Xi Yan

and I have to say their casual dining is just as good except the long table sitting is not great when you have more than 4 or 6 pax … otherwise all my friends really enjoyed the food …

Everything was still in intact except for the XO fried carrot cake as it was a little bland. Nonetheless, food was still good and unique. Saliva chicken is still the best.

Honestly, I'm surprised other people have complained about bland flavours and poor service here because I had a fantastic time!! Didn't need to wait long for a table and food was delicious. I wanted to take nicer photos of the food but my boyfriend was greedy and ruined the presentation before i could snap some pics so that is his fault. We had SMALL portions of the olive and bean stir fry, XO fried rice and bee hoon soupy seafood thing. Way larger than anticipated but clearly my boyfriend saw this as a small challenge. I sincerely want to remind people to manage their expectations when dining out in SG. Restaurants are still quite understaffed and the influx of tourists is great but means a heavy strain on restaurants during peak periods. Let's be more understanding please ?

Always a hearty and enjoyable meal here at Xi Yan. Found this gem of a place many years ago and was surprised at its price point - affordable and value for money despite its location at Shaw. They offer tze char kinda dishes here, which is great for sharing! Favourite has to to be the 辣子鸡, which spots the distinct fragrance and spiciness as is expected from this dish. The chicken pops were crunchy with the meat still retaining its tenderness, making this really addictive! The Salted Egg Prawn was disappointing, and it wasn't crunchy, seemingly overcooked. Also, it was quite a hassle eating this as we weren't aware this came with shell, and everyone was too lazy to use hands to peel ? Flavour wise, it was nothing to write home about. The 红油抄手 is pretty good! Fragrance, spicy and packed with ingredients on the inside, with the skin remaining thin and chewy! It's a wonder how the thin skin managed to hold all the ingredients within intact without breaking ? Quite possibly a staple at all tze char place, we ordered a tofu dish to go with our meal and it was really savoury! Drizzled plenty of the thick gravy over my rice to mellow out the sodium level and albeit being tasty, it wasn't mind-blowing, more like comfort food! Ordered desserts to complete the meal and it was meh. The custard tang yuan tastes really weird to me and I’d say try the other flavours instead. Ice cream was decent, not great. I guess they place more importance on their mains which is fine by me!

A restaurant I would dine in when I don't know what to eat. I like the salivating spicy chicken. It is interesting to see them serving this dish as main as most places serve it as appetiser / cold dish. There is a vegetarian option for this dish, but I do not have the detail as the waiter could not answer me how is it being prepared. I also tried pork belly with preserved vegetable. The taste is ok, but the pork belly can be more tender. The preserved veg is nice.

Ordered char kway teow , pregnant olive fried rice, Cai Pao toufu, salivating Spicy chicken . All dishes was very nice ! Call out was the spicy saliva chicken , shredded chicken covered In spicy sauce , infused with szechuan spice, peanuts and topped with coriander. Cai pao toufu Was yummy , Cai pao bits toasted well and laden on top the fried egg tou Fu , outside was crispy brown while inside was soft and eggy . The pregnant fried rice was use of black olives with dried shrimp creating super umani taste .

Food was underwhelming for the price we paid for. The XO carrot cake was not as fragrant as I would like it to be. I had better ones in many other places. The abacus, the fried fish with pomelo and the prawn in chilli crab paste was good. Downside was the mantou that was supposed to be served with the piping hot prawn in chilli crab paste was served only 20min later. Mantou was not good - not well fried. By the time the mantou was served (after chasing the waiters twice, the Chili crab paste was already cold. Service has a lot more to improve on. Waiters looked worn out, There wasn’t any heart in the service rendered. Would I go back? Probably not for the price and the service. Maybe I will try the other locations.

Came with my family of 5 for dinner and enjoyed it. Food was not bad, simple. Favourites were - grandma fried rice and fried mee tai mak. Abacus seeds and duck could be better. I would come back for the fried rice. Also, they serve a mean ginger tea. I loved it. The restaurant was busy but food was served quite fast. The service was also good. It’s nice for a family dinner and portions were enough to share among 5 of us. My folks were very pleased. Not sure if this restaurant is really Hakka though.