I must say that I didn't pick these dishes and I do know that some of the following are NOT the signature dishes of Lei Garden.  Nonetheless, I guess these dishes will also give you an inkling of what not and what to order if and when you do go to Lei Garden at CHIJmes.

Firstly, I want to thank the kind people at The Edge magazine who treated us to the wonderful meal.  It was good to finally see the Managing Director as well as to catch up with my salesperson (didn't realise until that day that she's a lot older than she looks!).

The opening dish was of course, the lo hei and I didn't take any photos cause I reckoned that everyone has seen tons of those from me every CNY.  However, I think that I should've taken a video instead as Lei Garden did things slightly differently.  They had another empty plate where they poured the oil, sweet plum sauce, pepper, five spice powder and raw fish into, FOLLOWED by the vegetables and crackers.  Strange, I admit and after our toss, I think that the traditional method of pouring everything ON TOP of the veg makes more sense. :P

After the lo hei came half a suckling piglet where we ate the deliciously crispy skin dipped in the wonderful accompanying sauce and with a thin slice of bun.  Only the skin was devoured during this presentation, before the flesh is taken away to be stir fried with Ee Fu noodles which would be our second last dish.

Advice to those new to Lei Garden is this: instead of ordering this suckling piglet with the noodles, go for their roasted crackling pork, aka siew yoke.  It should look something like below:

Each of us were then served a Xiao Long Bao on our spoons.  What a way to ensure fairness in serving and diet.  Hahaha! Anyway, their XLB is how it should be - juicy with a delicate skin wrapping around it.

We had a very delicious chicken and scallop soup too but it's just brown and clear...not very exciting looking.

My hosts didn't forget about the greens and we had a course of asparagus with fried cod.  Loved the asparagus but wasn't too thrilled about the cod.  The skin was chewy and the whole thing tasted oily.

There were 3 other types of dim sum ordered too.  I couldn't care less about the fried ones but I must say that the chives and prawn dumpling was good, even when cool!

More greens! I love broccoli and pairing that with crab meat is simply veggie heaven to me.  The server only gave me 3 florets of the broc though. :(

See the oozing filling? Yup, that's everyone's favourite Liu Sha Bao.  Verdict on Lei Garden's version? Skip it.

The filling didn't have the signature salted egg flavour and was bordering on being starchy.  Couldn't even redeem itself by calling it a custard because it didn't have a creamy/milky taste of custard either.  To make things worse, I could taste the chocolate from the swirl which coupled with the sweet starch, it was a disappointment rather than a sweet ending to an otherwise excellent meal.

I'm sure that there are other yummy dishes at Lei Garden that I didn't get to try, after all, we are talking about a chain of restaurants that is famous in Hong Kong AND Singapore for its Cantonese cuisine.  Nonetheless, Lei Garden has stiff competition from other renown names such as Wah Lok, Peach Garden, Tung Lok and Royal China.  Honestly, I wouldn't go to Lei Garden JUST to eat as it is generally ok.

Lei Garden @ CHIJmes

30 Victoria Street
#01-24, Chijmes

Tel: +65 63393822