Singapore Day 5-- Royal China At Raffles Hotel, Merlion (2008-12-08)
There are literally hundreds of places where you can eat dim sum in Singapore. There're just too many places we want to try but too little time! At the end we picked Royal China at Raffles Hotel cause we'd never been to the world famous hotel, and Royal China has a lot of good review, it'd be like killing two birds with one stone. Besides, it is just a simple bus ride from near the entrance of the Botanic Gardens to the side entrance of Raffles Hotel.
The restaurant is more elegant than I expected and many business
lunches were underway when we arrived about a quarter past one
including a large table of Japanese businessmen. Again, service
was very friendly and attentive. They gave us an amuse bouche of
marinated haricot vert (very french for a dim sum place!), nice but a
bit out of place.
The dim sum, what can I say? Excellent of course except for
the pork buns which tasted a bit funny to me. KL prefers their
dim sum to Crystal Jade's but I find the latter just edges Royal
China's by a hair.
We walked around Raffles Hotel and were amazed by the sheer size and
the design of the structure. In many places, even down to the
restrooms, it's like we've stepped into a movie set of colonial time.
From Raffles Hotel is a short walk to the Esplanade and Merlion
which is perfect for us to walk off some of the many calories we
consumed over lunch. The sky was turning grey again and threatening to
rain. Sure enough, just when we were about 15 seconds from
reaching the statue, it started to pour! We took shelter under
the bridge and like they say about Singapore weather, the downpour was
sudden but quick, it was over in about half an hour.
The Merlion we visited before was hidden in a dark and quiet area
surrounded by trees and brushes, this time around, it is out in the
open prominently that one can spot miles away. We took a few
obligatory shots and headed toward Suntec City Mall, reachable on foot.
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