Located on the ground floor of ARC 380, Wangi Garden looks like a regular eatery that you would find in an office building. However, in the evenings, it offers a dim sum buffet that is probably one of the hidden spots that you should know about.
The Wangi Garden buffet is only available in the evenings. It is mainly a dim sum buffet but there are quite a number of other dishes available on the menu too. And it costs just $19.90++ per person, which in our opinion is good value.
What to Expect at the Wangi Garden Dim Sum Buffet
The Wangi Garden Dim Sum Buffet is only available from Mondays to Fridays (except public holidays) from 5 pm to 9 pm. As mentioned earlier, it is priced at $19.90++ per person, and $12.90++ for 6 to 12. Kids below 6 years old dine for free.
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There is a dining time limit of 90 minutes for the buffet.
The buffet is sit-down style. You need to fill in your order on a paper chit and provide it to the server who will then get the food order prepared.
While it may be tempting to place a huge order, do take note that significant wastage is chargeable based a la carte prices. Don’t waste food!
Drinks are included in the dim sum buffet and you can help yourself to the beverages from the machines at the back of the restaurant.
What We Ate at the Wangi Garden Buffet
One evening, we made our way over to the Wangi Garden Buffet, keen to try the dim sum and the other dishes on the buffet menu. There are more than 50 items on the buffet menu. This includes a number of variations on fries.
The restaurant does not serve pork. Instead, you will get chicken-based dim sum instead of pork-based dim sum here. There are also items like Hong Kong congee along with roasted meats and spaghetti on the menu.
In fact, one of the first dishes to arrive after we had placed our order was not dim sum. It was a Claypot Shrimp Garlic Fried Rice. The fragrant rice was garnished with spring onions and topped off with a runny egg on top. It was surprisingly good and even though it was not dim sum, we were not complaining.
Next, the rice rolls started to appear at the table.
Wangi Garden has several variations of rice rolls. These include the Chives & Egg Rice Roll, Triple Sauce Rice Roll, You Tiao Rice Roll, Chicken Char Siew Rice Roll, Prawn Rice Roll and, rather interestingly, Otah Rice Roll.
We decided to start off with the Triple Sauce Rice Roll and You Tiao Rice Roll.
We were impressed. The rice rolls were super soft and tasted as if they had been made to order. We especially enjoyed the Triple Sauce Rice Roll where the peanut and other sauces allowed the delicateness of the rice roll to come through.
We even decided to add on a shrimp chee cheong fun later.
Next, we had the Crystal Shrimp Dumpling Har Gow. This was nice and juicy, and the prawns provided a firm bite.
The other dim sum staple is siew mai. We feel that every dim sum spot in Singapore tries to stand out from the others by offering something unique. At Wangi Garden, the siew mai was the unique value proposition.
We ordered the 5 Wonders Siew Mai Platter. If you wondering what that is, it is a basket that comes with an assortment of siew mai flavours. In addition to the regular siew mai, the was also Otah Siew Mai, Truffle Chicken Siew Mai, Hakka Chicken Siew Mai and Curry Chicken Siew Mai.
To their credit, when we first bit into the siew mai, we almost forgot that it was chicken siew mai and not pork. The siew mais were juicy. We quite enjoyed the Otah Siew Mai. The flavours worked well together. The Truffle Siew Mai also delivered on the taste.
We could not quite decipher what made the blue-skinned Hakka Chicken Siew Mai “Hakka”, and the Curry Chicken Siew Mai was a bit of surprise, but overall we enjoyed the 5 Wonders Siew Mai Platter
.
The Steamed Chicken Char Siew Bun came in a basket of two and it was not too bad either.
One other dish that we would recommend is the Roasted Duck. The duck was juicy and succulent. We were quite surprised by the tenderness of the meat. However, it is probably worth sharing one serving amongst the people at the table, if not, you may get filled up quickly.
Crispy Dim Sum and More
The fried or crispy dim sum all came on a single plate. The Beancurd Skin Rolls with Shrimp had a satisfying crisp to it while the Crispy Carrot Cake delivered with a nice crust.
We also tried the Durian Fritter. This, along with the Jack Fruit Fritter, was one of the more unusual fried items on the menu. It tasted like it should be a dessert item and didn’t quite hit the spot with us.
What we did enjoy was the Portuguese Egg Tarts and the Steamed Egg Custard Bun.
The yellow custard oozed out of the latter, providing a sweet treat to tantalise the palate.
However, the meal was not over yet. To complete the meal, we ordered the Fresh Mango Sago. This came in a “bathtub” with a rubber duckie spoon. It was a cute way to end the meal.
Honest Dim Sum in a Unpretentious Setting at Wangi Garden
Wangi Garden Dim Sum buffet feels like a hidden gem. It serves honest food in an unpretentious setting that is great value for the price. The service was friendly too. We would come back again to enjoy the food at this eatery at Jalan Besar.
Where: ARC 380, 380 Jln Besar, #01-11/12, Singapore 209000
Website: Wangi Garden Instagram
If you love dim sum, be sure to read our guide to 40 of the best dim sum spots in Singapore to satisfy your dim sum cravings.
