The next up was the charsiew baos. This is Sharon's "test" of a good dimsum place. The charsiew baos here are not bad at all. The bun part was soft and sweet, the way we liked it. The filling was quite nice too. It wasn't extremely fatty the way some restaurants make theirs so it scored a point with me there. However, there still was some fat and the charsiew sauce was juicy enough so that the bao was still oozing with flavour. Check out the photos below if you don't believe me!
Look at how nicely the filling falls from the bun. 
See the delicious fat? My only gripe about the bun is that they weren't very generous with the filling. I like my charsiew to "overflow" the bun so to speak. Like the magic porridge pot that wouldn't stop cooking delicious creamy porridge. But I'm being picky here.
Sharon on the other hand, felt that the meat was not pork! Horror of horrors! What's a charsiew bao without pork? She said that it was made with chicken?! I don't think an established brand like Wah Lok would cheat and compromise on their charsiew baos so I think her tastebuds are just off-tangent (by a mile!) today.
Their charsiew baos were what we came for and I have to say it was not bad. Although again, it didn't blow me away. I've had better. ;)
If Sharon's test subject is the charsiew bao, mine is the hargows. The ideal hargow has nice thin translucent skin. The kind where you get a glimpse of the tiger tinge that lies beneath. Like this.
It is important to get the skin to be thin so that the hargow doesn't taste like chee cheong fun instead of hargow. There's nothing worse than thick white oversteamed skin on a hargow. The result is just a nasty paste-like substance.
We had such an experience at Xing Wang Hongkong Cafe at Heartland Mall. Up till today, I curse why I didn't listen to Sharon when she warned me that it was bad. I mean, so it's not great but what do you expect from a Hongkong Cafe right? But trust me, it was SO BAD. I have never, never, NEVER had such HORRIBLE hargows in my life. I literally had to force myself to eat one of it. NEVER, I repeat, NEVER order that. It's life-threateningly bad.
The next worse thing than thick oversteamed skin is oversteamed hargows which fall apart. See, the trick is to get the hargow's skin thin enough to see the orange but thick enough so that it remains a hargow when you pick it up instead of just prawn and skin that sticks to your chopsticks. Like this.
Sorry man Wah Lok, ultimate failure. I did not expect this from Wah Lok at all. It was a rude shock. It was also oversteamed and pasty. You can get much better hargows from any dimsum restaurant. I'm still reeling from displeasure. I love hargows and this ruined my lunch.
(to be fair, it did look promising. Pity.)We also had the steamed carrot cake. Did not make it with me as well. It lacked that oomph of carrot cake. It was not aromatic enough and frankly, tasted more like gelatine. I like my carrot cake to be smooth with just a teeny bit of roughness around the edge. This was just too smooth and severely lacking in 'pang-ness'.
The chee cheong fun wasn't fabulous. To be fair, it was very smooth and nice. And the soy sauce was not bad at all.
But they were stingy with the scallops so that did not hit home with me. To make things worse, the scallops were not very fresh. They were a little fishy and soft. Scallops should be firm to the bite. Not hard, mind you, but should retain that bouncy bite.
Next up, siewmai. Ok this was not too bad. Again, it wasn't wow, but so much better than their hargows. It did not look polished and instead resembled something you would get off a coffeeshop. But oh well, a little roughness can be good right? It definitely was not delicate like normal top-end dimsum restaurants. But it still tasted good. It was actually the way I expect authentic old school restaurants to serve siew mai. Shiok old-school goodness.
Again, it was good but did not hit the oomph spot. Sharon felt that the prawns were overcooked and hard, just like the hargows. I thought the prawns were fine though. So either she's fussy or I'm not discerning.
By now, we were so full and the egg tarts were taking forever to arrive. By the time the egg tarts arrived we had already resorted to bargaining with each other to finish up the food. We did not touch the hargows and the carrot cake because honestly, it is such a waste of calories.
Now, apart from the charsiew baos, we've also heard a lot of good stuff about the egg tarts.
It was quite good, the filling was done just right so that the filling wobbled when you bit into it. The crust was buttery and flaky, the way authentic egg tarts are. I'm not a fan of such pastry but I expect people who are to really like the egg tarts here.
My only grouse? The texture was good but the taste wasn't really there. It lacked the overwhelming eggy edge and was not sweet enough. I tasted more crust than filling, which I do not like. But other than that, I understand why most people like this egg tart. But then again, the egg tarts may have tasted good in comparison to all the other blah dishes.
The food at Wah Lok really was not as fabulous as I had expected. It is at best, average. I have no idea why people are so crazy about this place. As it stands, Lei Garden and Peach Garden are way way way better than Wah Lok.
No comments:
Post a Comment