Sunday, July 03, 2011

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 ...

1 comment:

Ciki said...

ah yes, i think i read your tweet on this right.. yamchar with dimsum! Food looks fab.. u really know how to find great food jules;)