We celebrated JP's birthday a few weeks ago at the above-mentioned restaurant. It was my 2nd round of peking duck as I had the same dish 2 weeks earlier with another group of friends at the Marina Bay Sands location and honestly, it kind of blew me away. And since JP wanted to dine at Imperial Treasure, I suggested having the peking duck since none of them had tried it before. Frankly, it didn't really make any sense travelling to the MBS one which was rather inconvenient by public transport (or else pay $15 or more for parking for a couple of hours!). We found out there was another branch at Paragon selling the same dish(which was slightly cheaper as well since the location wasn't as snazzy as the MBS) hence I booked a table for 4 that night.
One annoying thing about Imperial Treasure is that when you make a booking, do be prepared to be told by their staff that you'll have to evacuate your table by a certain time as they are expecting another group of diners to take over the later slot. Well...granted that their business is extremely busy every single time I visit, I suppose you can't really blame them for doing so. But I guess a better way of approaching it would've been to serve the food faster after a customer's order and then drop hints about settling the bill after they're done with their meals.
Ah well.
Probably one of the most exciting parts about having Peking Duck is watching the chef skilfully carve up the duck in front of you. There is nothing quite as fascinating(provided you're not from the medical profession) in Chinese cuisine as this (save for drunken prawns but if you ask me, that's almost as cruel as force-feeding a goose to get foie gras) as the chef places each glistening and succulent-looking piece of meat on a complementing shiny white plate.
So here's our chef for the night doing his job.
And here's a photo of the finished product. Ta-dah!
What's interesting about Imperial Treasure is that they also provide you with some sugar to go with the duck. Personally I still prefer the traditional way of eating it which is with sweet sauce and cucumber rolled in the crepe.
But the duck was not all we had for dinner that night of course. The stir fried spinach with mushrooms and tofu was absolutely delicious too. It was cooked in a thick oyster-sauce sort of gravy and the tofu was a bit crispy on the outside yet moist and flavourful when you bit into one.
We also had a double-boiled winter melon soup with crab. The crab tasted pretty fresh and succulent. Guess it must have been simmered in the soup for quite awhile.
For $10 more, we had the rest of our skinned duck sliced up and cooked with "sang meen"(a skinny yellow crispy noodle). I am usually quite stuffed after a heavy meal like this but this was actually pretty good enough for me to finish.
Of course, no meal is complete without our favourite mango sago dessert with pomelo pulp. Priced at $5 each, it was a bit steep for the size of the bowl we were served in though.
JP had the mango pudding which in my opinion tasted pretty normal next to the mango sago(which really is quite the dessert benchmark of any decent Cantonese restaurant).
For the serious Cantonese cuisine foodie, Imperial Treasure is a must-go if you've not been there before. Even if you're not game for peking duck, their lunchtime dim sum is also very good.
Which reminds me. I better start on my currently non-existent exercise regime....SOON!
Cost per pax(after UOB card discount) = around $40+
Address: 290 Orchard Road #05-42/45 The Paragon Rating (out of 5):Service: 4 porkchopsFood: 4.5 porkchopsAmbience: 4 porkchops
