Dian Xiao Er 店小二 (Junction 8)

Tender meat and portion is decent. It’s tasty too

Standard vegetable dish containing dou miao fried with garlic! Do note that the above is the medium portion and we felt it was really small for 5 pax, hence you may want to consider ordering the large portion if you are going in a bigger group!

We love the Mongolian pork ribs at Dian Xiao Er because (1) the pork ribs were really tender and juicy, unlike the really tough ribs served at certain tze char places in Singapore, and (2) the sauce had a wide array of spices, including curry powder, black pepper and cut red chillies! These spices really made the gravy flavourful although the dish can be a little spicy if your spice tolerance isn't that high.

We ordered the small Mongolian pork ribs (given the whole duck that we already ordered), but we were pleasantly surprised that the portion was fairly generous, since there were around 10 pieces of pork ribs! The dish was around $14++, which we guess is fairly reasonable for a meat dish at a restaurant.

We paid $88 for a year-long membership at Dian Xiao Er and lo and behold, we earned ourselves a free whole duck, which can only be consumed in the stall (i.e no takeaway)! The duck was roasted really well and we loved the boneless parts which came with crispy skin and a fatty layer of meat underneath. 😋 We would recommend to get the whole duck only if you have at least 5 pax dining together, otherwise the sheer amount of duck meat may make you really full!

We also loved the angelica herb gravy, also known as danggui, and we thought the sauce paired really well with our rice. The gravy had a slight herbal taste which did not overpower the sweetness of the gravy, so it added a pretty pleasant layer of flavour on our rice.

Dian Xiao Er was full when we left the restaurant at around 7 pm on a Saturday evening, so you have to be prepared to queue if you are planning to dine there for dinner on a weekend!

Besides their Dang Gui herbal roasted duck that we will never get enough of; we tried and also enjoyed 2 of their new items on the menu.
For vegetables there was this Crispy fish skins on fried vegetables which was delicious with a good crunch. Mildly spicy and sour, it tasted like a Thai style salad that would be good even for those who don’t usually like vegetables.
Onto Vietnamese style was a tiger prawns claypot in seafood curry. It reminded us of a fish head curry while this was so creamy and yummy we loved it on the rice or simply slurping the curry on its own. It also packed 6 big fresh tiger prawns which was good value for the money.
Finally, we never failed to order their fish maw thick soup which remained to be one of the best in our opinions. Been over a long time and @dianxiaoersg never fails to wow us with their flavours.

Taste: Lotus roots and pumpkin, drenched in salty egg sauce.

Atmosphere: Spacious seating space

Service: Staff was very friendly and prompt to response.

Price: $12

Where to find this place: Tugged at one corner of Basement Junction 8