Wah Lok Cantonese Restaurant

Cantonese Food Even Fussy Grandmothers Would Love Wah Lok's one of my favourite restaurants for dim sum, especially for Sunday brunches where I can afford eat leisurely and stuff my face to my heart's content. We made reservations at 11.30am, the earliest timeslot available for lunch. Please note that reservations for weekend lunches are a must, to avoid waiting or travelling in vain.

1) Steamed Carrot Cake ($4.50 each). Although fried carrot cake is ubiquitous in almost every dim sum restaurant, the steamed version is its more unusual sibling. We love love love Wah Lok's version. Julienned radish mixed in rice flour, and steamed with dried shrimp and chopped char siew (bbq pork), drizzled with light soya for taste and spring onions.

2) Glutinous Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaves ($5.40). There were bits of char siew (bbq pork), Chinese black mushrooms, a quarter of a salted egg yolk, and diced meat stuffed between the 2 layers of soft glutinous rice. Delicious.

3) You Tiao Cheong Fun ($6.50), deep fried dough fritters wrapped in rice rolls and steamed. The version we had that day was a little disappointing, the dough fritter was too hard and I felt like I was biting into rock candy. Maybe it's because it was left in the fryer too long. We had to dunk the rice roll into the soya dipping sauce to make it a little soggy first before eating.

4) Char Siew Cheong Fun ($6.50), diced bbq pork wrapped in a rice roll and steamed. Thin, translucent layers rice rolls envelope diced sweet bbq pork were drizzled with light soya for taste. Also very good.

5) Siew Mai ($5.60), steamed pork dumplings with prawns and topped with diced salted egg yolk. This was juicy and the prawns were fresh and crunchy. I loved the salted egg yolk topping.

6) Old Cucumber Soup with Pork ($6.80). The flavour and essence of pork bones is boiled out to flavour the soup base and old cucumber is added for that nutritious cooling goodness. Comforting and familiar.

You can view the photos at http://thehungrybunnie.blogspot.com

It’s a shame that Dim sum isn’t getting the recognition as its Sushi counterparts. The Japanese sushi is also like what Dim sum is to the Chinese cuisine, just that it comes in the form of vinegared rice topped with ingredients like fish, various meats and vegetables.

With the entrée of more Spanish restaurants in the local dining scene, more people knows about tapas, and degustion has always been a firm word on the menu of the French restaurants here. How about dim sum? I think that most youngsters nowadays are not really into dim sum, since it’s often seen as a more traditional meal. Youngsters want to break out of the tradition, they want something hip and cool, and dim sum is not that. Which is cooler, saying you had dim sum, or tapas at the latest Spanish restaurant and a 6 course degustion dinner?

Dim sum is akin a piece of artwork crafted by the chef, so exquisite and refine. No offence to the Sushi-fanatic, but give me dim sum over sliced raw fish anytime.

Every hotel will have their own flagship restaurants in the different cuisines, and at Carlton hotel, Wah Lok is the Cantonese representative. Our latest dim sum adventure brings us here, together with hautestuff and ladies, we had a great time over our dim sum lunch.

Wah Lok is located on the second level within the Carlton hotel, the high ceiling of the restaurant makes the interior looks very spacious. The decor is typical of most Chinese restaurants, with a very comfy and homely feel. There are two different dining halls and can easily fill up on a normal day, which shows the popularity of the restaurant.

Char siew sou ($3.80 for 3) The Baked BBQ pork pastry or more affectionately known as char siew sou, has always been one of the dim sum that i will order first. Wah lok’s version of the char siew sou did not disappoint, within the buttery surface of the pastry were juicy and sweet char siew fillings.

The rendition at Wah lok may not be as refine as the one i had at Yan Ting, nevertheless it’s still better than most char siew sou that i had before, and all of us were tempted to order second helpings.

Baked BBQ pork buns ($3 for 2) We asked the captain for recommendations, and he promptly suggested that we have Wah Lok’s signature, char siew bao. We were rather surprised when the char siew bao came, as it’s not the normal steamed buns which has white pillowry exterior. Instead, the baked counterpart is browned and glazed, more like bo luo bao.

The juicy and sweet char siew was enveloped within the baked pastry. Although we just had the char siew sou which is a different variety made with puff pastry, the pork buns were gone in an instant.

Baked egg tarts ($3.20 for 3) The petite baked egg tarts had smooth and eggy fillings within the puff pastry. The miniature size of the egg tart was the only problem as we only had one each.

Steamed prawn dumplings ($5.40) The steamed prawn dumplings, or “Har Gao” at Wah Lok had fresh, succulent prawns contained by the thinly light skin. Solid and reliable prawn dumplings.

Steamed pork dumplings ($4.60) The steamed pork dumplings or “siew mai” is another dim sum which i would not fail to order. The siew mai was well-balanced, not too porky.

Fried XO carrot cake ($10) The fried xo carrot cake was off-the-menu, which we requested for instead of the steamed carrot cake. However this was a mistake as the carrot cake was bland and too soft for my liking. We couldn’t taste much of the supposedly “oomph” xo sauce. At $10, we would be better off ordering two other basket of dim sum.

Steamed chicken claw with chili ($3) I am never a fan of chicken claw, but the three ladies certainly enjoyed it, munching the chicken feet and spiting out the small bones.

Deep fried beancurd ($5.6) We wanted one more dim sum after our first round, and the waiter recommended this. The deep fried beancurd skin with prawns was excellent. Normally, the beancurd skin would be more than the prawn, but in this instance, the succulent prawn fillings threatened to overshadow the beancurd skin.

Fried mango ice cream ($6) We ended off our dim sum lunch with a very non-chinese dessert. Fried ice cream was a craze a few years back, and i remember there’s even a store at the Tiong Bahru market which used to sell fried ice cream. But not anymore, where can you still find fried ice cream nowadays?

The crispy exterior had a strong hint of coconut taste, while the interior was icy cold ice cream, simply magic, how did they do that?

Total bill was $63.75 for 4 person, which worked out to be around $16 per person. We didn’t really ordered a lot, so the price might seem deceptive, nevertheless, the dim sum at Wah Lok is still priced reasonably given their quality. The portions are quite petite, but it will do for our ladies. I foresee i’ll be coming back to Wah Lok quite often in the near future to try out the rest of the dim sum.

You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!