Victim of Victor's Kitchen

I've been eating with a vengeance these days. Figured that since I'll be subject to a strict month -long diet regime after I give birth, I had better eat like there's no tomorrow.

Dim sum seems to dominate my thoughts these days. I'm not sure why. For good dim sum, I usually head to old favorites like Royal China and Wah Lok for my fix. This time round, I decided to be more gungho and set my heart on trying an off -the-road joint called "Victor's Kitchen" in the bohemian Purvis St district.

Victor's has been hailed by many food bloggers for its cheap and good dim sum. Don't expect wet towelettes and pristine tablewear here. Everything is flip flop casual and almost grubby. Tables fill up quite quickly during lunchtime but turnover is also pretty fast, facilitated by bossy kitchen helpers and a highly efficient order chit system.

For SGD28, we certainly managed to eat quite a fair bit. The lady who took our orders was kind enough to serve us the right quantity of each item based on the number of people present (you know how some restaurants are so sticky on serving their dim sum is fixed sets of 3), which impressed the hell out of me. For some weird reason though, she was reluctant to provide us with individual serving plates to eat from.

Ice Milk Tea. Ingeniously served separately in a bed of ice to prevent dilution. Delicious thirst quencher, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary.

Glutinous rice in lotus leaf. Yummy combination of glutinous rice, chicken meat, salted egg and other fatty stuff. Melt in the mouth scrumptious, especially when eaten with the restaurant's sweet chili sauce. A must order.

Char Siew Cheong Fun. My kaki liked this dish but I felt the skin a tad too thick for my liking.

Char Siew Pau. Whilst the skin was light and fluffy, I didn't really enjoy the char siew filling, which was overly sweet and reeked too heavily of rose wine.

Steamed radish cake with XO sauce. Another must try, which could give Wah Lok's version a run for its money. We were blown away by the unami flavors and were glad that we had ordered individual portions for ourselves.

The radish cake even comes with its own complimentary serving of XO chili sauce,(which tastes like hei bee hiam to me). If you want an extra serving, you have to pay SGD1! Frankly, the radish cake already tastes good on its own.

Custard "Liu Sha" Buns Although this was supposed to be a star dish of Victor's. I was highly disappointed when I ripped open the bun, only to discover that the custard filling had already hardened (like egg yolk). It was so unappetizing that I only managed to finish half.

While this was an interesting experience, I think I'm better off eating at good ol Wah Lok or Royal China. The cab fare that I forked out just to get to Victor's offsets its cheap price tag. Also, at least I am assured of higher levels of hygiene at finer establishments (that very night, I experienced a very bad tummyache and almost didn't make it to work the next day)

Hint: After lunch at Victor's, make a quick stop at the adjourning Elias building and pick up a box of scrumptous beancurd tarts and golf ball pineapple tarts from the famous Le Cafe bakery.