Swatow Seafood - 181 Lor 4 Toa Payoh

Spent our Sunday morning having #Dimsum ? It has been a long time since we last came. Service is prompt and dimsum taste pretty ok. There is a lot of variety and service is prompt in serving. A bit pricey but overall it is decent.

Review for : Take away for dinner. + weekday dim sum buffet. Dimsum buffet: Book and start the buffet at 3pm. As with everyone else, you'll be given an appetiser and pot of tea before the ala carte dishes is served in push carts. Going when it first starts ensures that you get a portion of all the dishes available as the service progresses. The dishes are served in good timing and don't rush to have multiple servings of each dish, unless u really want to, as there's new dishes constantly up until the 1hr20mins-ish mark where desserts start. Some dishes were a hit, (custard bun, red bean banana roll, char siew bao, siew mai, fish skin) some were mediocre (lotus glutinous rice, century egg porridge, egg tart). But otherwise, it's good value. Definitely worth it, had 20ish dishes between the 2 of us. We were super stuffed just an hr in. Take away dinner: the lady taking our order was frank with regards to what dishes were good to order as take away. Generally, the food was decent, the duck was flavorful and tender. Radish fried kway teow was flavourful, altho the small portion was half size that of the small portion of the eefu. The sesame pork was a little disappointing, as it was just roasted sesame salad sauce with pork, not unique or memorable, can pass. * Note: takeaway orders have 20% off for almost all dishes. Offer not valid for delivery or dine in. Validity till unknown.

One of the creamiest roe, at one of the best prices for cold crab I’ve ever had. For the quality to value ratio, this is easily a 5 star rating, if not because of some disappointments. Although the other dishes were good - average, the other 2 highlights were a little disappointing. The steamed promfret (0.9kg) was perhaps a little too big so the flesh was a little bit boring. I would opt for a smaller fish for a sweeter & more tender experience. The teochew style crayfish just didn’t suit my palette, it ended tasting like eating onion fried eggs… it’s ok but I wouldn’t order it again. Overall, still a highly recommended place for casual meals!

I’ll share what I like about here, the service crew, an old aunty, brown bronze shoulder length hair, when we ask her why isn’t the steam bao troller coming, she offered to help us get the char siew and chee Chong fan, she’s also very attentive and responsive. As for the food quality, I’d say most of their ingredients are really fresh, especially in times like this. I’d highly recommend the char siew bao and siew mai, the fried food is above average.. I wouldn’t recommend the chee chong fan, because the char siew tasted frozen, but interestingly the char siew in the char siew bao is fresh. You can tell when the meat is not fresh because they will use a lot pepper in the meat, trying to cover the taste. Har Gao has a lot of pepper, skin is thick too. Porridge is rather blend, steam pork rib is fresh thou. The sesame mango prawn roll is pretty good too, thou the mango has not much taste. We spend about 60 ish for all the food in the photos provided. If you do intend to visit, I’d recommend you to make reservations.

Located on the second story above Giant supermarket, you have to look for the stairs in the center of the building. There is a long queue and it starts from the stairs. We waited for about 35 minutes in the morning for the ala carte dim sum. You can order Teochew dishes from 11am onwards. There is a high tea dim sum buffet from 3-5pm. The restaurant is spacious, have more than 50 seats and can serve large crowds. Ordering of food is done from the dim sum pushcarts when the staff pushes them around, told us what they have and asked if we want any. You can check with them if they have any of the items you want to order on their pushcarts. Staff was friendly and service was good and fast. It is a nice experience to get the food like in the authentic Hong Kong dim sum restaurants, but you can't explore all the dishes as you do not know the menu / the dishes available and their prices. From what we spent, the dim sum is about $5.80 per item on average. The steamed items are cheaper than the fried ones.

Service is good, but is good to reserve the seat before heading down for dinner. Location easy to find and been there for year so mostly people can locate the place Parking just right behind of the library there is open car park..

Dim sum experience as close as how its supposed to be. Large seating area with plenty of space. Dim sum quality is great! Love the mini egg tarts especially. Expect to queue especially during weekend mornings where family gather for delicious Dim Sum breakfast.

The way Chinese Dim Sum meant to be served. Fast & efficient. I love that they have the same menu on the weekday and weekend. It gets really crowded on the weekends so come on a weekday if you can. You will not miss out on any items. The porridge was particularly good on the day I visited. The service is simple and homely. Enjoyed my meal there.