Shanghai Nan Xiang Xiao Long, Seng Poh Rd, Singapore

This place is located across the road from the Tiong Bahru market and is run and owned by mainlanders. Although they claim to be from the "Nan Xiang Xiao Long Pao" place from Yu Yuan in Shanghai, I don't know how true this claim is. Having dined at Yu Yuan in Shanghai, I still feel that their xiao long paos are better but this place comes close and gives me my fix in Singapore when I get my xiao long pao cravings.

They know the sequence of serving cold dishes first here, unlike some other Chinese eateries in Singapore which tend to serve the dishes randomly (as long as dessert comes at the end; it's all good hah!). Cold wine chicken, fragrant and salty, this dish is great with beer in a hot and humid Shanghai summer or just daily Singapore weather haha.

Water duck, another cold dish here and also an ideal salty side-dish for beer.

Stir-fried gluten, it was my first time ordering this and it was probably the bummer dish tonight. I just felt that it tasted too sweet.

Stir-fried large pea-shoots with garlic. Freshly cooked and piping hot, a tasty stir-fried vegetable is always good.

Fried buns (Jian Bao), these were almost as good as the ones I had in Shanghai (Xiao Yang Jian Pao) and was full of soup as well. You have to be careful when you bite into these because although it has alot of soup in it like the xiao long pao, it's encased in a harder exterior which makes it more prone to "popping" and hence propelling the hot soupy contents over a greater distance with much more impact.

Their xiao long paos.

The skin was only very slight tough at the top today but everything else was just as good as I remembered. I'll opt to come here over Crystal Jade anytime.

Noodles aren't really their specialty but they still serve a rather decent hand-pulled noodle with spicy bean minced pork (zhe jiang la-mien). The noodles didn't stick together which in my opinion is one pre-requisite for a good noodle.

This dessert of the fermented rice wine grains with glutinous rice was very good. Fragrant and not too sweet, this was the first time I tried this here and was rather impressed.

Their red bean pancakes were also stellar tonight. The pastry used is the thin crispy sort which I prefer a lot more as opposed to the flakey sort. The filling was also smooth and didn't only taste sweet but I detected a slight honey flavor as well? I'm not sure if it's honey but it defintely tasted like a molasse-based sweetener.

D

p.s: Am rushing to the airport right after I click "publish". Will be away for half a month. More food stuff when I return!