Yi Qian Private Dining - New Chinese Restaurant at Leng Kee Road, Thye Hong Centre

Yi Qian Private Dining is a new Chinese restaurant serving Cantonese and Teochew fare. It is potentially a suitable place to celebrate after collecting a new Toyota or Lexus from the other end of Leng Kee Road.

New full-service Chinese restaurants are rare. Even rarer when they are not located in malls and are in neighbourhoods outside the usual dining areas such as Orchard Road. We were therefore looking forward to our lunch at the new Yi Qian Private Dining. According to the restaurant website, Yi Qian (壹仟) means ‘one thousand’ in Mandarin, signifying longevity and representing the creation of a culinary legacy … the name ‘壹仟’ follows the complex written form created by Tang Dynasty Empress Regnant, Wu Ze Tian that is used for official documents and Chinese currency notes.”

Yi Qian Private Dining is located in the Thye Hong Centre which is the last building at the Tiong Bahru end of Leng Kee Road. This is the building that used to house the Kitchen Culture showroom on the ground floor. We did not see the showroom during our visit. We are not sure if they have moved to another unit in the building or elsewhere. The new Chinese restaurant is nicely fitted out with a bright contemporary decor.

Yi Qian Private Dining Menu

The Yi Qian Private Dining menu is available online so we will just post a few sample pages below. It certainly has a wide selection of Chinese food in the menu. You will find Chinese banquet classics like abalone and shark’s fin as well as affordable dishes that are suitable for casual dining. We decided to try a mix of familiar (braised sliced duck 卤水鸭, $22) and new to us (pan-fried yam pancake with prawns ($24) and steamed chicken with lotus leaf in basket 笼仔荷叶蒸鸡, $22 for half chicken).

Our Lunch at New Chinese Restaurant Leng Kee Road

We found the sliced braised duck to be overly fat. Some might prefer this kind of duck, but we prefer our duck to be less fatty. Other than that this was a nice plate of Teochew braised duck. The gravy was light and the tofu was soft and delicate.

The fried yam pancake and chicken in lotus leaf were dishes we have never tried before. Arriving in a dramatic way was the chicken which was fully wrapped in large lotus leaf and steamed in a large bamboo basket (similar to those used for dim sum, but much larger).

The unwrapping of the lotus leaves released a puff of fragrant steam. Chinese wine, onions and other ingredients must have gone into creating the delicious gravy. Unfortunately, the chicken seemed extremely skinny. The pieces of skinny bird were hard to navigate. The lack of fat might also have contributed to the dryness of the meat.

It was a toss up between oyster omelette or yam pancake with prawns. Since we were at a new Cantonese/Teochew restaurant we decided to try the latter as it was something we have not tried in a restaurant in Singapore before. It turned out to be a nicely presented pancake with bits of yam and prawns as toppings. Not bad but not very memorable either. Overall, the new Yi Qian Private Dining is a welcome addition to the Queenstown/Tanglin neighbourhood. It will take more visits to try out other items on the menu to discover our favourites at this new Chinese restaurant at Leng Kee.