I feel so blessed to be a part of the ChineseBites crew because I get to explore all these different Chinese cuisines with similar foodies like myself. Recently, I got to go to Shiang Garden for a 13 course dinner with
Sean,
Grace,
Sherman,
Rick,
Diana, and
Nancy. The noms are real.
We started off with a
Prawn Salad which consisted of half a juicy ripe papaya topped with huge prawns, melon and Japanese mayo. I absolutely adore prawns that have a good snap when you bite into it, and this was the case. I'd come back just for this appetizer alone.
The venue and restaurant itself is quite grand, with chandeliers at every corner and elaborate chair covers.
The
Sauteed Mixed Seafood came with large plump scallops, shrimp, snow peas, sea cucumber, and a gorgeous decoration of sliced oranges and cucumbers.
This is called
Tremella with Chicken & Crab Meat Soup. For those familiar with crab meat and fish maw soup, it tastes kind of like that. Otherwise, think of it as a very thick broth based soup.
The presentation of this
Diced Beef Tenderloin with Honey and Pepper dish blew me away more than anything. Look at that thinly sliced cucumber! I absolutely love the combination of honey and pepper so I thought this dish was really delicious.
Time for seafood! It was nearing the end of spot prawn season so the
Steamed Spot Prawns with Garlic were more on the smaller side. The presentation was stunning though and left everyone wanting more than one piece.
This was probably my favourite dish of the night! Definitely a must get item. It's called
Lobster with Salted Egg Yolk and it satisfied me in so many ways.
Not only did it glow in a beautiful gold colour, the salted egg yolk coated every piece of lobster perfectly. Not too little, not too much. If I wasn't in the company of others, I would have totally licked that plate clean.
I'm not sure if the presentation was especially exquisite because it was a special blogger dinner, but this
Whole Chicken with Abalone Sauce looked ridiculously cool. The soy chicken was quite tender on its own, but became elevated when paired with the slick abalone sauce.
BC Dungeness Crab with White Wine Sauce was simple, fresh, and brought out the natural sweet taste of the crab. I'm normally not one to eat the crab shell cholesterol, but it did look damn enticing.
Another honey and pepper dish, yummm. This one was in the form of
Lamb Chops.
I feel like "baos" have been a thing lately. There's
Bao Down in Gastown,
Bao Bei near Chinatown... everyone just can't get enough of baos! Including me. :) My favourite version is deep fried baos with drizzled with condensed milk. Oh gawd, I'm drooling on my keyboard just thinking about it.
The braised pork belly had the quintessential ratio of 50% fat, 50% meat. Clearly it melted in the mouth and made me feel like I just committed a sin after eating it. :P
As if we did not have enough protein in this meal, we were offered an
En-Ping Style Whole Tilpaia. I didn't try much of it so I can't comment on it too much.
The
Buddha's Feast Cabbage Roll was a nice break from all the meat and delivered on a lighter note which was super necessary at this point. It contained carrots, wood ear mushrooms, and enoki mushrooms.
When they set the plate down I was SO excited. Both the
Durian Pastry and Osmanthus Flower Cake Pudding was super delicious. I'm a big fan of fresh durian so I found the durian flavours to be quite muted in the pastry dish. However, I know it's just right or even too much for novice durian eaters so don't follow my palate if you don't ADORE durian like I do. :P
All in all, the 13 course dinner at Shiang Garden exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend the durian pastry and lobster with salted egg yolk dishes!!
Service Rating:
N/A
Food Rating:
4/5
Price:
$$-$$$
Overall Rating: 4/5
Happy Eating!
everyone's face when I tell them i like durian...
