The menu is designed and fixed, and when you arrive the menu will be in decorative envelopes (one for each person), addressed to the host of the party listing the night’s dishes.

Chef Wu is famous for his creative dishes, he ensures a strict high standard for every single element to ensure that each item is a masterpiece.  That particular night, we had a 7 course meal starting with a cold whole abalone salad, a hot and flavorful shark fin soup, a sliced duck wrap, steamed prawn, Chinese sausage rice, a red bean rice cake and apple pastry, and ending with a crisp fresh coconut milk fruit medley.

Jai Yun usually closes at 2pm for lunch (a little early in my opinion), however they were kind enough to stay open longer for us.  The owner and servers are extremely friendly, and they kept coming back to check on how we were doing.  Asking if there was anything else we wanted, or if we wanted more of a specific dish.

The food is flavorful and light.  None of that “greasy” Chinese food taste.  The fare is wide in variety, from the type of ingredient used to the cooking method.  All in all, it was a very positive experience!

Since we are on the subject of apologies, I would also like to take this time to apologize for the food photos…  Definitely not as nice as the photos that I took of the places I went last month.  :(

Anyway, on to the England Rose Garden.  I will admit that I’ve been to this restaurant a number of times before, but I thought that I would go ahead and post photos anyway.  Despite the fact that the name states “England”, this restaurant offers a variety food with a slight Asian flair in a ‘tea house’ type setting.  The dishes served ranges from steaks to baked rice dishes to cold plates.  The nice thing is that you can order a set meal that is usually served with soup (usually a corn soup), salad, garlic bread, main entree, ice cream, and a tea/juice.  The lights are kept dim to preserve a sort of quiet/private ambiance, and the patrons usually keep to themselves and talk quietly.  Quite a difference from a normal Chinese restaurant for sure!

I find myself ordering the German Pork Knuckle each time I come because it is so very delicious.  The outside crusty skin is nicely seasoned, and the meat inside is tender.  The only complaint I have about the dish is that the fatty layer can feel a bit “sticky”.  Make sure to remove it before eating the meat!!  The pork knuckle is served on top of sauerkraut and has some boiled baby carrots/broccoli on the side.  Not a whole lot accompanying the meat, but the side dishes aren’t why I order this.

The other dish that was ordered that particular day was the steak special.  I can’t exactly remember what it was called, but it wasn’t really worth it.  I would say, get the pork knuckle instead!  XD  The sauce in which the steak is sitting is a black pepper sauce.  For some reason, Chinese people really like black pepper sauces.

The restaurant offers a range of dishes, from fried rice to noodle soups, from pork ears to fried oysters.  Here is what was ordered that night:

1. Beef Noodle Soup
2. Beef Sacha Fried Rice (Sacha is the Satay Sauce)
3. Fried Rice in Omelet (Basically fried rice that is encased in a thin Egg wrap)
4. Crispy Fried Fish with Spiced Salt (aka. Salt and Pepper Fish Fillet)

The food was decent, and the restaurant seemed to be very clean (in the front of the house anyway).  The kitchen was flexible enough to make small changes to menu items.  The Fried Rice in Omelet usually has ketchup added to the fried rice, but at our request they omitted it.  My sister was extremely happy that her omelet fried rice contained edamame.

I really liked the crispy fried fish, the piece were cut smaller than I’ve seen at the other restaurants, but this gave the fish a much crunchier texture.

On Tuesday (3/9/2010), I visited Moongate Garden with my dad, uncle, and grandma for lunch.  I had never been to this particular restaurant, but it turned out to be a nice experience.  The food is very clean and well prepared.  I did not get to take photos of all the dishes that we ordered, however, I did get pictures of my favorite items.  During lunch, my uncle proceeded to tell me how to tell the quality of a restaurant’s shu mai simply by looking at the topping they place on top.  According to my uncle, the “worst” shu mai will have nothing but a small tiny piece of carrot as garnish on top, a step up from that would have fish eggs, and above that would be a small piece of abalone.  I’m not sure how accurate this scale is, but I guess it sounds reasonable to make such assumptions since the ingredient cost for each “level” of quality increases.

My favorite Dim Sum is definitely the shu mai, followed closely by har gow and the egg tarts.  XD  There are many other items that I love, and I will definitely try to get more pictures next time.  As I mentioned, the food was of good quality and was delicious.  The shu mai was hot when delivered to the table, and the shrimp inside the har gow was clean.  Although this is not my favorite restaurant for Dim Sum, I would definitely revisit.  XD

The Eggplant and Fried Fish Fillet both have this wonderful crunchy minced garlic that is extremely flavorful, it goes extremely well over rice.  I did find that the eggplant was a little more greasy than usual, but then again, eggplant does tend to soak up oil.  The noodle soup was a little bit spicy, but the noodles were yummy.

Lion Heads (meatballs) are awesome.  They are very tender, quite different than the meatballs that you would get with spaghetti.  If you’ve never had a Lion Head, I suggest that you give it a try the next time you’re at a good chinese restaurant.

New Year’s dinner lasted for about 3 hours of continuous eating.  My family loves food, and they love food even more when its shared with family.  To me, these family dinners often become competitions where everyone is shoving food on someone else’s plate.  You will inevitably hear these phrases being shouted: “Don’t be shy, eat!”  ”Have some more food!”  ”Did you eat enough?”  ”There’s more here, take some!”  ”Hurry, eat it before it gets cold.”  ”Let me get you another plate.”  Oh man, I am stuffed!  XD  It’s almost like a war zone at the dinner table.  :)

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My sister ordered the Macaroni and Egg dish (which looks kind of strange but tasted pretty good) and a Cod Fish bake w/ pasta noodles.  Milk teas were also ordered (not pictured), but if you are thinking about the sweet milk tea that you can buy from the Asian drink shop, don’t order the HK milk tea (hot).  It comes unsweetened and is VERY strong (and bitter!), like a hard swift punch to the face.

The restaurant we went to last night features an all-you-can-eat hot pot meal, where you order as much as you want provided that you finish all the food (extra $6 charge if you don’t).  The food quality isn’t top notch, I found that it was a bit unrefined, but its not too shabby.  I was a bit surprised to find “luncheon meat” on the menu, I have not seen that anywhere else.  Several kinds of soup bases were available, anything from the normal “Chicken Soup” base to “Preserved Egg & Cilantro”, or even “Kimchi Soup” were on the menu.  I ordered the Chicken Soup, just because I really like to taste my food as it is and not get distracted with so many extra flavors.  Yeah, I’m pretty plain when it comes to eating.

They also offered a couple of different “appetizers” on their menu, I ordered the “Fried Tofu” which came with a garlic soy sauce dipping sauce on the side.  Pretty good, the tofu was crispity crunchity on the outside, but soft on the side.  Lemme tell ya, the garlic soy sauce really added the finishing touch.  NOM!

Below are some photos I took before digging in, I apologize for the photo quality as they were taken via cell phone…  am in the process of procuring a real digital camera for future photos.  :D