Imperial Treasure Teochew Ion Orchard

New Teochew restaurant Imperial Treasure Teochew Ion Orchard opened in December 2016. It has moved from its previous location in Ngee Ann City. The full name of the new restaurant in Ion is Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine. We stopped by to check out its new location and found it to be a change for the better.

The old Imperial Treasure Teochew restaurant at Ngee Ann City was not a bad place but it was mainly dark and can get potentially gloomy. The new Imperial Treasure Teochew Ion is a larger space. More importantly, it offers a wider range of seating options. Large or small private dining rooms. Cosy dining area or bright sunlit dining area. Semi-private dining booths. It is an interesting restaurant.

The Imperial Treasure Fine Teochew Cuisine menu is quite a detailed one. I think those looking for traditional Teochew restaurant food will probably be able to find them here. Here are pictures of some sample pages from the dim sum and ala carte menus.

We tried three types of dim sum. The Teochew style siew mai ($5.60) looked interesting but the taste was quite average. Another steamed Teochew dumpling ($4.50) was similarly uninteresting. The non-Teochew item, BBQ pork pastry ironically turned out to be the best dim sum that day. The pastry was buttery and flaky. The char siew stuffing was substantial and good tasting.

The main Teochew dishes turned out to be much better than the dim sum. Out of habit whenever we visit a Teochew restaurant, we ordered marinated sliced duck ($18 for a small dish). It was a mix of drumstick and breast meat. The presentation and colour of the dish were beautiful. The fat content was just right and the gravy was good. Eaten with the sng nee cho (white vinegar with garlic), it tasted delicious.

We tried a less usual dish that day. Stewed yellow croaker fish with radish ($28 for a large fish). The large version was a 30 cm specimen. While the steamed pomfret is our default choice at Teochew restaurants, we decided to be different and asked for croaker instead. It was a good choice. The meat was delicate and clean tasting. The broth and accompanying radish were very tasty. We highly recommend this dish.

For desserts, we had the crystal dumplings ($3.60). These are the sweet version of Teochew crystal dumplings. They did not look very exciting but we were pleasantly surprised to find that the dumplings were very good. They contained different contents – red bean, green bean and yam. The yam one in particular was appealing to us as it tasted like oh nee (yam paste) in a conveniently packaged dumpling.