Since the "foundations of my dim sum education" was gained in Hong Kong, I do have certain personal preferences when it comes to eating dim sum in Singapore. And my personal favourite (and dim sum yardstick) is a certain Cantonese restaurant in a very popular shopping mall in Orchard Road. But I have now found that I can stop trying to explain the concept of "reservation" to the staff at that restaurant and go to Taste Paradise instead for a good dim sum fix.

Needless to say, what I like best about Taste Paradise is that I turn up at the time I made a reservation for, and I get a table! Okay, maybe not "right away" but most certainly not "eventually, maybe 45 minutes?". But then again, this fairytale may become a nightmare when the branch gets really popular.

So, I had the usual dim sum suspects - har gau, siew mai, char siew bao, glutinous rice in lotus leaf, beancurd roll with shrimp, prawn cheong fun, xiao long bao and fried carrot cake. On top of these, I also had peking duck. The dim sum they served were very fresh, delicate and tasty but what really stood out for me that day was their siew mai. It was by far, the best siew mai that I've had in ages. I never crave for siew mai and I usually order or eat it only because it comes so naturally to me when I order "har gau" (to me, it's always followed by "siew mai char siew bao"). But on Sunday, I shocked myself by eating 4 siew mais and I'm still thinking about them now.

I thought that they also did a really good job for the har gau as the prawns were very fresh and more importantly, the "skin" was very even (not too thick in certain parts). The xiao long bao also had a very good skin and was tasty although I definitely have to try it again to decide whether I like theirs better than some other restaurants'.

Some of the few things that I found a little disappointing was the saltiness of the cheong fun, and the somewhat bland taste of the Peking Duck. Maybe because these were rolled up instead of folded up, I couldn't really taste the duck skin. Or perhaps I need to try it again (perfect excuse to go back for another round of dim sum indulgence!). Having said that, the noodles that they fried with the duck meat was fantastic, not too starchy. I absolutely loved it.

As for the double boiled sharks fin soup, my dim sum partners declared that it didn't have enough oomph!.

Finally, I really liked the interior decor of the the restaurant even though it was a little cramped. Despite having a Chinese imperial feel to it (due to the mix of yellows and reds), it was not imposing nor pretentious. I was particularly attracted to the portraits of ancient Chinese emperors from the various dynasties.

To end, I do like the place enough to include it in my dim sum treasury and I'm crossing my fingers, hoping that they would never forget the concept of "reservation".