Da's birthday dinner at Dian Xiao Er

So on Saturday, we went out for dinner to celebrate my youngest brother, qing da's 20th birthday. We went to Dian Xiao Er at AMK Hub, which always has a queue outside (marketing ploy, cos some seats inside were empty when we were there!).

However the food there is undeniably delish, which is why every weekends you see snaking queues of families going their for dinner, accompanied by trolleys of toddlers and babies. The decor of the place itself is quite nice, being made into a little retro chinese restaurant with "xiao er"s (waitresses) in uniform.  Been to the Marina Square branch a few years back, and it was still as good!

We took the family set for five since their famous items are all in the set menu.

For starters, soup. It is naturally sweet from the fragrance of the corn and carrot boiled with the meat bone. Very traditional, very good!


and we were quite surprised as the dishes promptly started arriving within the first five minutes of seating down, starting with the soup. I think their cooks must be just doing these few dishes repeatedly.

So.. we had the holy trinity of meats. oh, how they glisten!

First up, the dang gui herbal duck. The superstar of the table, it has perfectly crispy skin, tender and juicy meat and the whole thing was floating on herbal flavoured sauce. Ding ding ding! Hit!


Next in line, the do po rou. So sinful, this one. However it is not as tender as the best DPR I've had, so it failed. The meat did not melt in my mouth that much, which is what it is supposed to do if it is stewed longer, perhaps.


And the fondly remembered mongolian ribs. They are yums, with the special mongolian sauce with black pepper and chilli. Very difficult to describe the taste, other than Delicious.


To balance out the heavy weights, we had a broccoli and mini abalone dish. Doesn't this photo just look absolutely divine?


And I don't usually have too much interest in veggies, but this anchovies with veggie was quite refreshing in between huge chomps of meat. Heh.


Funny photo. I was asking "who wants corn?" (from my soup) when Elsie took the photo with my hand accidentally poking in the shot. Turns out nobody wanted the corn so I nibbled it.


All gone! Why was there bits and pieces left on the plate? i don't think its because of politeness this time, its because we were too full!

Photo time!

Father and son.


Mother and daughter.


Sister and brother, the birthday boy!


Here's him several hours later with mum. There were two cameras present hence the misdirected look haha.


And that concludes the birthday dinner post! Elsie and QD would be happily gallivanting in Europe by now I suppose. Just sent them to the airport just now.

So exciting! Can't wait for my turn toooo!