Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao @ Holland Village

It's so blessed to be surrounded by so many people who treat you to birthday lunches. This lunch was with colleagues at Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao last week.

We initially planned to go to Sushi Tei to take advantage of the Sushi Tei Card '20% off birthday month', promotion. But we were told we got to wait at least 40 minutes. It's a working day and we only got 1 hour for lunch, so we chose Crystal Jade opposite the road instead.

*** xlb ***

For the restaurant's name sake, we ordered 2 steamers of Xiao Long Bao / Steamed Pork Dumplings. ($10 per steamer of 5) It's one of the things that you can't get sick of eating. The XLBs here have always gave us consistent quality, so we are happy. 

*** drunk chook ***

While flipping the menu, one colleague said we should order it. OK lor. You can't get really drunk having Drunken Chicken with Wolfberry ($7.50) right?

But we notice they were quite a generous amount of Hua Tiao that they put inside. We notice smiles on two colleague's faces when they tasted the chicken broth. (Jiu Kui colleagues!) *hic*  It's good that they did not get drunk as Captain Haddock even as they drunk up all the chicken broth. The chicken was served cold, a very nice touch for a hot hot afternoon.

*** egg + egg ***

"Let's get a vegetable dish". That's what all almost everyone will say right? Unless of course you dine with a group of carnivores. We got the usual favourite Century and Salted Egg with Vegetables ($13.80)

*** tongue numbing ***

For our individual portions, each of us ordered a La Mian. It's a La Mian shop after all.
I said I wanted to have the Spicy Chicken La Mian ($7.80). I told colleagues that it is one of the tongue numbing dishes and you get a slight high with all the spiciness.

Ya right, was the answer. So potent? So 2 other skeptics ordered the Spicy Chicken with me.
One colleague and I had it with the dragon beard La Mian, ie. thin noodles. The Spicy Chicken was hot, spicy and salty chilli paste and oil that has ensconced the cold chicken. I think it's really yummy!



The other colleague had it with the thicken La Mian that looks like thin kuey teow.
This colleague that used to be able to eat the spiciest food was crying for help. Tears and sweat flowed from his forehead.

Challenge a friend to eat this and see them cry too. LOL

*** light headed ***

Two other colleagues also wanted to join in the spicy action. They said they will eat their favourite spicy food here. The Spicy Beef La Mian. ($7.80).

It's really another really spicy dish. can you see how much chilli oil is covering the noodles? We had to slightly lift the food to show what's inside. It's so fun to see people eating and yet sweating in air-conditioned rooms.

When we were leaving we noticed that the table beside us also ordered the same thing. Oh... those guys fared worse. I think they saw what we ordered and tried to order the same thing. They were speechless and one was coughing and drinking loads of water. It was so wicked! 

*** freebies ***

We have this habit of asking "any cards with discount" when we pay.
The lady who presented the bill said, sorry there's no discount, but if you have a Citibank Credit Card, you get a free mooncake. Of course we have one. In fact we have more than one. But we can only get 1 mooncake per bill.


(Let me insert a advert plug: If you don't have a Citibank Card, you should get one! Click on the right top corner and get a free $40 Tangs voucher if you apply for a Citibank Credit Card and Ready Credit account through this blog. Don't you think it's a good deal? ) 




Colleagues and I tried the mooncake for tea time the next day. It's quite nice. No yolk. Just plain white lotus seed paste mooncake. It's not oily too.


(I did an online search and realized there's a contest to win some mooncakes from Crystal Jade here. Contest ends 17 Sept though, so hurry!)





Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao
241 Holland Avenue
Singapore 278976

Tel: 6463 0968

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao @ Holland Village

I met up with Gorilla to have lunch. It has been some time since I went to CJ LMXLB, so I asked if it's OK we eat there? I was thinking of 'frying' my head with the super spicy chicken la mian. LOL (more about that in a while)


Gorilla ordered this. (oops, I forgot the name!, but I think it's spicy with bits of tofu and meat in it.)
Is it because of the spicy food I ate? I seem to have forgotten things related to the lunch! LOL..




This is what I wanted to eat!

It's cold cold 'white chicken' that has loads of extra spicy chilli oil over it. It gives you a similar effect as eating lots of wasabi, except that this will your tongue and lips to 'fire on'.

It goes clear a headache if you have one. It clears the headache and also seem to give you temporary amnesia! Let's say it clears all! (incl a trip to the throne and have a total 'cleansing' of the system too! haha)

But it gives me a great fiery satisfaction. LOL




Little packages that give you bursts of joy eating them. ;-)




We had ordered this earlier, but I think it did not get into the system. So we asked about the order and they said it was missed out.

