Ban Heng Pavilion Restaurant

Taking the location of the former Dragon Gate Restaurant, parked away at a corner of the Harbourfront's level 4 carpark, this restaurant isn't easy to locate if you're going by public transport. We only came across Dragon Gate long long time ago because my family happened to go to Harbourfront by car. Dragon Gate subsequently closed down and we stopped visiting the area. Not too long ago, I'm not sure how my parents somehow happened to visit and realized that the old site is now taken over by Ban Heng Pavilion Restaurant. If you go by public transport, there's one specific elevator that will bring to it's door step. It is not accessible by escalators.

Parents liked it enough for us to return twice more for family dinners. The first time I went, I forgot my camera. So here it is now, when we returned for an uncle's birthday dinner, that I finally took photos of the food. There were four tables of us, so uncle booked the VIP room. Even on a Sunday night, the restaurant is barely full. Not sure it's due to the out of the way location, or the poor reviews I saw on HungryGoWhere. I understand they have an ala carte buffet, which is what most of the reviews were based on. I'm in no position to comment as we've always had the ala carte menu.

Since it was a birthday dinner, it started off with longevity buns. Very normal lotus paste buns shaped to look like peaches - to mimic the legendary longevity peach said to add years to one's life. You know how us Chinese like to eat things with good meanings. I honestly think it's just an excuse to eat, but I welcome those excuses. Hehe...

Longevity buns

This was followed by a family favorite in this restaurant - roasted suckling pig. Of our table of 10, there were 2 non-pork eaters, 1 vegetarian and 1 child. The result is 6 people eating one whole pig. Having gone to Red Star earlier that morning, I was having a two month's dose of sucking pig in one day. That said, I liked the crispy roasted skin of the suckling pig, served with sweet sauce, spring onions and egg crepe. So you dip a crispy skin in sweet sauce, take a piece of spring onion, package it all in the egg crepe, and get a tasty treat all in a mouthful. The skin had quite a bit of fats under them, tasty for the first few pieces because of the contrast in texture between the perfectly crispy skin and the soft jelly-like fats. It does prick your conscience after, say, the 4th slice, and I started to scrape the fats off. I think the pig was big enough, and there were few enough of us, that I probably ended up eating some 10 slices of skin. After the carved skin were gone, the pig was brought back to the kitchen, chopped into bite size pieces, and served back to us. The flesh was ok, but a little on the porky side. We didn't manage to finish those, and sent them back for takeaway.

Roasted suckling pig

Next dish a common family dinner dish as well, sharks fin. I can't remember much about it actually, so it wasn't impressively good, or disgustingly bad I guess. Just a normal tasty bowl of thick soup. It was what came after that I love. Another favorite in this restaurant - braised goose. Braised duck is common everywhere in Singapore. Braised goose is rare. And us being teochew, we really love our braised food. So to have discovered this dish is probably what made my family like this place so much. Thin slices of yummy goose, stacked on equally thin slices of soft tofu. The meat was tender, the flavor just nice without being overpowering. Love it!

Sharks' fin

Braised goose

These were then followed by a fish fish in soya sauce, another tasty but normal dish. Their fish didn't have the heavy soil flavor of freshwater fish, so was quite well accepted by all. The vegetable was the surprising one. I didn't quite expect to see Nai Bai (baby bok chai) in a banquent style dinner. Still, it's 'status' was upped by the island of fried conpoy (dried scallop) in the centre of the huge plate of vegetables. Although I welcomed the vegetables after so many dishes of meat, the fried conpoy was actually quite oily. So I was getting quite sick of it after a while.

Fried fish in soya sauce

Nai Bai with fried conpoy

The final dish before the noodles was the chilli crab. Theirs was a miss. The gravy was so so, the crabs had a teeny weeny bit of roe (which we had to fight over). The worst was the crabs themselves. Thin-shelled crabs with very pathetic flesh withdrawn away from the shell. Tasted quite fishy, and the texture was horrible. I didn't continue after having one claw.

Chilli crab

The noodles were again normal, and their dessert of sago cream had (urgh) pineapples in it. Ok, it's just me, because I dislike pineapples. But overall, the food were quite suitable for the family's palate, and because when you have people of three different generations, Chinese food is generally the way to go for gatherings. I can foresee more visits here in the future, a change from the usual Boon Lay Raja.

Update:
Recently went back again for a dinner with my family to celebrate my parent's anniversary. There was an ongoing wedding dinner, so us 'loose tables' were stuffed into the VIP room. Despite the hullabaloo going on outside with the wedding, the service was still pretty ok. In fact, I was impressed with one single act. We requested for a bowl of white rice for my baby nephew, wanting to mix it with baby food to feed him with. It did take us three attempts at asking different waiters before it finally arrived. I think they thought that we wanted it with our dishes, which weren't ready yet. Then I told the third waitress that it's for the baby, and it arrived soon after. What actually impressed me was what came after. The manager returned with two bowls of century egg congee, on the house, for my nephew. She said that rice may be a little too dry for him. Although he can't eat the congee (he's still on a no salt diet), I appreciated the thought, and thinks that it's worth blogging about.