Mandarin Court Chinese Restaurant

Had Dim Sum with Fams last Sunday. We went to Triple 3's neighbour: the Mandarin Court Chinese Restaurant. We were given complimentary lunch due our food poisoning incident at Triple 3. I like how their PR states it, "Out of goodwill...."


Their lunch buffet starts at around 11.30 and we were greeted with a crowd at the entrance; apparently somebody was having his/her wedding at Meritus Mandarin. We were brought to our table by a lovely motherly waitress who then brought our drinks; the complimentary drinks include orange juice, mango juice and soft drinks.

Despite the warm reception, our orders were being taken by this extremely grouchy lady; I reckoned it hurts too much for her to smile. She aggressively suggested we start with the complimentary dishes first before ordering; we abide as nobody dared to offend the lady in black (her nickname for the rest of the day). 

Enough with the bitching and onto the food, our complimentary dishes were good. We each had a serving of lobster, with options of baked cheese, superior sauce and stir fried garlic. I picked the lobster with the superior sauce, which tasted really creamy and brought out the sweetness of the lobster. Bro's cheese lobster tasted really good as well. The shark fin's soup was a lil bland for my liking but, according to mum, it was loaded with shark's fin. I didn't quite like the Peking duck as well as it was as crispy and the skin enveloping the duck was thick and doughy. The salmon sashimi tasted better than it looked, creamy and fresh!

Left Clockwise:  Salmon Sashimi Appetizer, Lobster in Superior Sauce, Shark's fin and Peking Duck

Next up, the actual dim sum. Jie got the usual, Siew Mai and Har Gao which both tasted normal. I ordered the Fish Maw Century Egg which sounded cool and bro ordered the Scallop Shrimp Dumpling. The former was interesting, super succulent prawns and century egg wrapped in fish maw and dunked in special XO sauce- NICE!

Left Clockwise: Fish Maw Century Egg, Siew Mai, Scallop Shrimp Dumpling and Har Gao

The Crispy Salted Eggyolk squid lived up to its name, it was crispy and had the rich flavours of the eggyolk. The black pepper beef was really tender. The Yam Croquette was interesting as it had some salty pork filling inside it. I would prefer a little sweet and salty action, nonetheless it was delicious.

Left Clockwise: Crispy Salted Eggyolk Squid, Black Pepper beef, Yam Croquette and Roasted Pork

Not a Dim Sum without Chee Cheong Fun! There were the usual shrimp and Char Siew CCF, we wanted to try something different and chose the veggie and mushroom CCF instead. I didn't quite like the CCF, the mushroom and veggie somehow didn't really go well with the translucent rice rolls. Moreover, the sauce was kinda bland and didn't really help the dish. The beef horfun was freaking oily and tasted more like char kway tiao. Having said that, the beef in the horfun was fantastically marbled and sorta melts in your mouth. If I were you, skip the hor fun and go straight for some beefy Ala carte. The Char Siew Sou was a tad too sweet however I do like how it has meat chunks in the filling instead of fats, which is the case for some Char Siew Sou.

Left Clockwise: Char Siew Sou, Veggie Mushroom CCF, Beef Hor Fun, Drunken Chicken Feet

Jie ordered some scallop toufu which tasted pretty good. The tofu was smooth and blended really nicely with the salty sauce drizzled on those scallops; I would prefer larger scallops and smaller tofu though. Jie also ordered a bowl of hot & spicy soup as she wanted something soupy. The soup was pretty nice but I definitely trade the soup for the desserts anytime! The avocado cream with walnut ice cream was pretty interesting. Although I didn't quite fancy the walnut ice cream (as there wasn't any walnut at all), the avocado puree was lightly sweeten and had nice little sea coconut bits at the bottom. 

Left Clockwise: Tofu with scallop, Hot & Spicy soup, Avocado with walnut Ice cream, Custard Bun

The Custard Bun looked super pretty! But looks aside, the Custard Bun needed more salted egg yolk essence, it's such a pity as the texture of the custard was amazing!

Custard Buns from Mandarin Court Chinese

The Mini Cod dumplings were abit tasteless, with the prawn overwhelming the mini cod. The Yam paste was drizzled with almond tea and wasn't to my liking as I hated almond flavoured stuff. However, I quite like the yam paste as it wasn't too sweet and had the right consistency. The herbal jelly was served with a tiny jar of honey, both of which tasted weird. 

Left Clockwise: Mini Cod Dumplings, Coconut Bits from the Avocado dessert,  Yam paste and Herbal Jelly

On to the final dishes *hang in there*, the Black Glutinous Rice was lightly sweetened (which is always a plus for me) but was average tasting. I didn't quite like the Mango Pudding as it was too jelly-ish, I thought Paradise Inn's Mango Pudding owns Mandarin Court's. The Mango Puree was pretty nice though, refreshing and had quite a fair bit of Pomelo and Sago floating around. The egg tarts were simply a waste of my calories. It had some weird crust, which was neither a short pastry nor puff pastry. 

Black Glutinous Rice, Mango Pudding, Mango Puree and Egg Tart

All in all, Mandarin Court Chinese's Dim Sum is more of a quantity versus quality fare; they serve a wide selection of average dim sum. I would probably return for 1 or 2 items from the Ala carte menu, but definitely not the buffet.