Dim Sum Trolleys (without the Dollies)

This restaurant in the Toa Payoh heartlands has been around for more than a decade, and through the years, it has developed a strong following of Chinese families and aunty groups alike.

 

With over 100 items to offer, FortunAte Restaurant was voted one of the “Top Ten Most Popular Restaurants” in 2003.

 

Serving primarily Dim Sum and traditional Cantonese dishes, the place is an adorable gem, with tottering old ladies pushing steamer trolleys and touting their Dim Sum items to tables.

 

As you might expect, this place is busy, bustling typical Chinese eatery. Decorated with gigantic Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling, bright red chairs, red carpets and old Chinese music playing in the background, the realization that you can’t find a Chinese restaurant much like this in Singapore these days slowly sinks in. The restaurant also has a default wedding platform and appropriate Chinese wedding decorations and installments which they never remove, so it is possible that FortunAte still is a popular restaurant of choice for traditional Chinese wedding dinners.

 

I was there with my family and relatives one Sunday afternoon for lunch, to celebrate my father’s birthday. Naturally, we were told that we could order whatever we wanted, so there was a full spread of deep fried, stir-fried, steamed and boiled food on our Lazy Susan.

 

Don’t expect much of their service standards though. The staff are not rude, but neither are they exceptional. With the trolleys constantly making their rounds, you don’t really need their constant assistance anyway.

 

The different trolleys each offer a variety of items, from standard Dim Sum items like sweet and savoury baos and meat-filled dumplings, to fried carrot cake, baked char siew flaky pastries and egg tarts.

 

Because of the huge traffic during meal times, the Dim Sum always exits the kitchen freshly-prepared. Items like fried calamari, ngoh hiang, deep fried baby octopus with sweet sauce, yam basket with fresh seafood and fried fish with salad cream fared extremely well because they were made-to-order and extra golden and crispy.

 

The chee cheong fun (thick rice noodles) wrapped with char siew (barbequed pork) was smooth and savoury. FortunAte’s Xiao Long Baos didn’t make the grade though, the skin wasn’t as thin as it looked, and there was utterly no soup hanging from those dough bags. We also ordered a whole roasted honey chicken, which came with a generous downpour of crushed peanuts and sesame seeds. The chicken was rather dry, but I loved the flavour – sweetness and varying degrees of nuttiness went really well together. 

 

Oh, and if you happen to be a PAssion card holder, you get 10% off ala carte items. Because it’s located in the heartlands, FortunAte’s prices aren’t too steep. Din Tai Fung’s premium items can be pricey, and Yum Cha might be overrated after a while, so try out FortunAte one day. You just have to come down and try dining the old-school dim sum restaurant way – trolleys, their tottering dollies and all.