Xian De Lai Specialty Hotpots restaurant offers a perfect combination; Hotpot and buffet. Located in the highly dense restaurant Liang Seah Street with intense competition, hence to survive here, there must be some charm to lure customers. Though I am not a fan of both hotpot and buffet, I decided to join a group of fans for dinner at this restaurant simply to find how if they are worth recommending.
As it occupied 3-storey of a pre-war shophouse, it wasn’t spacious. Seats were crammed. Xian De Lai Specialty Hotpots restaurant was trying to make most out of the space.
Satisfying both the spice lovers and the non with Yuan Yang Hotpot. One side was the spicy Mala Soup and the other was some kind of Chicken Soup. Disappointing as it were as it consist of diluted broth. The soup didn’t get more flavourful even after we cooked all our ingredients in them.
Since it is buffet, diners are to check all the ingredients they wanted on the order slip provided. When served, stacked plates of ingredients were on a single tray. It looked amazing.
Before digging in, concocting customised sauce at Hotpot restaurant is a common practice.
Most of the ingredients at the sauce station were commonly found at other Hotpot restaurants too. My fave mixture was the Peanut sauce with fermented beancurd, chopped garlic and some parsely and chilli. The key ingredients in my sauce, the peanut sauce was dilute.
The ingredients were fresh and the best was the dumpling.
Xian De Lai also offer some cooked food like the fried chicken with chilli. These were pretty decent.
It was thoughtful of them to offer chill Red Bean Soup to diners. But somehow, it was rather pathetic since it came with a lonely glutinous rice ball. Anyhow, I was glad that it was lightly sweet with red bean flavour savoured.
NAHMJ Verdict
Personally, I wouldn’t return. For the same price, there are better tasting hotpot out there.
Xian De Lai Specialty Hotpots 鲜得来有料火锅
18 Liang Seah Street, Singapore 189039
Tel: +65 6336 7505
Opening Hours
Daily 1130 to 1430, 1630 to 0300
Getting There
By MRT:
- Downtown line or East-West line – Bugis station
By Bus:
- Opp Bugis Junction along Victoria Street 7, 12, 63, 80, 175, 197, 851, 960, 980
- Bugis Station along Victoria street 2, 32, 33, 51, 61, 130, 133, 145
- Bugis Junction along Victoria Street 2, 12, 33, 130, 133, 960
- North Bridge Road Commercial Complex along North Bridge Road 7, 32, 51, 61, 63, 80, 145, 175, 197, 851
Rating: 5.5/10