Sillyb has been craving for steamboat, so we thought of visiting Xian De Lai at the new shopping mall, JEM. JEM is located beside Jurong East MRT Station and carries many popular brands such as Lowry's Farm, H&M and Uniqlo. Usually when we go for steamboat, we leave the place with a stench on our clothes. We chose Xian De Lai as the air is 'fresher', and most importantly, they serve fresh, shelled cockles which is sillyb's favourite. Trust me, I left the restaurant smelling fresh that night. (Only applicable in JEM outlet)
Xian De Lai is located on basement 1 of the mall. This outlet is similar to NEX, and different from the Bugis and CCN (Cheong Chin Nam) outlet. NEX and JEM outlets offer exquisitely-designed individual pot where Bugis and CCN offer a regular steamboat with two soup bases, a.k.a. 鸳鸯.
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| frontage of the restaurant |
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| our individual pot |
This outlet offers set menu and buffet option. Set menu costs $18.90 and buffet is $25.90. Drinks are not included in the buffet. I did not have a chance to take some pictures of their ala-carte menu as I was not presented with one. Their can drinks costs around $2.50++ each. Also, they have other china style 麻辣 dishes on their ala-carte menu.
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| set menu |
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| buffet menu |
The buffet selection here is somewhat similar to Bugis outlet. The additional $7 they are charging is probably for the extra selection on side dishes and better dining atmosphere. The selection of the soup is also different. As you can see from the menu, there are 5 types of selection. I was rather disappointed that they did not offer the 辣子鸡 and 辣子虾 soup bases here.
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| Sillyb's duck soup, quite flavourful. |
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| My tonkotsu soup, light and sweet. |
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| Part of our feast |
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| flower crabs! |
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| prawn wonton and special taste ribs |
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| spicy peanut sauce which goes well with beef, tastes like satay beehoon sauce. |
As steamboat selections are pretty much the same everywhere, I shall blog on some special ones. First in the line will be 辣子鸡. This was one of my favourite until I tried the 辣子虾 in Bugis outlet. At bugis, they will serve the chicken in the pot without the soup. After around 5 minutes, they will remove the remaining chicken from the pot and fill it up with spicy chicken soup. The spicy chicken soup is different from the usual 麻辣 soup as there is NO '麻' in it. I dislike the '麻' feeling on my tongue whenever I drink 麻辣 soup. So, this is perfect for me!
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| 辣子鸡! Craving satisfied and it was complimentary (not on the menu)!! 9.0/10 |
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| Side Dish: Drunken Chicken. 7.5/10 |
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| Side Dish: Spicy Potato Noodle, served cold. No 'wow' factor. 5/10 |
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| Side Dish: Fried Bacon Balls. This is something like croquette. The filling is mash potato with bacon bits, tasted peppery. 6.5/10 |
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| Side Dish: Wonton Wrapped Prawn. Not crispy enough and tasted bland. 5/10  Side Dish: Pepper Salt Chicken This is the most awful side dish we had that night. The powder they sprinkled on top was not to my liking as it 'tasted indian', and totally not peppery ok! I wonder why they served that in a chinese restaurant. The chicken was dry and cold. 2.0/10 |
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| Buffet menu: Prawn Wonton. This is different from the Bugis outlet. They used white wonton skin instead of the usual yellow ones. This skin is thicker, so I would prefer the yellow ones instead. :) 6.5/10 |
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| Buffet menu: Pork Glue. You can see from the side that it is quite thick, or in fact, too thick. If you use the usual way to cook fish glue on this, it will probably take ages. So, i gave up and scrapped the 'paste' into the soup. The white bits are water chestnut. Flavouring was pretty strong, tasted some 五香 spices in it, and it's not to my liking too. 3.0/10 |
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| Buffet menu: Chicken Noodle. Basically, it's chicken paste and when you squeeze it, udon-like paste oozes out and drops into the pot. Lol I know it sounds disgusting, but it was really that case. Flavour wise, lighter than pork glue and tasted some ginger in it. Texture was like...egg white? 5.0/10 |
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| My healthy pot of goodness. Yummms! |
Like I said, Xian De Lai serves ala-carte dishes as well. Here are some promotions which they are having right now.
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| I wonder why they are giving promotion exclusively at NEX in JEM outlet. I didn't receive any $10 vouchers though. :/ |
One thing I would like to comment on will be the service team at Xian De Lai. Be it at Bugis or JEM, there are several similar problems. First, if you ordered 20 items, only 15 will be served. The remaining 5 just disappear or did not show up. You need to remind the staff to check it for you. If lucky, they will serve upon checking. Otherwise, they will ask you to order on the second round. Secondly, the portion they serve is very little. There are pros and cons to this. Serving small portions is probably their solution to food wastage. However, it can be rather frustrating when you have to keep requesting for order chit and ordering your favourite items repeatedly. Usually, we will indicated '1' inside the box, and indicate '2' or '3' for items which we prefer to have more. I realised that even if you indicate '10', they still serve '1' portion. Perhaps they have no qualms about wasting paper, and precious time.
Anyway, Xian De Lai will still be one of my favourite steamboat places as the food they serve are fresh.
As usual, we left the place feeling extremely full and decided not to have steamboat for the next one month.
Here's the contact number of Xian De Lai at JEM. Reservation is recommended.
+65 6339 4366
xoxo, ping.
Anyway, Xian De Lai will still be one of my favourite steamboat places as the food they serve are fresh.
As usual, we left the place feeling extremely full and decided not to have steamboat for the next one month.
Here's the contact number of Xian De Lai at JEM. Reservation is recommended.
+65 6339 4366
xoxo, ping.
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