Ah Yat Abalone -- Excellent

Hello everyone! I figured I should comment on techniques and ingredients used to prepare some food (or at least my best guess) so the home-cooks can try new things. I updated older posts  to reflect these changes.

I am somewhat torn about Ah Yat. Ah Yat serves the best dim sum in the city, but quality seems inconsistent. The last time I went there, the dumplings were already cold. The one before that, the dumplings were fresh except for the bao. Maybe the dumplings are fresher on the weekdays? Well, try coming here during a weekday for a 50% discount and fresher dumplings if you can. This way you also avoid the crowd, as you may need to wait in line during the weekends, even though the restaurant easily seats 300.

Fried shrimp wontons with mayo. From my observation, this is a big hit with the kids. Kids love crunchy stuff coated in sweet mayo. If you want to make this condiment at home, mix store-bought mayo with sweetened condensed milk. Add Sriracha and you get the spicy mayo found on sushi rolls.

Hargow, thin rice skin with crisp shrimp. If you want to make your shrimp crunchy like this, let the peeled shrimp sit in a bowl of water and baking soda (not too much or it will turn bitter!). The higher pH firms up the flesh.

Fried mashed taro with meat filling. Like a fancy croquette but less savory. Instead of rich mashed potato, you get mashed taro which is a lot milder and tastes slightly like coconut milk.

The famous bo lo char siu bao. A combination of pork bun and pineapple bun. The pineapple bun is named that way because the cracked yellow surface resembles pineapple skin. The top is just cookie dough slapped onto the bun, just like melon bread in Japan.

These chicken feet melt in your mouth. They are first deep-fried to puff the skin and then stewed or steamed with the sauce. Skin and cartilage contain a lot of collagen, which turn into gelatin when cooked for a long time.

The dim sum here is overall delicious. There are many other types served here and I will add more pictures in the future. Ah Yat serves a bigger variety of dim sum during the weekends, but everything that matters is served on the weekdays. I forgot to take a picture of the chang fen, but I highly recommend it. It's silky smooth and the sauce is quite sweet. In places like Singapore, chang fen is usually not that sweet or smooth. In this case, I approve of sweetening the sauce.

Last comment about this place: don't order the abalone. I mean, it's good for the novelty if you want to burn some cash. The abalone itself doesn't have flavor, just like shark fin. The flavor resides in the sauce, which Ah Yat is famous for. Then again, it is just really good chicken gravy.

Paradise Dynasty -- Neutral

The Paradise Group started off in Singapore and it is now expanding into Indonesia. Dynasty is famous for its la mian and xiao long bao. The food items on the menu are inconsistent, with some being delicious while many others are just average. For the price, it's not worth it. However, the food is still undeniably good.

For appetizer we had Szechuan style cow offals. The sauce is just chili oil with Szechuan peppercorns, which is boring. I expected a more complex flavor, perhaps from cinnamon or ginger.

The la mian also lacks flavor. Since the stock is presumably made from pig knuckles, I expected it to be very rich like the stock for ramen. Maybe they didn't use as much pork knuckles, though, as I found a lot of undissolved pork skin in my bowl, which thickens the stock but doesn't add much flavor. The pork and egg are delicious, but the stock could've used more seasoning. Also, the la mian doesn't have enough protein content. Instead of being chewy, the noodles are extremely soft without any bite. Jade Imperial serves better la mian at 2/3 the price.

Cooking tip: if you want perfectly boiled eggs, the trick is to not boil the eggs. Eggs aren't meant to reach 100 degrees Celsius; they're already fully cooked at an internal temperature of roughly 70 degrees. However, most of us don't have the luxury of controlled-temperature water baths. You can place your eggs in a pot of water, bring it to a boil, and then immediately turn the stove off. Let the eggs rest for 10-12 minutes for soft-boiled and about 15 minutes for hard-boiled. The eggs will never be overcooked because the water will have cooled off sufficiently once the entire egg is the same temperature as the water.

This is the famous 8-flavor xiao long bao. The dumplings are full of soup but contain almost no meat. The cheese dumpling is surprisingly the tastiest. The ginseng flavor is quite strong, so your reaction depends on whether you like ginseng or not. The other "flavors" are gimmicky; I doubt they put enough truffle, crab roe, or foie gras to make a difference, if any. For about 10k apiece, this is hardly worth it. The xiao long bao at Depot 3.6.9. is better since it contains more meat and is therefore more filling, and they're sold at 1/3 the price!

The sweet and sour pork have a nice crunch but the batter is somewhat hard. My main gripe is that the batter is thicker than the meat. Overall a delicious dish.

The fried chicken has been brined beforehand, so the meat is very tender and juicy--as good as it can get. The outside is very crunchy, something that Indonesians will certainly love. The dipping sauce is just plain mayo, though, so there's not a whole lot of flavor except for the succulent meat. If they can come up with a tastier sauce, I would definitely come to eat this regularly.

Cooking tip: brine refers to a solution of salt and sugar. There are many variations, but I use Alton Brown's recipe for brine: 1 gallon of chicken broth, 1 gallon of water, 1 cup of salt, and 1/2 cup of sugar. Brining unfurls proteins, preventing meat fibers from coagulating unevenly. The meat will also retain more moisture when cooked. If you want to "brine" beef, you can sprinkle a big chunk of beef with salt and leave it for one hour, then wipe the salt with paper towel.

In conclusion, Paradise Dynasty offers many tasty dishes, but some need improvements. You should come here if you just want good food and don't care about the price. I would label this as excellent if the prices were a little lower, but currently it's just not good value for your money. When you eat here, try the xiao long bao and decide for yourself whether you like it or not; avoid the la mian.