It was good that it came in the end though. These pickled lotus roots soothe the tongue that is burning. :-)




Have a great week everyone!


Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao (Holland V)
241/241A Holland Avenue
Singapore 278976

Tel: 6463 0968

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao @ Holland Village

This was tonite's dinner. I have not had dinner with sis the whole week and so I met her for dinner. She needed to get somethings done, but the shop's closed when she got there.

So, we just had dinner at Crystal Jade La Mian XLB. We were thinking of nibbling something light, so we thought we could share 1 bowl of noodle and 2 side dishes. We were both not hungry.

So I ordered the Cold Spicy Chichen Szechuan Style. After work, your head's heavy, so I thought eating this well known spicy food will make you feel 'lighter'. Both of us liked it. It sure is spicy, but it's not as numbing and we remember it to be though.



Sis as usual wants her Xiao Long Bao. I think she likes eating this because of the vinegar! She likes to dip her XLB in vinegar and the julienned ginger.



We had the dry version of the Stew Beef La Mian. I think if you are not hungry, the bowls serves 2 just about ok. You get 1.5 bowl of noodle each. (the usual 'soup bowl' bowl). The stew beef was nice and tender.



Guess what? I think it's because of gluttony. We were already full, but the spicy chicken taste is still lingering in our tongue and lips and that makes you feel like eating more of it.

So we ordered 1 more! We realised it's a bit different from the previous one. This one seems to have some peanut on it right? The first serving was a chicken drumstick, this one is the chicken wing. :-)




We decided to get some veggies as well, so we ordered the 'Japanese cucumber and huai shan' cold dish. It's nice, but a bit heavy on the sodium side.

If you do an online search on 'huai shan' you can find that it has anti-aging properties. (we ordered the correct thing. ;p )





Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao
241/241A Holland Avenue
Singapore 278976

Tel: 6463 0968

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao @ Holland Village

This was our church Care Group's CNY Dinner. Instead of having studies today, we ate. :-)
It has been some time since most of us went to La Mian XLB, so we thought we will give it a visit. (Hmm.. our next visit might not be so soon after this. LOL...)

Compared to yesterday's sky high Yu Sheng, this is more 'down to earth'.



One thing interesting was the phrases that they recited though. It was a bit different.



The long beans with mince pork and olives.
We seem to always enjoy this :-)



This is spicy chicken. We were all thinking, is chicken the main ingredient or is it chilli?
Seems to have more of the latter. Portion's very small too.



This is stir fried beef. The portion's a little tiny, maybe if they could increase the portion too?



The hotpot mix soup.
This is something I think most of us enjoyed more than the rest above.



Spicy vinegared dumplings.



Haha.. We thought the above dishes would be enough to fill out tummies, but it turned not really. So we ordered some desserts to try.

The red bean pancakes.



And the deep fried dumplings.
(Forgot what is this, will update it when I remember).



Think we should stick to ordering the same things we always order here instead of trying to be adventurous. (You don't get the satisfaction. You know what we mean right? ie we din really like the things above.)

Also, there are stuff like the set menus that we wanted to try that's not available. (Why give you the menu and then say sorry you can't order from it.) You are forced to have their CNY specials that's a tad (or maybe a few more tads) pricier than the normal sets.


Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao (Holland V)
241/241A Holland Avenue
Singapore 278976

Tel: 6463 0968

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao @ Holland Village

Everyone was tired after a hectic day. I texted my sis if she's having dinner, hoping she's at home and there's dinner at home. She replied that she's having dinner with her colleague at one of the 'markets' around. I can join them, but I got to treat them dinner. I said OK and asked which 'market'. They decided on the Holland V market.

But when I was reaching, got a text message that said that the destination's changed. "CJLMXLB, go upstairs, immediately turn left." They decided to eat something nicer and not in the warm food centre. The tired ladies must have been too tired to walk.

What did we have for dinner?
We had 1 steamer of 5 Xiao Long Bao. $4.50

Also, one veg to share, the Long Beans with Minced Pork. $9.20
The slightly charred beans smells and taste so good. (Or are we extremely hungry?).
Minced Pork, bits of chilli, chives and I think olive leaves too. It was delightful.



We each ordered a noodle dish for ourselves.

Sis had the Fried Noodle with Beef and Mushroom. $11.00
She always like dishes like this so she said it was good.



I had the ultra spicy dish. It's called Spicy Shredded Chicken with Dragon Beard La Mian. $7.80
This is a cold dish. Both the noodles and chicken's cold and it taste wonderful. It's the Ma La chicken, so it's not for the faint hearted. Look at the chilli oil and the chilli seeds!

