Jade Room Restaurant

I have dined here many times with my family as it is one of my dad’s favorite restaurants. He is old school and prefers the traditional Chinese restaurants. As such, these places tend to look quite old and a bit run down, probably stuck in the 1970s/​80s or earlier. This is also a popular place for associations to hold their annual dinner as the pricing is more value for money than in the glitzier hotels’ Chinese restaurants. I have also seen wedding dinners held here.
I think the 1-​star reviews from fellow Unilocalers Ancy N and Joanne C are probably based on the steamboat buffet they have? I do agree the main dining hall where the steamboat buffet is held do look sad, the food laid out there is dismal.
My review is based on the numerous times we dined here in the private room with a set 8 or 9 course meal.
One of the specialties will probably get the «Save the sharks» community riled up as they do a very good shark fin chicken soup. It is also maybe one of the last few restaurants to continue serving shark fin soup in Singapore.
Another specialty is the Shanghainese dessert — soufflé egg white balls with red bean paste filling. I recently found out it is quite a rare dessert and is apparently very hard to make. As it is a soufflé like dessert, you need to eat it hot. That is when you will get the softness and fluffiness of the egg white (which is plain and tasteless, that’s why you need the sugar dip). The red bean paste filling complements it. I like this but it is not my favorite dessert.
I am not sure what type of Chinese cuisine this place actually serves, but it also has Putian dishes like the cockles (fans of cockles love it, I don’t) and the Heng Hwa clams bee hoon which is super yummy.
The steam fish is always done very nicely and the recent visit we had it with chai poh (preserved radish) and the sweet saltiness went very well with the sweet flesh of the fish.
There are the typical dishes too like cereal prawns, crabs, sea cucumber with mushroom spinach, roast duck and chicken.
Another dish we was the deep fried lightly coated prawn with fried goji (wolfberry) leaves. That was really good.
Maybe dining here off the ala carte or set menu will be better rather than taking the steamboat buffet menu. The service is of the usual Chinese restaurant. Efficient and cordial.

First time and last time.
Don’t ask me how I ended up there.

My friends and I were looking for dinner in Newton area and decided to check out this steamboat restaurant located in Hotel Royal. This place used to be highly rated for steamboat but gone were their hey days. This hotel and the restaurant has the old school feel to it and probably in need of a makeover. The huge dining hall was not brightly lit (probably to save electricity) and the tables were barely filled. It was a friday night and there were barely more than 10 tables for dining.
The soup base is rather blend. Although they have a wide range of ingredients to choose from but they don’t seem to be very fresh as there is a slow turnover of diners. Their cooked food were tucked in a corner of the dining hall and barely touched or refilled through out the night. It seems like the only highlight for that dinner was the peking duck which was only served once at 8pm which we missed. My friend who had it was saying that it was alright not the most specular one she had.
Guess I won’t be coming back again.