Dim Sum @ Shang Palace

We went to Shang Palace at Shangri-La Hotel for dim sum brunch last Sunday. Finally we are venturing out of our usual dim sum places e.g. Chinese Restaurant at Raffles Town Club and Prima Tower Revolving Restaurant. Before those places, we always went to the (now closed down) Mayflower/Swatow Restaurant at Changi Airport in the 1980s.

I have always like the restaurants in Shang, and would have gone there more often if not for the "way out"-ness of the place :p I just find it so inaccessible if you do not drive. Anyway, we took advantage of the current early bird promotion (valid till end of 2008) where the dim sum dishes are at 30% off. A la carte prices remain the same.
You can select your tea from the sticks inside the canister. So many varieties to choose from.
I like the table setting where every diner gets its own condiments. Nice, you don't have to share with your fellow diners.
The first dish to arrive - mix rice rolls. I didn't realize the mix meant that 3 different types of rolls were served in the same dish (scallops, prawns and barbequed pork)
The shark fin dumpling soup. Very generous serving of the shark fin and the dumpling skin was not too doughy or thick. It was chock ful of ingredients - pieces of prawns, mushrooms and crabmeat I think.

I was pleasantly surprised by the BBQ pork bun. I was never a big fan of BBQ pork bun for dim sum as they tend to be chewy and doughy. This was so light and fluffy that it almost melted in the mouth. Very soft bun, and the meat was not artificial sweet or gelak. See how moist the meat was. Very good.
Some of our dim sum dishes - phoenix claws (I didn't try that), siew mai (also pretty good - not too porky taste at all).

The custard bun with salted egg yolk. This was recommended by my gf. It looked pretty nondescript, eh?
One bite and the custard salted egg yolk just oozed out. Be careful of how you bite it. Unfortunately I think this was quite an acquired taste so not everyone liked it. I liked it though. Something different. Not too sweet or salty.
My dad requested for the bo lu bun as he had a very good one at Shang many moons ago. So he wanted to try it again to see if it lived up to memories.
And no, he didn't think much of the current version. He said the previous one was so much better. This was average, not much difference from those served elsewhere with the bbq meat inside the bun.
My sister requested the 5-flavored rice in hot stone from the A la carte menu - for my nephew and everyone else. But like a typical Chinese kid, he was at the stage where he preferred to run around rather than to sit down and eat. So yeah, my sister had to finish up whatever he didn't eat. I really wonder how other families can get their children to be so well behaved whereas it seemed so much harder for Chinese families. You tend to see Chinese kids run wild in restaurants and shopping malls. The rice was ok, not too bad. Not my favorite dish at all. We ordered other stuff too but I was too busy eating to take pictures - pork ribs, shrimp dumplings, seafood congee, carrot cake, etc.