It's called Shredded Chicken, but it's actually not shredded as you can see. :-)
Dragon Beard La Mian's the very fine hand pulled noodles. Almost "mee-suah" like. Yummy.



Ms Dubai-HV had the Spicy and Sour La Mian. $7.80
She chose this because she did not want any meat.



Changed of venue was good. Sis was happy. She had to go home and work through the night to finish up her report. Poor girl...

We realised that they charge for warm water now. Wasn't it free previously? Hmm....


Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao (Holland V)
241/241A Holland Avenue
Singapore 278976

Tel: 6463 0968

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao @ Holland Village

We celebrated our youngest colleague's birthday today during lunch time. We found out he is so young! Usually you do not ask people about their age for no reason, but since we are celebrating his birthday, we get to ask! (hehe...)

We wanted to have Laksa Steamboat initially. We saw from their website that there's a nearer branch at Holland Village, so we went there. We were dissapointed when we found out they have closed this branch! (Arrgh.. don't believe their website!).

We had a choice to either stay in Holland Village or drive to Telok Blangah. Everyone unanimously decided we shall eat in Holland Village. So we walk over to Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao.



The starters were pickles. Chai Por chunks. Delicious! Everyone was happily eating until a colleague mentioned that eating too much of these causes pre-mature balding. Suddenly you see a few chopsticks back on the table. haha...



What we ate, in order of their appearance.
La Mian in Hot and Sour Soup. Like the tangy taste of it. You can choose the different thickness of noodles if you want.



This is the choking fiery La Mian. Be careful on your first mouth!
It was quite nice, but just be careful. :-p



Since we had like 9 of us, we had double portions of Jelly Fish. It's always a favourite.



This is delicious for those who like pork slices. I love the pungeant garlic on top of it. Wrapped inside the pork, cucumbers and carrots.



This is one plate of super tender beef.



We had two portions of this deep fried eel too.



When you are in a xiao long bao shop, you just got to order it! 3 steamers of it.



The other carbo we had for the carbo cravers. Delicious noodles with veg and meat.
(Forgot the name. hehe..)



This is roast chicken with onions. Those are onion bits on top. I like the onion topping more than the chicken.



For those with cholestorol problem, eat more 'black fungus'. The black fungus goes well with Kai Lan.



Last carbo for the meal, seafood fried rice.



As if it is tradition, we went over to Coffee Club for our muddy mudpies.

Happy Birthday Mr Y!

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao
241/241A Holland Avenue
Singapore 278976

Tel: 6463 0968

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao @ Holland Village

This was Saturday's lunch. We brought youngest sis and future BIL to have La Mian. We were deciding which chinese food to try and sis decided on la mian.

For starter, we had white pork wrapped in cucumber and carrots. We thought it was suppose to be a cold dish, but it was hot. Hmm. Anyway, it taste quite OK.



We had the Peking Duck as well. These things are expensive in UK. So, here's a treat for them.

We were amazed at the lady sliced the skin off with a cleaver and at the same time. This is before the duck got 'skinned'.



After being 'skinned', it was wrapped for us.



We had quite a lot of pieces to eat. I am kinda addicted to the sweetish paste. You can see that I spread it on the outside too.



We also ordered the Xiao Long Bao. (This restaurant is called XLB right? )
While we were having this, the next table with a 3 English Ladies sat down and ordered this as well. Sorry to eavesdrop, but the younger of the 3 ladies were speaking quite loudly, playing host to 2 other ladies in their 60s. She must be quite excited to introduce the food to her visitors. She told them, you should try this dumplings and the noodles.

When their XLB came, oh goodness, the younger lady was teaching the two other older ones how to eat. Guess how it was eaten? They took the XLB to their plate and break the skin of the XLB. After that, they drained the soup inside and ate it without the soup. Oh no! Wasting the soup in the XLB. We were like shocked. We wanted to tell the 3 ladies that you are suppose to put the XLB in your spoon, pricked it, drink the soup and then eat the XLB. But we could not bare to embarrass the lady and her guest.

It was quite funny though. She lady was 'wayang-ing' (acting) the whole time, pretending she was the expert. We were quite entertained.



We also ordered the 'red' version of XLB. It's XLB with chilli oil and vinegar. yum...



This is the rest of the Peking Duck. Sis wanted La Mian, so we had Fried La Mian.
While eating we were thinking, maybe we should have asked for the duck drum sticks and wings to be cut out for us earlier. The yummy skin on the drumsticks and wings, where did it go? LOL... Only duck meat stripes were in the noodles.



Have a nice long weekend ahead.