Hong Kong Zhai Marina Square

I am always on the lookout for dim sum places as my mum is an avid lover of dim sum and we try to bring her out to a new dim sum place every other week. When she saw some advertisements online for Hong Kong Zhai at Marina Square, we immediately brought her that same weekend

Taking over the space originally occupied by Bao Today, Hong Hong Zhai has a corner open-concept Hong Cha Chann Teng vibe with a simple red and white decor throughout the cafe

It is a self-service cafe where you can put in your orders via the machine right next to the huge led menu board. For those who do not know how to use the machine, the staff is always ready to assist. They have the bowls and plates all nicely stacked at the side for customers to use and I really like that the chopsticks were kept in a disinfecting machine and wished they did the same for the fork and spoons. There are a couple of common condiments like chilli sauce, red and green chilli, soy sauce and mayonnaise that customers can freely take for their meal

For carbs, we ordered a bowl of century egg porridge, dumpling noodles and chee cheong fun. Firstly, for the porridge, the consistency is thick with bits of broken rice bits. It is not as smooth as those sold in Crystal Jade but yet smooth enough like those porridge sold in Hawker centres. There was a topping of fried fritters which were slightly hard and not crispy enough. The lean meat portion was also very little although the century egg serving was decent. In terms of flavours, it is more on the bland side so a dash of soy will be better. Nothing too spectacular as it is like porridge from most dim sum places.

The egg noodles were springy and chewy and each dumpling had a nice prawn inside the filling, however, the soup was bland and disappointing. The chee cheong fun was considerably ok with a smooth texture but the sauce was on the salty side

For dim sum, we ordered a variety of steamed and fried dishes. The usual suspects are the siew mai and har gow, pork ribs and beancurd skin dumplings. Priced at approximately SGD 5 for each serving, the flavours are acceptable with nothing too outstanding or too horrible to point out. The ingredients were fresh and the flavours were generally balanced

Fried items generally have an advantage over steamed items since the act of frying adds a layer of flavour to the food. So in comparison, the fried items were better in taste. We had the shrimp and mango roll, crispy prawn ball and banana and red bean roll. All 3 dishes were quite nice with generous filling and crispy outer skin. My favourite one was the banana and red bean roll

Overall, we ordered a lot of dishes so the bill came up be over SGD120 for 3 persons which is quite acceptable for a dim sum place inside a shopping mall. Although it is not a proper restaurant and there is no service, the venue is still quite a nice place to chill and chat with friends over dim sum

Address: 6 Raffles Blvd, #02-234/ 235/ 236 Marina Square, Singapore 039594

Operating hours: 11 am to 8 pm