Royal China - Tim Sum lunch at DIFC, Dubai

Location: DIFC, Building 4 - Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai
Tel: +971 4 354 5543
Number of persons: 9 adults, 4 children, 2 babies

Total bill: 1,274 AED
Bill with tax: 1,400 AED (RM$1,100 or RM$122 per adult)

Expensive, not the nicest of ambience (It was too warm!), and they lost our reservation (Not a good way to start a meal!!) ... service was average too. Overall, not the best of experiences, and the food was simply average as well, not up to its London HQ's standards!

Water (Aqua Panna), 25 AED

Peking duck (Whole), 260 AED

Duck two-way (Qty = 3, that's preparing a lettuce rub duck from the meat-bits of the duck, after the skin was served in pancakes ... OUCH!), 105 AED

 Prawn dumplings, 28 AED

Char siew pao (Barbecue chicken of course), 28 AED (That's RM$7.50 per pao!!!)

Dry scallop Cheong Fun with Yau char kuey "Char cheong", 30 AED

Pan fried chicken buns, 28 AED

Glutinous rice in Lotus leaf, 25 AED

 
Pan fried fish cake, 28 AED
Minced fish congee "chuk"/porridge, 20 AED

Baked barbecue chicken pastry, 30 AED

Chicken with cashew nuts, 55 AED

Steamed rice, 12 AED (RM$10!)Special fried rice - Lotus leaf Royal China-style, 60 AED

Sing chau chau-mai "Singapore fried vermicelli", 48 AED

Stir fried beef hor-fun with Black bean sauce, 48 AED

AND ...

Organic Pu-er Tea - 2007 vintage!! (Per pot, 30 AED), they charged us 1 pot per couple or 120 AED worth of tea ... That's RM$100 worth of tea for us 9 adults. YOUCH!

Homemade Pao in Abu Dhabi

Someone's been baking in the kitchen ...

In the steamer it goes :-)

Oooh ... done!

Three varieties ... Choy pao (Vegetable), Curry chicken pao ... and of course, Char Siew Pao!

Yum Cha Buffet - Tim Sum at Shang Palace

Where would one find such a nice toothpick dispenser such as this (The "S" logo may be a giveaway) ... Yes, at Shang Palace.


This isn't Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, nor Manila, its the Shang Palace at Abu Dhabi :-)
Located: Between the Bridges, Qaryat Al Beri (Further down the road from the Fairmont and The Souk)
Map: Google
Tel: +971 2 509 8555
Time of timsum brunch: 12pm-3pm, last orders being taken at 2:30pm.

What impressed us once again ... On a previous visit, Emily's level of service was impeccable, but this time round, the restaurant manager, Jason Chin, did Shangri-La proud by extending us what could only be described as personal, professional and the most memorable level of service. Exemplary!

Yum Cha tim-sum buffet
Sun-Thurs, weekdays: AED88++ without the dessert buffet, or AED 108++ per person (Inc. tea & Sofra's dessert buffet)
Fri, Sat, public hols: AED138++ (Inc. tea & Sofra's dessert buffet).

1st course ... Braised hot and sour soup with seafood (We also had a sweet corn soup with beancurd, but I finished that before I could take a shot with my Nikon D80 and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 set-up).


Chicken puff pastry sprinkled with sesame seeds ... A respectable halal-variation of Char siew soh. We found the porridge a wee bit bland though, Minced chicken congee with preserved egg.


Steamed barbecued chicken buns aka "fake" char siew pao ... Probably my favourite timsum of the afternoon, we shared 5 between the two of us!


This was when we received a BIG surprise! Here is the dish that the chef and manager made for us, simply because they knew we love Yong Tau Foo and missed the version from Ampang!! Fried tofu stuffed with minced fish paste, with an XO-style topping, in a delicious braised-style sauce. Perfection!

Other dishes we enjoyed on this 2 hour eat-fest :-) included ...

Steamed glutinous rice with chicken wrapped in lotus leaf (Pretty good), Prawn dumpling "Har kao" which were fresh but I found the skin to be not-translucent enough, and a portion of Deep fried seafood spring rolls with seaweed (Simply average).

We then moved on to a plate of Shang Palace fried rice with minced seafood (I have had better!), Wok fried egg noodles with vegetables (Average again) ... and Wok fried rice noodles with beef and vegetables, sort of a kon chao ngao hor which was very tasty!

Phew ... and we weren't done yet! Time for Yau-char kuey and Fried prawn in batter. We preferred the steamed tim-sums at Shang Palace, as the batter overpowered the dishes unfortunately.


The end is near ... Phew. We were stuffed by this point!

Here's our Deep fried shrimp roll, with bean-curd skin ... "Fu chuk kuen". And finally, the beautifully created Mushroom and scallop wrapped with chinese leaf.

There were three chinese desserts on the menu. We only had room for two! Baked egg tarts were decent, and finally the Almond jelly with mixed fruit cocktail.

As it was the weekend when we were there, the meal included any selection of desserts from Sofra Bld's excellent selection. We only had room for these!

View from the courtyard outside the Shang Palace, looking towards the magnificent Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and the Sheikh Zayed Bridge (Inaugurated November 2010, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects).

A parting shot of the courtyard at the Shangri-La ...

Halal tim-sum & Chicken Rice at Noodle Bowl, Dubai

We had been to Noodle Bowl in Abu Dhabi's Zayed Sports City / Bowling Alley many times, but when my cousin R asked us to join her in Dubai for tim-sum one weekend, we could not resist. I found the food at the Dubai-branch to be somewhat better, but that's highly subjective!

Mall: Dune Shopping Centre
Located: Al-Satwa / Al Dhiyafah Street
Tel: +971 4 345 3381

Hainanese Chicken Rice - Pretty good! 35 AED, or RM$28. Char Siew Pao (Halal variety, that's chicken char siew, was rather good, pastry/skin could have been fluffier, but "stuffing" was good!) was 16 AED, or RM$6 per pao.


Uncle CH really liked the "Hokkien" Char Kuay Teow, and was rather surprised it could be halal! This cost 29 AED. Beef Horfun with Egg was decent too, 35 AED.


Other drinks ...
Soya milk and peanuts, 15 AED. Water melon juice, 16 AED. Fresh lime soda, 7 AED. Teh Tarik, 10 AED. Jasmine tea in a pot, 15 AED.

And other tim-sums and dishes ...
Fried turnip cake, 18 AED. Prawn chee cheong fun, 17 AED. BBQ Duck congee (Porridge, really good!), 25 AED. Kangkung Malaysia-style, 28 AED.