HuaT(ing) Dim Sum

Now that I've posted up on our desserts, here comes the dim sum lunch that we had at Hua Ting. The name of the place sounds auspicious, no? Huat, huated, huating.


The pickled strips of veggie was a good change from the usual stewed nuts. Spicy and piquant, it kickstarted the salivary glands and woke up the taste buds.


This was the Deep Fried Bean Skin Roll with Prawn ($4.80). Nicely crisp and with fresh ingredients, it made for good snacking. Oh and the skin wasn't overly salty too. Yay!


Decided to take a picture after biting into the Baked Chicken and Mango Tart ($3.90). For me, this was overtly sweet. There was a nice play of flavours between the mango, pastry and chicken but the scale tipped too much towards the S factor- Sweet.


Eat dim sum no Har Gau how can? Yah, so here's the Steamed Crystal Prawn Dumplings ($4.80). The prawn filling was very fresh and with a hint of savouryness. The skin could be more refined and better made though.


The other partner-in-crime, Steamed Siew Mai with Shrimp Roe ($4.80) was decent but a tad heavy on porkiness. This pig can't fly.


"To help feel fill the stomach, always go for starch." said a wise man. The Pan Fried Carrot Cake with Conpoy ($3.90) had a mushy interior with bits of lup chiong (Chinese sausange). If only.... it had spent more time in the pan to obtain a beautiful, crisp skin.


To add more fluff, the Steamed BBQ Pork Buns ($3.90) arrived. The fluffy bun encased cubes of fatty pork with char siew sauce.


Here's the Steamed Dumpling in Teow Chew Style ($3.90). Supple, chewy skin is nice to chew on. Rather light- and healthy-tasting dish with the chopped veggies within.


This was the Steamed Cheong Fun with Sliced Fish ($4.80). Rather okay but I didn't take to the sheng yu (snakehead) that was wrapped inside the rice flour sheets. Maybe using cod or red snapper would have been better, but they will probably also cost more.


For Harry Potter's sake, we had the order of the pheonix...claw. Steamed Chicken Claw with 'Gui Ling' Spicy Sauce ($3.90). I don't know what 'Gui Ling' sauce is but the chicken claws were decent.


My dad's a big fan of steamed pork ribs. The ones here, Steamed Pork Ribs with Plum Sauce ($3.90), were a let down. The porky taste was overwhelming and the meat was tough. I prefer dad's version with chopped garlic, chilies and dau see (black beans).


The Steamed Glutinous Rice with Abalone ($5.20) was average. Definitely edible but nothing to shout about. In fact, quite a boring dish lah. Lol.


What was much more enjoyable was the Steamed Soya Bean Skin Rolls with Chicken and Mushroom in Superior Oyster Sauce ($4.20). Yum yum yum.


To fight off vampires (since Buffy has retired anyway), eat the Deep Fried Scallop Pastry with Onion and Garlic ($4.50). The fried morsel was actually pretty tasty with the buttery pastry but the garlic was just OVERPOWERING. I don't know if it's supposed to contain scallop but I didn't find any.


Pan Fried Shredded Duck Rolls ($4.20) I did not like. I do eat duck. But the whole roll here was stodgy, limp and tasted weird. I took a bite and unfortunately that was all I could manage. *shudders* Maybe I ate it when it was no longer hot.

I found the dim sum on this first visit to be average. But what more than made up for it was the fun company and enjoyable afternoon out. :)


Hua Ting
Level 2
Orchard Hotel
442 Orchard Road
Tel: 6739 6666
Opens: 11.30am to 2.30pm, 6.30pm to 10.30pm daily

Chew On This: Maybe my palate was a little jaded from the marathon dim sum tasting session about a week before this visit to Hua Ting. Speaking of which, the dim sum marathon's coming up soon.