Hello! My name is Zhi Hao and for those who have a tough time remembering chinese names, you can call me Charles too. Wonder how I got the name Charles? Just say Zhi Hao in an accelerando manner and you will know why. :p This is my first attempt to blog on behalf of Charlene. Actually all along I had the intention to do so but I was worried that I may not be up to it. After much encouragement from Charlene, I have decided to do so and to experience Charlene’s hobby – to take photos and blog about food.
Why did we go to Royal China? On my birthday, Charlene planned the itinerary of the day and Royal China was our first stop. I have to say that the interior of the restaurant was very well done. Personally, I felt that the place is like the dining room of a castle with tables and chairs neatly arranged in rows. The colour of the pillars was Charlene’s favourite colour – light blue.
After so much talk, lets get down to the food. The BBQ Pork Puff ($4) is barbecued pork in a baked flaky pastry. The flaky crust is soft and the pork in it is sweet, juicy and tasty. I feel that it tasted much better than its steamed bun counterpart, the char siew bao.
If you love egg tarts with soft crust, then you will definitely not give the Egg Custard Tarts ($3.60) at Royal China a miss. The egg custard was not too sweet and along with the pastry crust, it is like a marriage in heaven. I love them and this is one dimsum that I will not give a miss.
Har Gau is definitely one of the best dimsum ever created. When it comes to Har Gau, I have very high expectations of them. The skin must be firm enough so that it is able to hold the prawn within it when i pick it up with my chopsticks and does not tear easily. The prawn filling should also give a crunchy feel when I bite on it. Happily for me, the Prawn Dumplings ($4.80 for 4 pc) at Royal China satisfied these 2 conditions and we did not take long to finish them.
The Taro Roll with Scallop ($4.80 for 3 pc) which is fried yam tart, resembles the δ½ι΅ι£ι¦ (Fo Bo Piao Xiang) that is served at local zi char stalls. The only difference is that the former is much smaller than the latter. I like the crispiness of the yam crust, together with the taste of the boiled scallops. It is an innovative creation and its taste is good too.
I have only eaten Chicken Claw ($3.60) once, and it was a few months ago. Charlene had dared me to try food that I have never tried before. Basically Feng Jua is braised chicken feet with chilli. It has a lot of small bones and is very difficult to eat for first timers. The meat was juicy and quite spicy. Overall, I think it is quite good.
Charlene and I wanted to order the conventional steamed Chee Cheong Fun until we saw the XO Chee Cheong Fun ($6.80) on the menu. We were both curious and we wanted to know how it tasted and hence we ordered it. The beansprouts did not have any pungent smell and the thickness of the Chee Cheong Fun was just nice. The XO sauce was infused into the Chee Cheong Fun and added to its taste.
Thank you Charlene for bringing me to Royal China to celebrate my birthday! We had this for our brunch at about 2pm. We did not order a lot as Charlene had made plans for dinner but I certainly had a good meal. All I have to say is that it was all worth the money spent and I would strongly recommend a return to try other dimsums. That will be the end of my post! Thank you for reading this and I hope to be her guest writer in future π
Additional note by Charlene: Thanks for your birthday treat! Hahaha!
Royal China
1 Beach Road
Raffles Hotel 03-09
Tel: +65 6338 3363
Opening Hours:
Mon to Sat
12pm β 3pm (Lunch)
6pm – 10.30pm (Dinner)
Sun and PH
11am β 3pm (Lunch)
6pm β 10.30pm (Dinner, only Sunday)
welcome to the world of food blogging, that’s a commendable first try! *pats on back*
think charlene can officially rope you in as in-house guest writer. lol.
Hey Phoebe! Thank you for commenting and praising me! I took quite long to come out with this post and Charlene had to help me to edit with the English! But i guess she do not mind editing for me though! π hope to be able to come out with new posts soon! Hope to hear from you soon.
Chewy Charles, you made an effort to draft this blog and well done for your 1st attempt. Is good that both of you have common interests and hope to see more of your food blogs and sweet posts π
Hey Carlyn, thank you for commenting on this blog post. Sometimes I just want to take the intiative to experience what Charlene likes to do and luckily for me, I kinda like food blogging too. Look out for foodoshoot’s next post! I think it is coming soooon! π
a good first attempt at food blogging! i see that you and Charlene ordered almost the same items as HungryTrotters and I, glad you liked them!
btw, happy birthday charles!
Hey Stargirl! Thank you for commenting and wishing me Happy Birthday. I have heard alot about you from Charlene and I am glad that she can get along well with you despite the age difference. I guess food blogging does bring a lot of different people together. π Those food that we ordered are dimsums that we LOVED to eat. Well great STOMACHS digest alike. ok me being lame.
Happy birthday, Charles! This is a great post, and very good for your first try =) Hope to meet you two soon!
PS: Those egg custard tarts look so mini and cute!
Hey myfoodsirens (i wonder if i could call you by that), thank you for commenting on my post. I hope to meet up with you soon. I have been to 2 food bloggers gathering and I must say that I have enjoyed myself. I love the egg tarts too! I guess that they are made to satisfy our taste buds! π
great write up, with striking resemblance to, http://www.notquitenigella.com/2010/05/24/tetsuyas-waku-ghin/
you both will make a good tag team π
Hey Ying Pei, hello to you and thank you for commenting on this post. I read up that link that you posted and I also think that there is a striking resemblance except that the person’s English is way better than mine. I hope that I will be able to improve on my style of writing. So stay tuned for my next post yea? π
Happy Belated Birthday!!!
It is always sweet to share the same hobby, keep it going… You will find it a joy to browse through the old entries in the long run… =)
Keep both of your posts coming…
Hey Fen, thank you for commenting on this blog post anyway. Sometimes it is good to indulge in Charlene’s hobbies. Actually, I made up my mind to help her with this post because I was inspired after our mooncake party. I hope that I will get to participate more often in her blog. So stay tuned for my next post, not coming so soon because I have a lot of tests coming up :(.
Keep your posts coming too! π i enjoy looking at your photos!
well, i always tell my friends that i can never be a food blogger because for the most part of it, everything usually taste good enough for me. i’d think that my taste buds are not functioning to its maximum potential lol.
as such, it’s always a delight for me to read up on food/restaurant reviews from food blogs like this! food blogs provide an excellent source of information whenever i need to rack my brains to think of a new restaurant to bring my friends to. keep it going! π
Hi Steph, thanks for dropping by and for your wonderful compliments π
I love reading your blog cuz it’s just so inspiring and informative! Cheers to many more awesome posts to come!
I enjoyed this post chewy Charles π Keep it up! I’m sure you enjoyed doing this post just as how Charlene enjoys it too π Now, you guys can take turns when one of you gets lazy π hahaha
Hehe Loraine, I guess you are right! π
Hello Lorraine. Thank you for commenting on this blog post and nice to meet you. Charlene will never be lazy to do food blogging though so I will just be thick skinned and ask her to give a next assignment to blog about. π