azn 🏮🈵

$9.90 // to be honest, i felt quite meh to mild disappointment in this dish. the soup was fine and enough to satisfy my vietnamese food cravings, with the classic vietnamese flavour so can't really go wrong there (and neither should they, considering they specialize in vietnamese food!!!!). i felt like the choice of noodles (lao shu fen / thick, short white noodles) was a little weird and didnt go as well with a classic vietnamese dish (would have expected the flat rice noodles) and if they're marketing themselves as an authentic vietnamese eatery, shouldn't they remain authentic in all the components of their dish???? what was such a letdown was the ingredients!! don't call your dish a CRAB noodle soup if you are giving one or two meagre pieces of crab meat. could barely find any, and when i did, they were so tiny (about 1cm???) and the prawns added were alright, not super fresh or big and only 3 pieces. they gave 2 pieces of a pork and mushroom(?) meatball thing which i found weird since it wasn't on the menu as well, so was surprised to see it there lol. overall, either they give more ingredients, or tag the dish at a cheaper price !! (what a letdown lol)

the good thing about this place was the decor lol. sitting there made me feel like i was transported to a night market in a southeast asian country, so props for that

cheap thrill but i enjoyed how all my dimsum was served on the conveyor belt trains, and yet each basket was still piping hot!!
but the quality and taste of the dimsum here was just divine, and with each dish i tasted, my satisfaction level grew higher and higher. the flavors were well-balanced and consistently good.

these are some of the more notable dishes i tasted:
🌟🌟🌟 teahouse signature rice roll ‘cheong fun’ ($8.50): prawn and scallops wrapped in a crispy tempura like roll, and then enveloped in rice roll sheet and served with the normal chee cheong fun sauce. yuMZ, due to all the different textures

🌟 black sesame lava buns (the panda shaped ones in the picture) ($6.30): i guess you don’t rly see dimsum stores offering black sesame buns, which is why this made so excited due to how much i like the black sesame flavor. steaming hot black sesame lava oozing out of a fluffy bun, nothing better than this!!!

🌟 deep fried dumpling filled with pork, mushroom and dried shrimp ($6.30): the dumpling skin was of a mochi like texture so it was really interesting, for one side to be so crispy from the frying and the other side was still so soft and chewy. i liked the combination of flavors for the filling, especially with the taste of honey-roasted charsiew and the subtly spicy, savory dried shrimp!!

the other dishes i tried were the usual dimsum dishes of xlb, bbq pork buns, fried prawn in beancurd skin roll and salted egg lava bun (which comes in a walnut shaped bun as seen in pic, pretty cute!!)

the prices are a little on the steep side for dimsum dishes, but at the time i went (about 4pm on a saturday), there was a 20% discount for all dimsum items so that was a real bonus!!

(ordered a bunch of items and the price would probably average out to be about $8-10/person) // tried a variety of dishes and all were pretty good!! situated within sunshine plaza (so a rather hole in the wall place), this was a fuss-free, no-frills timsum place, with good quality food at a *slightly* higher price point in my opinion
items tried:
xlb: it was bigger than what u would expect from a normal dimsum place and the soup was really tasty as well!!

hargow: skin was not overly thick and the prawn in each dumpling was HUGE

steamed carrot cake with XO sauce: interesting dish, cos it’s very different from the standard carrot cake you would expect from SG. it was steamed and then u get to pour the condiments (soy sauce + chili/XO) over it but the taste was really good as well. it comes with scallops and smoked sausages within the carrot cake layer

salted egg yolk buns: really buttery and it was the right amount of sweetness as well. the buns were also steamed to perfection !!

char siew chee cheong fun: quite standard

overall it was a good meal and i’d definitely be back for the salted egg yolk buns and the xlb!!

$6 + $1.50 for harajuku egg// very affordable given the high quality of this dish (and it’s meat-free nature)!! noodles were rly springy and chewy and there was a good portion of mushrooms, and each noodle strand was paired with the fried shallots so you get the perfect blend of chewy and crunchy!! downside is there is no miso taste at all in this dish but i guess it’s all been blended together, but the sauce was rly nice, with stronger mushroom/oyster sauce flavor.
this place tends to get very crowded during meal times so try not to come too late!!

$8 for 5 pieces // yuMZ!!! meat free dumplings with a filling that was made up of spinach, tofu, shiitake, gochujang and korean pickles. the combination of textures from the filling made it feel like a regular pork dumpling and the flavors worked well with each other!! the dumplings were pan fried to perfection (living up to the namesake of this shop), even though it was a tad bit oily. the garlic aioli sauce had strong garlic flavors which went well with the dumplings. quite affordable for the quality (+ it’s rare to find veggie dumplings), would definitely be back!!