Singapore Midtown Lunch: Si Chuan Dou Hua @ UOB Plaza

The first of an expanding empire of fine-dining Chinese fusion restaurants, UOB Plaza's Si Chuan Dou Hua boasts good food at a high location - the price is fair.  This 60th-floor restaurant serves dishes originally from Sichuan, Shanghai, and Canton.  We were referred here by one of Connie's colleagues for good xiao long bao (juicy buns), traditionally a Shanghai-rooted dish.

The setting is fairly formal and upscale, the views are great if you're facing a window - I wasn't but my date was - the tables further from the window are smartly positioned on a raised platform.  There are small plates of peanuts, chinese slaw, and a spicy paste of some kind for amusing your bouche, while your covered teacup of tea leaves is filled by man sporting a brass kettle with a 4-foot spout.  Each pour is methodical and borderline dramatic.  The long spout narrows to a tiny opening creating a thin stream of boiling water that hits the side of the cup with enough force to create a swirly vortex that seeps the leaves just right and at just the right temperature... hmm...  I anxiously anticipated the kettle's arrival at our table, and became surly when a woman showed up with an electric tea pot for one of the three refills.

Connie and I really like spicy Sichuan dishes, and we ordered some that we're used to as a gauge of the quality of the restaurant's general handling of this third of the menu.  Chilled Pork Belly, Chengdu Fried Chicken, and Wantons in Chili Oil.  The pork belly was delicate, while the chilli marinade lacked some of the bite we're used to.  The Chengdu Chicken had the requisite amount of dried chillies (more than half the plate) and tongue-numbing capsicum berries, but the chicken was diced too small and all you could taste was the crunchy, oily batter.  The wanton dish was simply yucky.  The sauce was too sweet and too salty.  We also ordered our favorite veggie side of green beans which were delicious - Connie pointed out that in NY the beans were bigger and longer, but I assured her that it's not the size that matters....

We skipped the entire Cantonese Dim Sum menu, and got two orders of the beef soup xiao long bao.  These were good, thin yet stable shell encasing a delicious broth.  They are again smaller in size than the ones we're used to in New York, and the quantity per order is less still yet.

One of the better parts of the meal was dessert, Dou Hua (restaurant's namesake) beancurd custard - original and with wolfberry sauce.  The custard was delicate, subtly airy, and each bite a sensual delight. The common syrup was well made, not too sweet.  The Wolfberry Sauce added a herbal-medicinal quality to the dish, in a good way!

The price tag on this meal was somewhere near S$100.  Really not too bad considering the restaurant's position on the vertical scale of downtown, the amount of food, and the exhilaratingly original, table-side tea-pouring performances.