Zi Yean Restaurant

Zi Yean restaurant is the perfect place to hold a meeting, for my parents and Qin's. It's well priced, well located and serves good food at a good price. This restaurant is located at the void deck of a HDB block. No no no! Don't run away yet!

Its located at the void deck of a HDC block but it really looks like a restaurant! Thats quite a unique experience, if you think about it. Zi Yean stretches the whole void deck and is split into two parts; one part air conditioned and really resturant-looking, and the other un-air conditioned and kopitiam tze char-looking.

Okay, I didn't take pictures of the actual dishes though, as it was somehow like a formal dinner and it would look weird, plus rude, cause we're chinese.. I think, and it will definitely draw weird stares and ridicule from my grandma.. and others. So I took pics of the food on my plate! Hope that helps.



Now to the FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODAAA. The first dish was long beans with dried shrimps. It was really good. The beans were smaller and thinner than normal long beans and was really crunchy. It also wasn't too oily and the dried shrimps really gave it a good sweetness/saltiness and fragrance. Swee!, or Nice!



Next was the Empire Chicken which is chicken stuffed with preserved vegetables on a bed of chye sim. Mmmm, umami! The chicken was tender and stuffed with preserved vegetables which had the right bite consistency, not too hard or soft. The preserved vegetables were also not salty and soaked in the sauce very well. The sauce was nice and yummy and really nicely balanced.



The home made tofu came next. This was also nicely done with loads of spring onions on top. One thing about this Zi Yean is that their sauces are never bland.



The dog stew duck which was served in a claypot was supposed to be the highlight of the dinner and it didn't disappoint. The sauce is thick and rich and the taste was something I couldn't place. To put it simply, it was thick, more on the salty side and had a slight nutty taste with chinese wine in it. It is good but also very heaty so don't eat too much! In the claypot was also muchrooms and loads of tau kee.

The vegetables came next and looked.. funny. So I stared.. and stared and took a bite. Wah Lau eh! Shark fin?! I asked the lady to recommend one vegetable dish and she blabbered something in chinese and I, being the lousy-in-chinese guy, just said Er... can lar can lar and she gave me.. shark fin!? With vegetables nonetheless but still! [fuming mad] And it wasn't exceptional either.

The last dish was steamed grouper [I didn't take a picture] which was fresh and goooooood. The sauce was the same, usual light soy sauce etc, but the fish was well steamed.



And finally, Orh nee for dessert! Mwahaha! Thick, rich and gooey makes a bowl of yam paste sinfully good. Mmm, it was a little overly-sweet though but good nonetheless. I ain't complaining. I easily finished two bowls of this stuff.

Overall, I will recommend this place to friends. Its good and reasonably priced; considering we paid $230 for 11 people and we ordered 2 meat dishes, 1 fish, 1 vegetale dish, 2 big bowls of dessert and.. a plate of shark fin. Plus, the environment is nice and comfortable.

Address:

Lengkok Bahru
Block 56
Tel: 64740911
Opposite Redhill MRT Station