Crystal Jade - The gardens

Tis the season for CNY type posts... and of course the slurge of Sau Goong Chaos... Well, this is a belated posts on my end. With no network connection during CNY... I hit the blogging doldrums. Also! I found out PICASA3 has some awesome collage features! So what better way to do this post then to test it out!

This is my first SGC with big bosses and some junior staff. SORRY no face pictures here because 1) i am really not into taking pictures of people i know or cam-whoring... 2) Privacy is required lah - nanti all whack me how? Our choice of restaurant the rather fuu kwai - Crystal Jade @ the gardens. The upstairs one :) And i found out they have a la-mian store next to it!! my next try when i go there.


When i saw this place looks fuu - kwai, it is. The interior looks like some rather posh place - eg Tai Zee Heen kind? I started to sweat beads of ... er... fear here. Definitely this is going to be $$$ on our pockets. My fears were confirmed when we saw the menu for CNY SGC- *sacre bleu* .. and with 11 of us, we decided to go for their dim sum menu. Partly due to price and partly due to the fact we were already tired of CNY dishes before CNY. ( we saw Joey Yap lunching there... hehehe ) This place also happens to be quite easy to take pictures, each table has this light shining down so it gives the food this ethereal glow...

The appetizers served here are pretty unique as well besides the usual kacang, they had pickled chilli cucumbers. One of the lady bosses said she could just sit there all day and nibble on it. There was also some fried anchovies which i missed out on the picture


This being our SGC, we ordered a order of Yee Sang. And this is the best i have had so far. Compared to the staff SCG the other day, this was quite nice. Instead of using the colored yams, they opted for original color which you can see below and opted for fresher vegetables instead of pickled vegetables. Yee Sang is served with some drama here. While pouring each of the ingredients here, there is some "fortune messages" said during the action.. which i have no idea how to translate... but goes like good fortune this year, blah blah. I don't remember this being done in other restaurants.... Interesting. In fact at the last item added - i went and ask the guy... "got some more wishes ah... ?"... hmmm people stared at me funny.

Then came our long list of Dim Sums. It was as if we were on an eating frenzy but dim sum being small we had to order a few dishes. That explains the need for a photo collager because... otherwise this will be one of those blogs that have a LOT of pictures to load up. Initially some thought not enough but that end everyone was crying for mercy... * burp * So let's start the review from top left to clock wise.
CSB- Char Siew Bao - soft and fluffy alright but the char siew is not of the dark kind you see in either Hong Kee or Hong lim dim sum. Much more preference to the darker variety but this was alright. FF and i shared this as we were on the verge of fullness when this dish came.

2 dishes of noodles were ordered only 1 made my camera because this was Sang meen. :) I am not sure what was mixed in this but it was alright as well - a bit oily though. Topped with a lot of seafood. I didn't see how the original looked like though as the waiters quickly scooped it into different bowls for us seeing our table was full of other dishes. The other noodle failed me because - argh i hate black beans.

Chinese gyozas so daintly pictured but oh.. so little. Very nice. My favorite...

Har gao - what chinese dim sum it would not be without the traditional dish of har gao. Quite nice. Not thick, did not have the medicinal smell of prawns as per Canton - I. ... Something i just noticed - they don't serve sweet sauce here for some reason until we asked for it. I am so used to dim sum having chilli and sweet sauce that i was severly puzzled this did not appear.

Spring rolls - with chicken floss so i was told. I can't remember eating this though - there was only 1 order of this, think i did not try this one.

Lotus leaf rice - for some reason someone tot it would be great to order 3 baskets of this and we had to all force our selves to eat it all up later. LOL. It was quite nicely done, rice nice and soft and not too salty. Picture wise, all the browns just looked so weird.... and not attractive.

The awesome yet little duo of char siew and siew yoke. Not alot as you can see but which is ok because we have already pigged our selves out. The siew yoke - melts in your mouth! Yumz............

Also another traditional favorite called Siew Mai. Not bad. No pork smell!

Bean curd skin stuff with either pork or prawns - Awesome. We only had one dish of this but once i tried this and said it was nice, 2 more were ordered. You'd think it is just a thin layer of stuff but turns out it is not!

Finally, the one dish i find that Crystal Jade excels in... Siu Long Bao! Not too thick skin, you can almost see the skin and quite exquisite soup to go with the stuffing. I had only 1 but if i go there again the next time, i think i want the whole baske to me, me and only me.

By the way these were ONLY some of the dishes we ate, the egg tart, radish cake did not make the pictures as it was eaten too fast before i could take it.

The bill came up to RM486, with me guessing the closes value to bill -it's around RM45 for each of us. Now if you want opulence for lunch near by in the bangsar area, you can try this place.

Crystal Jade Restaurant
Lot T 210
3rd Floor
The Gardens
Mid Valley City
Kuala Lumpur

p/s: isn't it nice and neat now with photo collages. *grinz*