XI MEN DING

Location: Raffles City B1
How to get there: City Hall Mrt

Hi people, I thought I'd just update you guys on a value for money meal when I was out today! I had a set lunch today at XI MEN DING today. XI MEN DING is a Chinese restaurant that serves Taiwanese food. From the friend whom I ate with said; its Braised Minced Pork Rice taste the closest to the one he had in Taiwan itself. (I have not been to Taiwan, so I'm taking his word!)
The set meal includes:

• 3 out of 6 choices of side dishes
• 1 out of 7 main dishes
• 1 out of 4 desserts

I have attached the menu at the bottom so you guys can know more about it! (The best part is that this offer is even available during weekends!)

My friend and I had: all the 6 side dishes, braised minced pork rice, beef noodles, almond tofu dessert and yam paste dessert; both of us paid $16.25 each.

Advantages:

• Food is in huge portions (I kid you not, I couldn't finish my noodles)
• I had the beef noodles and it tastes great! The beef just MELTS in your mouth (calling out to beef lovers!)
• Like I said above, the braised minced meat rice is close to the authentic one is Taiwan (GOOD)
• The ikan bilis side dish is nice! (I highly recommend that you should try it!)
• Spacious
• They are quick in serving.
• They have an awesome collection of Chinese music
• VALUE FOR MONEY (I think I can repeat it on and on)

Disadvantages:

• I have no idea why, but we were served dessert first (shouldn't it always come last?)
• The chicken side is really salty (daylight murder; don't torture your kidneys)
• I had yam paste for dessert and it was SOUR (i don't remember yam paste to be sour~EW)
• They don't serve you plain water, you have to order drinks (cos I asked for warm water and was kindly rejected)

Hence overall, if you take steps to counter the disadvantages, i.e. bring your own bottled water, request for dessert to be served later and don't order the chicken side dish and yam paste dessert, it would be rather alright. 

Afterall, the price is so reasonable for a restaurant (so we applied the 'close one eye and open one eye' tactic). Therefore, if you're in town and you wanna try some reasonably good Chinese food without paying through your nose for those fancy restaurants, you may wanna consider XI MEN DING.

<3FJ