Hua Ting

Hua Ting
442 Orchard Road
2nd Level Orchard Hotel
Tel: 67347766

Perhaps it is my greed, but Sunday lunches are one of my favourite things. Sometimes we jump into a car with no plan in mind and either end up at our usual Sunday lunch eating places or sometimes we plan way in advance and have a reservation waiting for us. This week’s spot was marked out by my brother, and he was spot on this time with Hua Ting. The restaurant came highly recommended by our food-loving friends and his colleague who mentioned that this was his favourite Chinese restaurant in Singapore, and so to Hua Ting we would go.


Dim Sum from left to right starting from the top row: chee cheong fun with scallop, steamed crystal prawn dumplings, steamed siew mai with crab roe, steamed carrot cake with conpoy, baked chicken and mango tart, deep fried scallop pastry with onion and garlic, steamed glutinous rice with chicken wrapped in lotus leaf and steamed xiao long bao with fresh crab meat and roe.

Nosh: We had a selection of Dim Sum and a few dishes from the menu. From the Dim Sum menu we had chee cheong fun with scallop, steamed crystal prawn dumplings, steamed siew mai with crab roe, steamed carrot cake with conpoy, baked chicken and mango tart, deep fried scallop pastry with onion and garlic, steamed glutinous rice with chicken wrapped in lotus leaf and steamed xiao long bao with fresh crab meat and roe. The dim sum was presented simply but once you bite into these little morsels, the simplicity changes to sophistication. What was exceptional was the deep fried scallop pastry with onion and garlic - the light and flaky pastry enveloped a scallop, which was laced with a strong garlic sauce that was pleasant and not over powering.

From the regular menu, we ordered the braised minced chicken stuffed with goose liver paté topped with fresh crab meat. The stuffed goose liver was cooked to perfection, not over cooked at all; still moist and juicy, it provided a stronger flavour against the milder chicken and crab. Along with that, we ordered stewed meepok with beef brisket and tendon in brown sauce and a serving of chrysanthemum pomegranate rice with four treasures.

Shark’s fins and all the other expensive items like peking duck are on offer as well, but we had none. The table next to us ordered the peking duck and I was thoroughly impressed with the duck that was presented, it was so uniformly browned and was looking so delicious that I wanted to sneak a piece while they were carving it next behind us.

Pay: For all that we had, it was S$130 before whatever credit card discounts they might offer you. Steering clear from the shark’s fins which are S$50 for an individual, everything else is pretty reasonable for the portions that they serve.

Service: The service is excellent. They are terribly efficient, such that we thought we were having a ten course lunch instead of dim sum with the constant plate changing. In addition to that, the service staff was excellent in taking away an order that was misunderstood without any argument.

Why I would go back: The food is fantastic, and there is still the shark’s fins cartilage soup that I would like to try, the image of that peking duck that is etched in my mind and the scallop pastry that still lingers on my tongue.