carrot radish cake that, done this way, turned out to be hot and crisp and crunchy both inside and out.