Xiyan - Chinese Fine Dining

After reading all about the rave reviews on Xiyan…..a whole bunch of us decided to just pop by and try it out. Lucky for us, we managed to reserve our table at this EXCLUSIVE RESERVATIONS ONLY restaurant in Duxton area although it was at quite short notice. Oh yes, despite our driver’s self-proclaimed familiarity with the Duxton area (no…NO……, not what you are thinking of!), we managed to NOT find the place easily because this exclusive eatery does not have any signboard on the outside. Anyway, thx to T2 and the rest in the first car, we managed to find IT!

Its located on the upper storey of a row of shop houses. If you follow the small staircase, you will be greeted by the red wall bearing the name of the eatery XIYAN – 喜宴。There is no fixed menu and each table just goes through a 12 course dinner whipped up by the chef. The menu changes daily and you need a min of 5-6 pax to make up one table. Our menu for the nite was:

Oh Boy!!!!!! Our first appetizer was a tomato dish. This genetically altered monster looking tomato the size of a huge persimmon is really GOOD! Even a meat lover like me took double-triple helpings. The tomatoes are extremely sweet and it goes extremely well with the wasabi & sesame sauce dribbled generously over it.

The next few appetizers were not that superb. Cold tofu pork floss – nothing to shout about really. Very similar to 冷奴,except this one had all the pork floss throw over it. I kinda prefer the Taiwanese version of 凉拌豆腐with century eggs included. The shishamo in my humble opinion was bad. The poor thing was neither plump nor tasty. Okra with red beancurd sauce turned our to be 腐乳四角豆！！！Well, very normal. I like my 腐乳thick and stinky, the watered down version here din really appeal to me.

The first main course of the nite was Oolong chicken. Its really a normal dish but I would say the chicken was marinated well and I could taste a hint of the fragrant tea in the skin.

The glutinous rice with spareribs was the show stealer (below). The glutinous rice was well simmered and sucked in all the flavorings…..死ぬほど美味しかった！トマトは勿論美味かった、でも、肉が大好きな私にとって、やっぱり豚肉はもっと好きだ！スパーリーブ最高！！！！！！

I have this thing against fried fish so I din really touch the grouper (which looked suspiciously like the gurami fish some Indonesian restaurants serve). According to those at the table, the fish was fresh alright. But what I liked about this dish was the generous dose of pomelo and lime salad that came along with the fish. Very refreshing and good for someone like me who adores pomelo but can never get around to peeling the damn thing. I left the next dish untouched – crabs!

The serving of sorbet midway (pic below) was a darn considerate act on the part of the eatery. Hail all things sour! Banzai to Sorbet! The basil was not overpowering, instead I could taste the kalamansi added in. I wished we had more of the sorbet. I could just stop eating here and have it for dessert.

The soup which followed was typical Cantonese fare – 老火汤。Not too bad, but I have tasted better soup. The last dish of the day was fried spinach ( ouch!!!!!!!). You cannot really go wrong with fried veg.

Desert was lychee ice-cream in osmanthus wine. Oh…thot the ice cream tasted more vanilla than lychee. I wished it was more fruity. The wine was fragrant and light. To top it of, we all had one canned lychee each!!!(Muahahahahahah!)

Quaint experience dining here really. Although not every dish was superb, they were usually above average. I really liked the basil sorbet and pomelo salad (冗談じゃないよ！). And the service staff were good, taking great pains to go through every single dish they served, explaining in detail the ingredients used and the cooking methods employed.