Xia Mian Guan is a Chinese restaurant located outside Sunway Pyramid. I went with my better half for lunch (and our first yee sang together). The food here is surprisingly good, and we’ve never even heard of Xia Mian Guan before β this is our first time eating here! π
Prosperity Salmon Yee Sang
Made with 7 colorful prosperity ingredients and fresh salmon, topped with special plum sauce
I’ve had my first yee sang of the year last month but this is my first with my dear. I like how they’re very generous with the salmon β there’s none of that βthin slivers of salmonβ thing going on here. You have thick slabs of salmon with the yee sang and that’s always a good thing.
However, I felt the yee sang at Celestial Court is much better, but these are two very different places β one is a high-end hotel restaurant and the other is a more affordable mall dining experience. It’s still decent but the best dishes are yet to come!
Tea Leaf Smoked Village Farmed Chicken
Healthy fresh village farmed chicken smoked with Pu Er tea leaves
I thought someone had lit a cigarette or at least popped out for a quick smoke before coming back into the room. That’s how strong and intense the smoke was! Of course, on second whiff, it doesn’t smell like tobacco at all, but your mind just automatically makes that connection. I have to stress that the plate was very far from me when it was brought it, which makes it all the more amazing!
My better half really liked this. The smoky flavor of Pu Er tea leaves can be smelled on the whole organic free range chicken and it’s really something different.
Pork Ribs infused with Red Wine
Succulent pork ribs cooked with Xia Mian Guan’s signature red wine sauce
Mmm…there are lean pieces, fatty bits and pork ribs mixed into this dish. I quite liked the house signature red wine sauce. This is Chinese style red wine meant for cooking, not the red wine you see in French cuisine. The common name for this dish is βRed Braised Porkβ or ηΊ’η§θ.
Prawns in Curry Sauce
Made with chilli sauce, milk and fresh prawns. Best served with fried Man Tou for dipping.
My favorite dish! I was raving about this for days! This is easily the best thing that has come out of the Xia Mian Guan kitchen by a long shot. The prawn curry is so intensely infused with prawn flavor (perhaps they blended up the prawn heads) that it’s pleasantly shocking! The prawns are big and juicy and the fried bread is crispy on the outside and warm on the inside.
I can dip the fried bread into the delightful sweet and spicy curry sauce all day long!
Hong Kong Kai Lan
Specially selected Hong Kong Kai Lan, made with a pinch of salt to enhance its flavor
The interesting thing about this dish is the contrasting texture β the stalks of the kai lan is steamed while the leaves are shredded and deep fried! There’s not a lot of oil so I suspect it might have been done in an air fryer. We’ve had a different twist on this dish before in banquets and dinners before β it’s also part of the β4 Heavenly Kingsβ way of preparing vegetables β this makes for crunchy, crispy vegetables combined with the soft juicy stalks.
Red Bean Kuih
Freshly prepared daily, the red bean kuih is soft, tasty and complements the sweetness of red bean
My dear was waiting for the final course to come out coz it sounded quite promising. The dish is portioned individually, with each person having one Chinese soup spoon. The red bean kueh is very nice β it’s not sweet at all, in fact there’s barely a hint of sweetness, all there is comes from the red beans so it’s a nice finish for people who don’t like overtly sweet desserts. I love the mochi-like texture of the chewy kueh too!
Xia Mian Guan (no English name) is a gem of a restaurant that we’ll be sure to go back too. Conventional wisdom suggests that hotels and malls don’t have really good restaurants but there are of course exceptions to this (there’s a couple of Michelin-starred establishments attached to hotels). This is one of them β a very nice restaurant that’s located at a very popular mall β Sunway Pyramid!
Xia Mian Guan
Outside Oasis Boulevard
Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall
Jalan PJS 11/15 Sunway
Tel: 03 5611 7949
Don;t think we can get yee sang here. No poon choy either. I guess those are Cantonese, not really the usual practice here.
I think poon choy hasn’t caught on commercially in Sarawak! π
It’s most definitely a Hakka custom though as I first had it in 2005, at a family of farmers I really admired, coz they didn’t have much (financially) but they’re very happy and contented with what they have. I was dragged alone (friend’s uncle) but I really liked it (as he knew I would) coz it’s in a rural area, with farms all around.
Theirs isn’t as elaborate though, just chicken, duck and some New Moon canned abalone and fatt choy and stewed pork but it got me intrigued. Poon choy has become quite commercialized here – at first there were just a couple of restaurants offering it in 2007, then each year, there were more and more.
I had yee sang once. Many years ago. I like that red wine pork rib.
You can actually buy them nowadays! π
I had it a very long time ago coz yee sang took off in Singapore earlier than it did in Malaysia. It was before I went to NZ for my high school so before I was 13 for sure, my auntie (who was working in SG then) bought a pack home and you just need to grate/julienne up the raw vegetables.
There are packs to purchase here too!
That prawn curry and fried bread looks like a lethal combination…but I would have preferred if the prawns were deshelled…..hee…hee!!
I love whole prawns! π
My favorite thing is to bite into the head, it’s sooooo good. My better half knows I like the heads and she doesn’t eat them so I’ll eat hers too.
I actually don’t have shells when I eat prawns coz I literally crunch up and swallow *everything* including the head and tails. It’s delicious!
i would like to try hong kong kai lan. never heard of that dish before but you describe until it’s a must try dish.. haha..
Yeah, it’s really good! π
I think it’s also part of a dish called 4 Heavenly Kings – it also has crispy vegetable leaves too.