Originally I was going to come to Yi for dinner, but then I was craving for dim sum anyway, and thought I’d check out their lunch first, before deciding if I should also have dinner the next day – after all, the restaurant is at The Raffles Hotel complex and so this would have been convenient whilst staying at the hotel.
Char Siu Bao (or Char Siew Bun here) would always be a good test – whilst it’s one of the more common regular dim sum dishes, it’s not easy to do it really well. The one at Yi was nothing offensive, but the filling was on the slightly dry side.
I love chilli crab and I love xiao long bao (XLB), so when I saw chilli crab XLB on the menu, my heart skipped a beat, and I just had to order it.
I am not a novice with XLB nor chopsticks, but this XLB broke in a spectacular way. I appreciated the amount of filling and soup in it, but it’s simply too heavy – the dough wasn’t exactly thin nor too fragile either, so it’s just the sheer weight of the filling that made it impossible to pick up (and no, the bottom didn’t stick to the dish, so couldn’t use that as an excuse).
The siu mai dumplings were fine – there’s a good balance of pork and prawn in it; and the cheung fun was delicious enough though the rice roll was a little on the thick and doughy side.
Har gau is another dim sum dish that is common but difficult to do it really well. This one was nice with a good amount of prawn in there but again the dough was slightly on the thick side.
I love egg custard buns – this one looks spectacular with the black dough colour and brushed with a golden top. However, it’s difficult to beat the custard buns at Restaurant A Wong in London which probably has the best custard buns I’ve had anywhere, by miles!
The curry puffs were delicious – with a good amount of spices in there.
Whilst we were already quite full by this point and we weren’t too bothered about having any more dim sum, we were intrigued by one dessert: satay-spiced ice-cream! So, we just soldiered on and ordered that one to share. It was interesting enough with a bit of chilli heat in it, but maybe I just had this high expectation that it didn’t actually deliver.
On the whole, it was a nice enough dim sum lunch but the meal was not special enough to justify returning here for dinner. So in the end, we went for dinner elsewhere the next evening.
Address: 03-02, Raffles Arcade, 328 North Bridge Road, Singapore 188719
Telephone: +65 6412 1816
Website: https://www.raffles.com/singapore/dining/yi/
Opening Hours: Daily: Lunch: 11:30am – 2:00pm , Dinner: 6:00pm – 9:30pm
Food: 7/10
Ambience: 4/5
Service: 4/5
Total: 15/20 [Based on visits in January 2022]
Chow With Chau 