Wok Palace

I was heading home from my workplace when I chanced upon this quaint Chinese restaurant located on the 2nd floor of the Fusionpolis building. My mum is as much of a foodie as me and always looks forward for me bringing her to new places for dim sum

Originating from Wok Master and Coffee Hive, Wok Palace is a refined dining concept compared to the casual Zi Char style of Wok Master. Combining their best-selling dishes from their sister branch and innovative new dishes, Wok Palace provides a cosy environment for family, friends and colleagues to get together

I visited on a Saturday and surprisingly the restaurant was fully packed and it was pretty popular with families. I had booked earlier and secured a nice 8-seater round table just next to the full-length windows for a nice view out to the surrounding areas of One North

There were limited round tables so if you have a big group, do make advance bookings. There are also private VIP rooms available for booking with a minimum spending requirement. The entire restaurant can seat close to 100 persons ( including the VIP rooms) but each table is quite tightly placed together

We came specially for their dim sum which is a separate menu from the main book. The selection is not huge but covers the favourites like prawn dumplings, Siew Mai, carrot cake, fried beancurd rolls and lotus leaf rice. The only missing item is the char siew bao as they only have sweet buns like the cute yam bun, salted egg yolk custard bun and black sesame lava bun

The dim sum taste was quite generalised in taste, nothing too exquisite or outstanding and nothing negative. The ingredients are generally fresh and taste quite palatable for the price point. The one thing that was really well made was the sweet buns, especially the yam bun. Other than sporting an extremely cute appearance like cute strawberries with a face, the yam paste filling was smooth, creamy and not overly sweet. Almost like the Teochew team dessert Orh Nee, this item definitely won against the other dim sum items. This is a must-order item

We ordered some a la carte dishes since it was nearing lunch and they were all surprisingly very delicious. The roast pork was fast running out when we ordered and we could see through the kitchen window only 1 serving was left. You can tell how quickly it was snatched up when it was served as I could only take a picture of the piece I got. The skin was extremely crispy and the meat was well seasoned with a nice distribution of fats

The next item was the golden tofu with crabmeat which is lightly fried tofu served with salted egg yolk sauce and crab meat shreds and scallop shreds. The sauce was quite light and the tinge of salted egg yolk flavours complemented the crispy tofu without covering the natural creaminess of the tofu

The next item was the Kurobuta pork ribs with honey sauce which was heavily drizzled in honey sauce. Although the favours were quite good with a nice balance between the honey sauce and the crispy pork rib, the meat was slightly tough to bite especially for older customers

The last dish was pork floss eggplant which we added as we realised that every table had this dish. This dish was a delight as the eggplants were crispy and not soggy inside. The pork floss added a nice topping but wasn’t really a significant boost to the dish. The fried eggplant itself has a nice light and crispy batter which is seasoned so it was very addictive

For our carbs, we order 2 dishes for sharing; one is the dual style hor fun which we have never seen elsewhere. The dish is like the usual Zi Char seafood hor fun except they added a new texture to the dish by adding deep-fried hor fun pieces on top of the usual hor fun. The flavours were good and the added crunch made the dish very enjoyable

Last but not least, we had the seafood white bee hoon which was served with quite a bit of gravy compared to others. The bee hoon was soft and absorbed the sauce well with a generous amount of seafood. The gravy itself has a deep umami flavour giving the dish a strong boost

Overall, I enjoyed the meal at Wok Palace as most of the a la carte dishes were very on point in their flavours and texture. The dim sum wasn’t a star but did not taste bad and is very affordable in terms of price tag, The yam bun was the winner in my eyes and the only negative aspect was the restaurant was too short-handed as it took some time to get attention from the servers. The servers were friendly and helpful but were really trying their best to attend to all the guests

Address: 1 Fusionopolis Way, #02-01/02, Singapore 138632

Opening hours: 10 am to 10 pm