Royal China Shanghai

The bff wasn't going to let me go without one last Chinese meal. ARRRRGGGGH. I already told her I was all Chinese-meal-ed-out! What the crap. I'd rather eat a fish fillet burger from McD's. She didn't care, and set about googling for somewhere to go.

She loves her custard bun (流沙饱), and has specific places she would eat that at. I had no choice in this matter. So I was prodded along to dim sum at Royal China at The Longemont Hotel. (Both websites don't load very competently.) We seem to keep ending up preferring Cantonese cuisine over the more adventurous option of other tribal cuisines.

Apparently, this Royal China belongs to the same international chain we know. It boldly states so on the front pages of its rather tattered menu. I couldn't help but do a double take when I saw the prices on the menu. It's so much cheaper than in Dubai, London and Singapore, if it truly belongs to the same group.The restaurant is fairly casual. Not fine dining for sure. Stretching around the atrium, the smoking and non-smoking sections are simply separated by space, and it doesn't mean a thing since smoke travels. Ah well. This is China. Whatever.

The bff had her custard bun fix and was most pleased. 2 others merrily shared the buns with her. This restaurant's version wasn't too...how should I put it...slippery? Fluid-y? It was slightly more creamy and more solid than liquid in texture, but I guess it worked. They had two baskets of it, or 2 buns each.  Me no likey. So I was busy taking photos.

We had like...25 dishes between 6 persons. Wieeee! A fair division, I suppose? Roast pork, black bean chicken feet, har kau, siew mai...all the usual suspects at dim sum. Luckily for the presence of the humans to help me out with my share since I don't fancy all items at dim sum. Food was really good! They tried the xiaolongbao here, and declared them decent, although it couldn't beat Jia Jia Tang Bao's out-of-this-world flavors and texture.

Another mega lunch meant we wouldn't be able to stomach a heavy dinner. Luckily we had no plans for another big meal in the same day. WHEW. The RMB18 X.O. sauce pan-fried radish cake was rather horrid. Not nice. No wok-hei and no umami. Fail. I wanted congee and prawn rice rolls. I got them. Very nicely done. So very Hong Kong. Loved them.