Xin Tao Yuan

Address : 63 Tanjong Pagar Road
Tel : 6323 6367


Xin Tao Yuan Restaurant at Tanjong Pagar. Being my first visit to this establishment, i couldn't help but feel the space was some how a commodity here. Or perhaps one time too many suppers.

Anyway Xin Tao Yuan was crewed by a staff of mostly PRC ladies ( well in actual fact, i didn't really notice any non PRC staff around) and they speak with perfect Chinese which i think most of us will be able to understand. Near the entrance is this space kitchen space where the noodle chef prepares the handmade noodles in full view of all the customers. Once heard a joke that while making homemade noodles, the chef dun have to add any seasoning to the mixture. They comes naturally through the plams and forehead.

Walking into such an establishment like this, complete with the presence of PRC ladies, seeing others digging into plates of jiao zhi, you will know the place will be good, and authentic.

So the order for the night was Shredded Pork in Special Sauce (Dou Ban Jiang), Zha Jiang Mian ( handmade noodles in special sauce ), Beef Noodles ( Handmade noodles in beef consomme ), Lobster Noodle ( Stir Fried ?handmade noodles with lobster ), Guo Tie , Xiao Long Bao, Chong You Bin ( Chinese Spring Onion Puff ), and Gou Qi Ye Soup.

WE had this special Chinese flower tea which GF commment cost $2.50 per serving. Taste wise, nothing much to shout about but the presentation was beautiful.

The handmade noodles were fantastic. They had the right amount of texture to it. But the sauce was a tad too salty for my liking. I like the chewy bits of savoury meat and the crunchy vegetables in it.

Shredded Pork in Special Sauce. We were supposed to wrapped the meat into tiny packets with the meat and the popiah skin. Eaten alone, the meat can be quite salty but wrap it all up and dump it into the mouth, it lightens up the salty taste of the meat and we found it very delightful.

The xiao long baos were one of the better ones we had. The skin were thin and each little mosels of dumplings were pack-filled with piping hot and savoury meat juicies. They were generous with the filling and eaten together with shredded giner and vinegar makes the whole experience a wonderful one. Think i saw on Zhen Guo Chen's "Mei Shi Da Shan Tong"' on the Xiao Long Bao, and i think in the making of authetic Xiao Long Baos, lard and water were added in a certain percentage to the meat mixture to attain the meat juices inside the baos. If my memory doesn't fail me, lard were finely minced and mixed together with the minced meat in a 40/60 ratio. 40% being lard. ( cue Star Wars opening music ) WOW!. Water is then mixed in together to form a rather watery mixture. So be wary when u asked for seconds on this.

I was most impressived with the quality of the Guo Tie here. They were huge and generously filled with some sort of meat and vegetable mix. I can see shredded carrots, Jiu Cai and spring onions in it. The based were crispy and the skin was al dente. And it's no surprises that people came here for their Guo Tie. And there are many other choices of filling for the Guo Tie ranging from different kind of meats to seafood to vegetables.

Next up, we had Cong You Bing ( Chinese Spring Onion Puff ). It was quite a disappointment. It's not that bad actually just that it pales inthe presence of the excellent Guo Tie and Juicy Xiao Long Baos. Nevertheless, i find the puff too thick but overall still savoury and filled of spring onions. Comparatively, the ones i had in Hong Kong and Taipei seems to a lot better.

The Gou Qi Ye soup ( the leaf of Guo Qi, the red little dates that mums used to add in the soup for that extra sweetness. Said to be able to improve memeory and eyesight ). My first impression when i had the soup was it's slightly more bitter taste and in fact it came across rather familiar to me. I think my mum used to cooked this soup with dried anchovies and egg. Anyway to me it's more like a feel-good soup to accompany the deliciously-high calories dishes were had. It kind of takes that little bit of guilt away. ;)

For dessert we had this very interesting dish. Can't remember the name but they are like some white fluffly balls fried to a light golden colour and topped off with icing sugar. We later found out the skin was actually made of egg white and the stuff was that of red bean paste. I believe egg white were beaten up til extremely fluffly and a small quantity of flour added to the beaten egg whites and folded in slowly like souffles are done. Then balls of red bean paste are den coasted in the mixture and deep fried. When served, they appears huge and puff up. But as they sits on on the dish, air started leaking out and the whole thing just slowly sinked into the shape of a lump of golden balls. I took a bite and found that i could still taste the egg white texture. the skin is thing but extremely oily. Quite a interesting item and we made a mental note to experiment this someday.

Overall an extremely satified dinning experience. I was filled to the brim but somehow GF have other ideas. So after dinner we made our way to Punggol Park for a drink and chat. Things started to get really scary when she ordered Fried Chicken Wings from the menu. I was like ..."Huh?!~!"She's becoming more and more hardcore than myself. I could hardly manage my cup of hot raspberry tea!~!~!~! Is this karma?

Anyway a friend called and asked if i could meet him tomorrow for a drink. He's a real estate agent and i mentioned to him about GF and myself looking around for a flat and our plans to settle down in the near future. In actual fact, before i even mention about looking for a HDB flat to GF, i have seek advice from my friend and seriously spending a good amount of time dissecting HDB's websai. I think i first mention about getting a HDB apartment to her when we were in Bangkok. Getting close to 2 years together, planning to settle down in another 2. Our plan is as such a i believe it's realistic and practical. Well at least both of us are committed everything is going smoothly.

So after the phone call i told GF about it and she asked if it was a proposal. Lolz. I'm not the romantic kind of person but i'm sincere serving, opps i mean spending the rest of my life with her. So as most Singaporean males, i choose the most straight forward approach, and asked the HDB question.

I mean this is the all important question when a man and woman in a stable relationship got to consider if they choose to walk down the aisle to holy matrimonial isn't it? And i was promptly warned of the 'consequences' should i dare try using the same method to propose. It's is scary... very scary.

So we met-up the next day for breakfast at a fastfood joint to have a chat with him and his wife. Found out more details on how first timer like us should take note, kind of options available to us, fitting our budget to something that suits our needs. I guess we learnt a great deal from them and they were kind enough to give us print outs on cost of flats , renovation costs, etc etc.

We came out more aware of our needs and requirement. We are in fact looking at 4-rooms HDB flats in Boon Lay / Jurong area. Near MRT station, neighbourhood shopping malls, market and coffeeshops. Punggol, SengKang, and anywhere from Lavendar to Pasir Ris, Bukit Batok to Toa Payoh are not in our consideration. Anyone got lobangs? ;)