Crystal Jade Dining Place

Hey! (:

Last weekend, my family went to Crystal Jade Dining Place at IMM for family dinner. My parents like Chinese food so we try to have Chinese food every other week when we are out so that they will be happy (: They were quite enthusiastic about trying Crystal Jade's peking duck after hearing good reviews about it so we headed to IMM because we expected a relatively smaller crowd or a shorter queue at a "neighbourhood" outlet.

Because my family is very big, we're quite used to having to queue or wait for a table. This explains why we were pleasantly surprised that we were brought immediately to our table upon our arrival at the restaurant! =) Since we were only given two menus and none of us requested for more menus for some strange reason, we took turns to flip through the menus and ordered a dish each!

While we were deciding what to order, my brother started practising his chopsticks skills by trying to pick peanuts up with his chopsticks! There was a mixture of normal peanuts as well as wasabi flavoured peanuts! It was the first time I ate wasabi flavoured nuts and I like how they taste! (:

A dish of nuts and a dish of chilli sauce

We ordered just the right amount of food because we managed to polish everything off! (: Most dishes tasted pretty alright with the exception of the french beans, which were overcooked, as well as a fish dish that my mum ordered to try. Here are photos of the food we ate:

Sweet & sour sliced fish ($27)

This dish was neither disappointing nor was it mindblowingly fantastic. The fish slices were crispy on the outside and tender on the inside and the sauce wasn't too sour nor too sweet.

French beans with shrimps and bits of pork ($18)

As mentioned above, the french beans were overcooked so they lacked crunchiness. I think we should order another vegetable dish in future just to see whether it tastes better.

Braised beancurd with fresh mushroooms ($18)

One thing I liked about this dish is the different kinds of mushrooms that were included in this dish! Personally, I don't really like the big black mushrooms so it was nice to have other types of mushroom in this dish. The beancurd pieces were soft and flavourful.

Fried prawns covered with salted egg yolk ($28)

I think it's the "in" thing to cook seafood such as crabs and prawns with salted egg yolk these days. We ate salted egg yolk crabs on my father's birthday so this method of preparing a seafood dish wasn't novel to us. Everyone commented that the prawns were tasty so I guess my family members like the taste of salted egg yolk with seafood.

Peking duck! ($28.80)

Peking duck meat (additional $10 for cooking this dish, which in my opinion is ridiculous)

I didn't eat the duck dishes so I don't know how they taste like but my sister commented that the duck meat was too tough =( Thankfully they liked the duck-skin crepe rolls as well as the crackers that came along with the crepe rolls.

Pan-fried fish fillet on toast ($18)

Most of us didn't like this dish because we found the fish meat too dry. However, there was mayonaise/ salad sauce for us dip the fish fillet in, so I guess the overall taste wasn't that bad.

Water-chestnut cream with pomelo ($4)

A refreshing and sweet dessert which balances the sweetness, saltiness and spiciness of the antecedent dishes very well.

Mango cream with sago and pomelo ($4.50)

On the whole, we were pleased with the food as well as the service provided at Crystal Jade Dining Place. Personally, I was just happy to be able to spend some time with all the people who are dear to me because we hardly see or talk much to each other during weekdays due to our different schedules and workload. =)

Alright that's all for now! I can't wait for this week to be over so that I can take a short breather. Have a great week everyone! (: