[CLOSED] InsideGreen: Dim sum in the gardens

We normally wouldn’t associate good dim sum with food courts, so when had a pleasant surprise when our meal at InsideGreen turned out to be a great one.

Opened last December, InsideGreen is located within the Botanic Gardens. This cafeteria style outlet dishes out a variety of local food from its central kitchen, including chicken rice, roti prata, kaya toast, western food, cze char and dim sum.

Owners Sally and Madam Wong say they hoped the more recently opened dim sum stall would be the key draw here. And the duo spared no effort in making sure of that, including hiring their chef from Ipoh’s famous dim sum eatery Foh San.

Naturally, the dim sum here is Ipoh-style, characterised by its no frills, rustic and hearty qualities. Outstanding items here include the salted egg custard bun, which while small, packs a lethal mix of molten sweet and savoury filling which oozes out when bitten into; har mai (prawn dumplings), which is essentially siew mai stuffed not with pork but with just fresh, springy prawns instead, and a sprinkling of salted egg yolk; and herbal chicken—a light steamed dish of chicken pieces infused with Chinese herbs.

Of course, no dim sum meal is complete without char siew bao (roast pork bun) and here, you get the steamed and baked (shao bao) variety. We liked that the char siew was relatively lean, not overly sweet and looked a dull shade of brown, which meant it wasn’t doused with food colourings.

Too bad, we were not blown away by the dessert we tried, chrysanthemum jelly; It was cloyingly sweet. We were told that the chef was a little heavy handed with the dessert that day. But despite that, we were truly impressed with the rest of the dim sum dishes, $3.80 per dish—what good value for money for that quality! The jellies are at $3.00-$4.50 per serving.

InsideGreen

1 Cluny Road

#B1-00 Botany Centre

Singapore Botanic Gardens

Tel: 64711689/ 64715307

Opening hours: Mon-Fri: 7.30am-10pm; Sat, Sun & PH: 7.30am-11pm