They seem to have won some awards and stuff, and have displayed them on their glass door. Didn't really bother looking though, the pictures on display looked pretty good. Head on in and we're greeted in chinese by their staff. Oh boy not a good sign! Terence and I both suck at chinese, well... Terence is worse off though. Haha. The waitress gives us the menu and starts speaking to us in chinese with a strong china accent. Looks like the restaurant is run by mainland chinese. Thankfully the menu has english words, but there were still some things that we didn't know what they were. Tried asking the waitress but couldn't really comprehend what she was saying! Haha oh well, we just placed our orders after painstakingly trying to find out what was what.
Terence's braised beef la mian came first. Managed to swipe some soup and I must say the taste was really good. A rich and tasty broth which was not overly salty. He said the beef was nice and tender too.
Then came my Mala Seafood La Mian. I like spicy stuff so I asked for a recommendation from the waitress, and this is what came. I don't know why my bowl looked so full compared to Terence's la, maybe the waitress find me cuter so gave me more noodles. Haha. Wow the Mala is really Mala man! Drank the soup till my tongue became numb. It was really spicy! It was supposed to be a seafood la mian but the only seafood there was were only 2 prawns and some fish cakes, oh and some seaweed since they come from the sea too. Maybe they should call it prawn noodles instead.Anyway the disappointing conclusion Terence and I came to was that the noodles were unlike la mian. It was more like handmade noodles that we eat at ban mian stalls. La mian is usually quite fine, somewhat thin noodles. Their noodles were not consistent. Some parts were thick and flat like mee pok, others were fat like the yellow egg noodles, and then you'll find some strands that look like normal la mian. The noodles were a bit too chewy and sticky.
And finally, the xiao long bao arrived! I totally forgot to take a picture of this before it was devoured. So hence you only see one xiao long bao left. They have both pork and prawn xiao lao baos so we ordered the prawn one to try for a change. We were so looking forward to the xiao long bao but we were greatly disappointed after eating it. The skin was dry and tough, plus there was no soup inside! The most important thing of a xiao long bao, to me at least, is the soup in the darn thing. This xiao long bao had none! Out of the 6 xiao long bao, only 1 had soup inside.... and Terence was the lucky one to eat it. DAMN! Best part was that it wasn't prawn xiao long bao! It was the pork one....
To compliment the meal we had chrysanthemum tea(is that the correct spelling? I'm not sure). The tea was pretty good I must say, helped to wash down the food we ate. And the tea pot was kinda cute.
The aftermath of our meal.... I couldn't finish my food because there was just too much noodles. I stuffed my face to no avail. Cannot means cannot, better not force it before I merlion. Haha.In conclusion, the meal was alright I suppose. They need to improve on their noodles because the soup is great. Ingredients were good too. And it's not very pricey for a restaurant. Most of their noodles cost between $4.50-$5.00, except for stuff like the da pai chicken noodles. Xiao long bao was a big miss too. They do sell those zhi char kinda stuff too, but two of us couldn't eat that much. Maybe next time when we have more people. Some of the things on the menu looked interesting, like the funny taste chicken. Maybe next time then. Where to next??
Cai Gen Xiang Northern Seafood Tavern
666 Geylang Road (Near Lor 40)
Operating time: 1130-0400
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