Dinner at Xi Yan last Wed night was a thoroughly joyous affair, not because anyone was getting married, but really because it was an enjoyable dining experience.
The Singapore branch of this HK private kitchen is tucked away on the second floor in a two-storey shophouse along Craig Road. Xi Yan’s pleasant interiors welcomes diners with its red walls, warm lighting and Chinese-styled paintings and decorations.
The earthenware crockery were all slightly different and I felt as if I were looking at a unique piece of art with every cup and plate.


The menu of the night. I’ve put down the exact names of the dishes as printed on the menu.


prancing lobster with dual sauces 双味味冻龙虾
The lobster came with two dips–a mint and a balachan-based one. Most of us preferred the latter.


Japanese tomato in sesame sauce 胡麻日本温室番茄
This was one of the favourite dishes of the night. The Japanese tomatoes were so huge and succulent, and when topped with the sesame and wasabi sauce, it was utterly heavenly!


cold tofu pork floss 秘制冻豆腐
The cold Japanese tofu with pork floss was served in a big dish of dark sauce which had some sesame oil in it to give it more flavour. The sauce was nice and the tofu fresh, but I wasn’t exactly very blown away by this dish.


fermented bean curd fried oysters 香酥南乳炸生蚝
There were several typo errors in the menu, one of which appeared for this dish. “Bean” was spelt as “bead” and of course I had to change it here. Occupational hazard you see. Anyway, I reckon that should have me proofread their menus before they type it out! Perhaps I could offer them my services and I can ask them to pay me in kind. Haha.
These were coated with fermented bean curd and then deep-fried. It tasted pretty good.


clouds ears with wasabi 芥茉凉伴云耳
These clouds ears, some kind of black fungus, was served with lotus root and a wasabi sauce. Thought the wasabi that was in the dark sauce gave the dish that extra kick.


roast pig cheek 烧猪头肉
The charsiew was made from the meat taken from the pig’s cheek, which is supposedly more tender. The charsiew slices were to be eaten with small bits of lime and dipped in a sweet chilli sauce.


Spicy Sichuan chicken 口水鸡
This is one of Xi Yan’s signature dishes. The chicken was served with preserved egg and Japanese yam vermicelli in a fiery chilli sauce. We opted for the “original” rather than the toned-down version of this sauce. The chicken was very tender and everything was yummy, but the chilli proved too spicy for me. One helping was all I could manage.


shrimp sauce grouper with pomelo
香茅虾膏炸鲜斑
This grouper was coated in shrimp sauce and then deep-fried. We were told by the waitress that the fish was very fresh as it had been gotten from the market that very morning. That being so, I felt it was a bit of a waste to deep-fry a thoroughly fresh fish! Ah well, but this grouper tasted good especially when eaten with the pomelo, onion and chilli bits it sat on.


beef shin glutinous rice 四川糯蒸牛
This dish was the huge disappointment of the night. The beef shin was dry and so was the rice. We were told that the beef shin pieces were placed on top of the rice to allow the juices from it to seep into the rice, but I didn’t taste anything! The rice tasted bland.


mix fruits in plum sauce 梅子石榴
The mix fruit platter in plum sauce was meant to cleanse the palate for the next course.


fresh ginseng chicken soup 鲜人参煲鸡
The fresh ginseng chicken soup had wolfberry in it and it tasted pretty good.


young old happy news 老少报喜
Before this dish was brought out, the name baffled us. Sorry, but I actually hate the English translation of this Chinese phrase. People just have to learn that word-for-word translations just ain’t the way to do it! Anyway, for those who can’t read Chinese, the four characters means the bringing of good news by the young and old. Anyways, the name didn’t give a clue as to what this dish was.
All was revealed when a big dish containing pea shoots (豆苗) and preserved vegetables (梅菜) came. The “少” (young) referred to the pea shoots and the “老” referred to the preserved vegetables. Innovative name. But I felt the dish would have tasted better with more garlic and I think it lacked wok hei.


Xi Yan Tang Yuan 汤圆
This is their signature dessert and unlike normal tang yuan, this one has five different ingredients in it–chopped peanuts, white sesame seeds, candied melon, salted egg and butter. It was served in a sweet ginger soup.


Because I had made a special request to the manager, saying that I would be celebrating my 27th birthday that night (even though it was two days after the actual date), I was being presented with a baked Alaska! Yummy!
And as an end to what was overall a fantastic dinner, all diners were treated to a shooter of calamansi, honey and whisky. Really delicious concoction I must say.
Service was excellent and I liked the fact that each dish was being introduced to us by telling us more about the dish and how we should go about eating it. Together with two bottles of wine (Chilean Cabernet Sauv and a South African Pinotage), the bill came up to about $100/person.
It was a different dining experience and one with good food to boot. I would sooner fork out money for dinner at this “wedding banquet” than all the real ones I’ve been to so far! Like olduvai wrote in her blog entry on Xi Yan–“Almost like a wedding dinner, without the yam sengs and bad food.”