The Standard of Dumplings Has Dropped

I haven't eaten at Hand in Hand (手拉手) for a year. Didn't even bother with takeout. Since the BFF and I were running errands near the area, we decided to pop in to the outlet at Jalan Besar for lunch. This outlet is themed 'Beijing', and the outlet at Boat Quay is themed 'Shandong'. I've only eaten at the Jalan Besar outlet.

Luckily we came in with no expectations. I've never eaten anything much here beyond its dumplings and noodles. The rest of the menu doesn't exactly appeal. The kitchen has indeed changed. Dunno if it's the humans or the recipes. But the food we ate today, which we've had long ago, no longer tasted similar or as good. The changes were most pronounced in their basic foods. 

Their dumplings used to be good. But today, those dumplings were not great. Ordered two flavors — the prawn and pork, and the cabbage and pork. The dumpling skin was barely passable; the filling wasn't ideal. The filling was... MUSHY, and frankly, a tad stinky. What sort of pork have they been using?! Ugh. Well we hadn't turned up in a year. Many things would have changed, especially the kitchen situation. Obviously the standard of dumplings has slid. Or maybe it slid for the day or the week, depending on the chefs' roster.

The basket of xiao long bao (小笼包) was a fail; the skin was okay but the meat kinda stank. Their zha jiang mian (炸酱面) was damn weird — noodles were fine and springy, but the sauce wasn't quite right. Their scallion pancake (葱油饼) tough, chewy and cold, and was surprisingly lacking in salt! Like someone forgot about it! Lunch was a washout. But luckily we weren't too fussed about it, since the point was to run errands, and we got that done. We didn't plan for a big lunch. So these items sufficed to fill our tummies.