Tai Zi Heen, Prince Hotel KL – All You Can Eat Dim Sum Buffet

Prince Hotel KL Chinese Restaurant Tai Zi Heen offers a pretty value for money HALAL dim sum buffet at RM55++ (RM63.00 nett) on weekends. Starting from 1130am to 2pm, order & staple as much you could from its moderately extensive menu.

As with all buffets, there are hit & misses. Naturally, we hoped for more of the former than the latter.

Even with our expectations in check since we are all aware that this is halal fare, the general consensus among the 4 of us was “Ok“, “you get what you pay for“, “decent“; with some dishes bordering on inedible (our personal opinions ok) & some “good“.

Let’s begin with the GOOD:

Egg tarts were flaky & light with sweet centres. The Crispy corn flake-crusted tuna rolls were my fav. Crusty cornflakes encasing flaky tuna with chilli & chopped corn/carrots is hard to beat 😉 .

Unlike the ones you get at “lok-lok” vans, these bouncy beef balls has a mild beef flavour & a smooth texture. I actually liked these.

Tai Zi Heen seems to shine in the deep frying dept. Generally these items left a more favourable impression on us; one for ingenuity of fillings, another for the masterful frying that leaves each morsel crisp but not overly oily.

Below: We had repetitive orders of  The Crispy yam puffs.

Prawn dumplings with jackfruit.

Our choice from the fibres section was Braised mixed vegetables Lo Han style. We appreciate the fresh crunchy vegetables though the stock could do with a little less sodium.

Under the MODERATE category (can eat la..), we have :

The condiments that were supposed to compliment the dim sum actually does the opposite. The dark sauce was overly sweet while the chilli was weak. The dried chilli & shrimps one was alright.

Steamed Chicken Siew Mai – I didnt try this but my dining companions said it was decent.

Stir fried radish cake. Would have been better without the chicken meat floss.

LEFT: Steamed grouper bean curd skin rolls with oyster sauce. I admit, the word Grouper got me excited. But honestly it could have been any other fish. Still, it wasn’t bad.
RIGHT: Steamed fish balls. Fishy enough, though my personal preferance goes to the ones that are white & smooth.

Pan fried chicken pot sticker (gyoza). Meaty & nice.

Stir fried flat noodle with beef in egg white sauce. Too starchy. The beef slices were nicely tenderised with cornflour though.

Congee with century egg – I wasn’t very pleased that it came warm. Porridge should be piping hot – that’s just me. Tastewise; it was very ordinary & Hon Kee Porridge is actually better.

Steamed chicken & dried shrimp dumplings with chinese celery.
This is as chinese as it gets with the fillings strongly reminded me of stir fry chicken due to the strong accents of chinese celery . Not a good idea as fillings in a dumpling, for there was more sauce than meat.

TZH Shark’s Fin soup (limited to one portion per paying guest) has plenty of fins swimming in it, but unfortunately has a very run of the mill taste, bordering on thin & flavourless.

And lastly, the ones we wouldn’t recommend.

Cold Marinated Jelly Fish with peanut sauce. An acquired taste – it bordered on inedible and weird for us.

We ordered 2, one Rice rolls with fresh scallops (pic below) & another Rice rolls with shrimp. If you are expecting silky smooth sheets, you are in for a disappointment. Like we were. Thick, easily “broken” into starchy pieces rolls and scallops (that shapeless mass below) covered in flour left me speechless.

Steamed crystal dumplings filled with shrimp & french beans.
The skin being too thick was an issue enough. The prawns, though fresh, had a coating of pasty white “flour” (as you see below, you can’t even make out the prawn!) that undermines its taste.

Steamed fluffy BBQ chic buns. For dim sum, this is one of the litmus test items. Since this is in a hotel, I certainly had higher expectations. But the pau here is almost on par with the ones at other dim sum restaurants. Very very ordinary & the fillings didn’t seem too fresh/the meat a bit dried out.

The same fate falls on the Steamed custard cream bun for the pau texture. As for the filling, we got “conned” (LOL!) by the description on the menu– “custard CREAM” , it says. That evoked images of scalding hot stream of custard cream flowing out upon halving the bun……….
Hence it was a rude shock to us to see this instead. The saving grace? The custard cream aka lotus paste (?) tasted ok.

Lastly, DESSERTS:
Chilled mango puree with ice cream, sago & pomelo
Lime aloe vera dessert
Chilled Cream Honeydew
Longan & sea coconut

NICE & refreshing: Lime Aloe Vera Dessert
So -so – Mango puree & the longan
Absolutely to avoid: Chilled Cream Honeydew. As I struggled to describe this, Jeremy got it down pat – “melted & DILUTED low quality vanilla ice cream.” Jo tried, “diluted coconut milk??”. Myself? I didn’t bother.

MENU:

It says “Custard CREAM”… :unsure:

NOTE: This review only applies for the Tai Zi heen’s dim sum as I have not tried their chinese dishes before.