Harbour Palace 港湾皇庭 

129, Jalan Mawar 2/3, Taman Pekan Lama, Sungai Petani

 

 

Foodelicious

 

Dim sum 点心 is a must when I’m home in Malaysia. It’s not because we don’t have dim sum restaurants in Hawaii. Chinatown has several Chinese restaurants that serve pretty good dim sum. If anything is lacking, it’s usually the skin is too thick or the stuffing is too measly. But dim sum is also best enjoyed with a larger group of people so you just have try a little bit of each type of dumpling. It’s a great meal to share with the family.

Usually, we go to Dai You Bin for dim sum but Harbour Palace is my brother’s new favorite dim sum place.
Harbour Palace is located in a row of shophouses opposite Billion Supermarket in Taman Pekan Lama. It has one of the corner lot and there seems to be ample parking on the weekends. 

The menu has pictures with Chinese and English names as well as the price. ‘Thumbs-up’ stickers indicate signature items. You just write down the corresponding numbers on the order sheet. Even if you are not familiar with dim sum, you would not have any difficulty ordering. The only problem is the pictures make everything look super yummy so you want to order them all!!

 

The first item that arrived was the Deep Fried Sesame Balls. It was complimentary from the owner/boss since his daughter went to school with my nephew. Of course we only found out today. Just so happen, his wife and children were having breakfast at the restaurant too.

 
 
Back to those sesame balls. Unlike the picture on the menu, the ‘pandan’ filling had separated from the outside covering. For those not familiar, pandan leaf is also called screwpine leaf. The extract from the leaves is used in many South East Asian dishes especially dessert. It has a sweet aromatic flavor. I like most anything with pandan. For these sesame balls, I actually like the outer covering better than the filling. The filling was a little dry and I wanted more pandan flavor. The fried sesame seeds gave the balls a nice aroma and crunch. 

Egg tart is one of our family’s favorite item so we had to order a couple of those. The crust was flaky and the custard was yummy. Not the best I’ve had but ranks high on the list.

I always order Preserved Egg porridge when having dim sum. It was full to the hilt. You could see pieces of preserved eggs, together with a garnishing of sliced ginger, green onions, a dash of white pepper and a drizzle of sesame oil – all essential elements of most porridge.  

 

 

           

I love preserved eggs  but usually only get to eat a lot of them when I’m home. The preserved egg porridges in Hawaii are disappointing, having tiny pieces of preserved eggs, often overcooked so I have stopped ordering them. This one has good size chunks of preserved eggs. I was a happy girl. 

A dish I really like but not always done well, even in Malaysia is the Fried Radish Cake. This one is fried with XO Sauce, which I think is the standard in most restaurants now. It was really good. I could probably have eaten another plate of it if there weren’t so many other items to try.   

                                                 

                                              There were ample amount of scrambled eggs and bean sprouts but most importantly, the radish cakes were fried with enough ‘wok hei’ and the chef was not stingy with the sauce. Almost perfect!

Another must have is the Steamed Prawn Dumplings. What I like about this dim sum is the succulent pieces of jumbo prawns wrapped in the dumplings…though that’s not always the case so I was excited to try this one.            

A good prawn dumpling has a thin skin that doesn’t taste floury. The skin should also stay intact through the steaming process and when you pick it up with the chopsticks. As you can see from the pictures, the skin broke apart in the steaming process. But the large pieces of shrimp/prawn were cooked just right.   

 

All dim sum restaurants have several varieties of steamed rice rolls. The most common ones include Char Siu (roast pork) or Shrimp. This restaurant had six different ones – prawn (shrimp), BBQ Pork (char siu), Ying Yang (combo), vegetarian, omelette, and HK (Hong Kong). We ordered the first and last on the list. 

The HK Steamed Rice Roll is definitely not an item you would normally find at a dim sum restaurant. The steamed rice rolls were stuffed with Yau Ja Gwai 油炸鬼 in Cantonese (also called You Tiao 油条 in Mandarin) or ‘oil sticks’. This is the Chinese version of doughnut. It’s usually served with breakfast porridge. '

I’m a big fan of Yau Ja Qwai so was looking forward to trying this. The Yau Ja Qwai’s texture was crunchy and a little chewy – just the way I like it. Because the rice roll is by nature bland and the Yau Ja Qwai is just fried dough, the sauce was a welcome addition. It was also smart to have it on a separate vessel (unlike other rice rolls that usually rest in the sauce) so the Yau Ja Qwai does not get soggy. 

 

The Steamed Rice Roll with Prawns is standard. Big, succulent shrimp/prawns stuff in the rice rolls. There was ample sauce to accompany the rice rolls. I did wish there were more fried shallots.

  

Steamed “Siew Mai” 燒賣 (shumai or pork dumplings) are an essential on a dim sum table. Besides the ‘bao’ or steamed buns, this is probably the most well-known dim sum item. Good shumais have smooth skins that are not too chewy. The pork filling should still be juicy. This one is up to standard.

 

  

The Shanghai “Xiao Long Bao” 上海小籠包 has become a popular dim sum item. When I was growing up, it was unheard of to have it at dim sum restaurants. Its uniqueness lies with the broth inside the dumpling. You should pop the whole dumpling in your mouth to enjoy the broth with the ground pork together. The key is to make sure you don’t lose all the broth when biting into the dumpling though it happens more often than not.

 

Besides all the above mentioned dim sum, we also ordered Steamed Chicken Glutinous Rice, Steamed Garlic Fried Fish Balls, Steamed Custard Buns, and Steamed Bun with Supreme Barbecued Pork in Oyster Sauce. I didn’t try them so can’t really give a review on those though my son really liked the Steamed Custard Buns.

All in all I was happy with the food. Definitely some creativity by the chef. Customer service is above average. The owner is very attentive to his customers. His staff could use some improvement. I’ll definitely be back.  

Food                            4

Customer Service     4.5

Ambiance                   3

Décor/Details            2
Parking                       5 (was here on the weekend)