Food review 2008 #07 - Red Star Restuarant

I think even this signage has been around for 30 years or more! LOL

I've yum-cha in this resturant for as long as I can remember. As a child, my grandma and troupe (meaning whole clan of relatives!) would go to this restuarant for the good and cheap dimsum whenever cravings striked.

Now I've all grown up (LOL) and have a family of my own, I've introduced this place to my DH and kids. And they love it too! There's been talk abt the change of chefs in the kitchen, causing a drop in the standard of food. But truth to be told, the place is still packed to the brim every weekends! Some may argue it's just that old habits die hard and ppl, esp the older folks would still prefer to have their morning tea here than anywhere else. But to me, it's not just the food, but also the fond memories and the atmosphere of the place that keeps bringing me back. What I love most at this place is the very retro atmosphere u can feel once you step in. The gawdy red, 80's restuarant decor and the service crew who push carts of dimsum from table to table for customers to pick and choose... seems like things had never changed and we're back to the 80's!

One of the many carts with all the goodies!

We started off with some siew-mai. It's one dish which I will deinfately order when I'm there. The meat's really fresh and firm, with the right amount of flavourings! These siew mai never failed me. :)Then we had har-gao (prawn dumplings). DH and DS being seafood lovers, this is a must-order item too. The "skin" of the dumpling is very well done, not too thick and have just the right bite to it. The prawns, needless to say, crunchy and fresh. You can still taste the prawns and not like some resturants when they processed the prawns to the extend that the prawns tasted so bland.Char siew soh.... Love the flakiness of the pastry once I bit into it... however, it's not as fragrant as it used to be... still... I LOVE IT!And then we had fun-cheong. The kids love this dish. We ordered the ones with char-siew and prawns filling. The fun-cheong is soft and yet have a slight chew to it. it doesn't break that easily and the sauce is so yummilious with the right amt of soya sauce and other marinates added to it. My only gripe is that there's too little sauce added! The next item to appear on the table was steamed fish paste on mushroom. This is an item that we would seldom order... since we're feeling kinda adventurous that morning, we decided to try. Not bad! The fish paste is a little crunchy and had bits of veg inside. I was sceptical that it would taste nice 'coz it looked really plain (and bland) but it din not disappoint... Of course, my fav part is the mushroom! LOL... I dun remember what's the name of this dish but I'm also pleasantly surprised that it tasted better than I expected it to be. There's strips of turnip mixed in the meat and then wrapped with wanton skin. The crunchiness of the turnip provided a nice change in texture. We were waiting for the push cart for char siew bao when I spotted the next table's order. The service crew came out of the kitchen with a HUGE bao and placed it on the table next to us.... I turned ard and saw my mom staring at it too! LOL.... tat's it... we decided to forgo char siew bao for once and ordered the same thing! After a wait of 10mins, the bao was presented to us and the lady asked us how many portions to cut the bao into. This bao is really huge... same size as my DD's face! When it was cut up, there were so much ingredients in it! Smacked in the middle of the fillings was a salted egg yolk. Then there was pork, chicken pieces and turnips and even slices of chinese sausage!

See how big the bao is?!?!?

At the end of our feasting.... the bill was abt SGD $40! Definately a good deal for the amount of food we ordered...

Red Star Restuarant is located ar Blk 54, Chin Swee Road, #07-23 Singapore 160054. Tel : 65325266. I'm not sure f they take reservations on normal days (but I'm highly doubtful) BUT i know for sure that on public holidays, it's only on a 1st-come-1st serve basis!

Mini cuppies

Tried out a chocolate cupcake recipe and it's not a success. :(

However, still decorated it wif DD. At least she enjoyed herself sprinkling the sprinkles onto the tops.

So...back to the drawing table!

Durian puffs

It's the durian season once again... and this year, we managed to buy some good and cheap durians... and when i said cheap, it really was cheap! imagine... 50 cents for a durian! Of course, do not expect a big one.. it's pretty small but very fragrant. And greedy DH bought a whole basket of durians! We got abt 25 pcs for $10.... a very good buy, but even wth sharing amongst the family, we could not finish all.So.... into some puffs it went! Recipe taken from Lucy's blog... only changed the plain flour to self-raising flour. It's a good and easy recipe to follow! Thanks Lucy!

Char Siew Baos ... again...

The CS Bao fan in me just had to have some! LOL...

Decided to try a simple recipe this time as I only had today to get the baos out.

Verdict?... The freshly steamed baos were good... when cold, it did not turn too hard and had a slightly chewy texture. The baos have a slight yellowish tinge but overall it was ok. A good recipe when u're tight for time.

I am tiger... see me roll....

Managed to put together a tiger roll this weekends... tiger roll may sound very foreign to some of you(s) if you're not in the Asian countries. The origin of this roll is from Malaysia... borned out of a mistake. Basically, it's the outermost "skin" of this roll having some wavy patterns on it... and being Chinese (or Asian), instead of admitting it's a honest mistake of adding in the wrong flour while mixing the batter, a "nice" name was coined. Tigers to Chinese signify virility and energy... so i guess this name was then happily accepted by everyone. However, I find the "pattern" created looked more like a brain! LOL.... But as you can all see, it's basically a swiss-roll.

The outermost "skin" (the yellow thin skin) was made of entirely egg yolks and we're talking abt 10 (TEN... yes... TEN!!!) yolks for such a thin skin! That also explained why I procrastinated in trying out the recipe for years. But then now that it's done... I'm happy to report that I'm really happy to have tried it... I've not captured the "pattern" on the skin here... 'coz I felt that the wavy designs on it were not too obvious. The side-views of the roll was more appealing to me... hmm... maybe the next time when I felt like making one, I'll make sure that the design on the cake is captured. :P