A DIM SUM DISAPPOINTMENT

Today’s lunch with some ex-schoolmates from university days was a bit of a fiasco.

W called me out of the blue earlier this week and asked if I was interested in meeting up with her and another junior A this weekend for dim sum lunch at Hua Ting, Orchard Hotel. The mention of Hua Ting sealed the deal for me and I agreed. I had wanted to sample their dim sum for some time. I am sorry to say that I was more excited about the food then the prospect of meeting schoolmates I hadn’t seen in a while.

Anyway, I took a cab down to Orchard Hotel at the prescribed time 12 pm, and found that there was no reservation made under W or A at Hua Ting. W answered my call groggily and apologised for having overslept, and informed me that A had been unable to get a reservation for Hua Ting, so the venue had been changed to Kum Boat Restaurant at 12.30 pm.

I was inwardly seething a little because:

1) No Hua Ting!
2) Kum Boat Restaurant reviews had not been very good so far.
3) I was already at Orchard Hotel, and now I had to walk back to Shaw Centre.
4) I was not sure where Shaw Centre is (so sue me for being “suaku”).
5) It was hot as hell outside.
6) I was wearing higher than normal heels, since I thought I would not have to do much walking. Sure enough I ended up with a painful blister.
7) No Hua Ting!

So anyway, I spent the next 30 minutes looking for the place and finally found it and found A as well, but not before I had to make a call to EP to ask for directions (EP, because he is our foodie guide). By now I was rather hot and bothered and couldn't walk properly.

A and I finally managed to make our way to Kum Boat Restaurant, only to receive a call from W. There had been some miscommunication and she was now at Shaw Towers in Beach Road, instead of Shaw Centre in Orchard.

By the time she rushed down in a cab it was 1.20 pm. However, since A and I had waited rather long before ordering, the food was just arriving. While she was cooling down, we discovered a mistake in our orders. The waiter had mistaken our instructions to serve certain items first and hold the rest (until W arrived) and instead had duplicated those items. So we ended up with double orders for some items. It took some time and fast talking to get them to cancel the duplicate orders and by this time, both parties were slightly disgruntled.

The dim sum selection was rather average, about 32 items with some other selections from their usual ala carte menu, and nothing that we couldn’t find in other restaurants. I think the prices were a little on the high side though, comparable to some of the hotel restaurants like Wah Lok in Carlton Hotel.

We ordered about 7-8 items, and most of them were of average quality. There was nothing really to rave or complain about, except that most of the items did not arrive piping hot and were mostly cold by the time we got to them. My other gripe is that the skins of the rice flour rolls (chee cheong fun) were too thick. I could get much better from my coffee shop dim sum stalls at cheaper prices. This is one of my favourite dim sum items and I am usually not too particular, but today’s rice flour rolls were too off the mark and I was pretty disappointed.

Service was mediocre. We encountered quite a bit of forgetfulness and the waiters all seem too busy to pay much attention to us. However, they manage to respond to our needs before we had a chance to get really disgruntled.

On the whole, it was a forgettable experience at Kum Boat Restaurant. With so many other good dim sum restaurants to choose from, Kum Boat Restaurant would never rate a revisit from me.

There was a slight feeling of having wasted half a day, but since I managed to catch up with W and A, I guess I should not consider those few hours wasted. On a brighter note, I managed to get four hard-to-find novels at Borders later, so I guess the day was not a total loss.

Anyway, I have my sights set on Hua Ting next and shall try and arrange another dim sum session for our little foodie club at Hua Ting soon.