Xin Cuisine Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

Xin Cuisine serves arguably the best dim sum in KL. And it is one of the few restaurants that still has dim sum carts roaming the dining hall.

They do many types of dim sum well. Favourites are: siu mai (steamed pork and prawn dumplings), har kau (steamed prawn dumplings), char siu bao (steamed bbq pork buns), sin chuk kuin (seafood wrapped in tofu skins and braised in a seafood sauce - from the steamed dim sum range), steamed pork ribs with black beans, braised chicken feet, nor mai gai (steamed glutinous rice with chicken, mushroom and Chinese sausage), woo kok (deep fried taro dumplings stuffed with meat), ham sui kok (deep fried glutinous rice dumpling stuffed with meat) - made to order, chan bao (baked bbq pork buns), char siu sou (bbq pork in a flaky pastry), salad prawns (deceptively named deep fried prawn dumpling - the salad in the name refers to the salad dressing it is served with. No vegetables make an appearance here), chao lo bak kou (stir fried white radish cake with prawns and vegetables), zi ma zou (glutinous rice dumplings stuffed with lotus paste and covered in sesame seeds), egg tarts and lau sar bao (steamed salted egg yolk custard buns) - made to order.

These are the recurring cast of characters on our table each time we visit. Not everything on their menu is to our taste. We have tried most things on their menu over the years and some things fell short of our expectations or were simply not to our taste. But these are few.

Desserts are generally good - the almond tofu (hang yan taufu) is properly made (but not for those who despise this type of smell), gwai ling kou (herbal jelly) is nice, honey dew sago, sea coconut soup, and mango pudding are all very pleasant. We have not tried the others. Often we are too full for dessert after dim sum.

Service suffered a bit after the Covid-19 lockdowns due to staff shortages. It’s still ok on weekdays but on weekends when they can be packed for hours, it can be difficult to flag down a member of staff or get the cart to come round. A bit of patience is necessary.

Prices are higher than your ordinary dim sum place but that is in exchange for a higher quality of ingredients, freshly starched table linens, and a nicer environment including live guzhang music...

We had an early reunion dinner at Xin yesterday. There were 8 in our party. We ordered ala carte. We thought it was rather unusual that the restaurant was less than half full on a Sunday evening so close to CNY. Later on we found out why. Xin’s food has always been good and still is but the service was lacking despite the low guest rate. We had ordered a Peking duck which is usually one of the first dishes to be served in a regular dinner. After we had Yee Sang there was a 40 min interval in between the next serving of waxed meat rice. We thought it was strange as this was usually the final dish. Then the captain came and told us that the Peking duck was unavailable and we had to select another dish. We didn’t understand why they didn’t tell us sooner. We overheard them whispering amongst themselves that the dish had been given to another guest. We also didn’t know why its duck supply was so low since they didn’t require advanced booking. What really disappointed was the nonchalant attitude in what was clearly their mistake. We didn’t want to spoil the mood for our dinner and ordered a replacement dish. They had also missed out on one order of our dessert even though the waiter had repeated the order to us twice before sending it to the kitchen. Fortunately this was a shorter wait as the dessert was ready made. Not going back there...

We had a reunion dinner gathering at Xin Restaurant on 13/1/18. As my son and I are vegetarian, I was grateful as my friend who did the booking arranged for vegetarian dishes for us.

We were served with the first dish- Corn soup, visually and taste was very pleasant. However, the following dishes were quite disappointing basing on our expectations as Xin Restaurant is in a 5 Star Hotel.

Mock meat were used overly fried,the almonds in the mock prawn dish was burnt, the fried rice was wet and tasteless. Only moderately acceptable was the little Bak Choy with mushroom.

These dishes with much better taste and texture can be found in general vegetarian restaurants that I only pay less than RM60 ( excluding the lao shang) for all.

I had dinned in different hotels' Chinese restaurant where vegetarian dishes were prepared with much more care without using mock meat as the trend of vegan is in the rise. There are so much varieties that the chef could have used to create delightful dishes as the prices charge are 5 star rate.

I would not think of going there for any gatherings again even if vegetarian dishes...