Since my last visit to Dragon-i where I had a pretty satisfying dinner with the family, the husband and I had been waiting for an opportunity to come back to try its sister restaurant, Canton-i. While Dragon-i offers Shanghainese specialties like xiao long bao and la mian, Canton-i specialises in Hong Kong/Cantonese dishes like wontons, roast duck, barbecued pork, congee, dim sum and the like.
The Steamed Pork & Shrimp Dumplings (RM7.80) had a higher ratio of meat to shrimp as compared to my favourite siew mai from Yum Cha Restaurant in Singapore. This was just average.
I ordered these Piggy Buns (RM9.80) purely because they looked cute on the menu so I was quite disappointed when the piggies came with cracks and peeled skin that made them look less photogenic. The piggy with pink ears had red bean paste filling whereas the one with green ears was filled with lotus seed paste. Very ordinary tasting with a thick bun crust.
The Fried Radish Cake with XO Sauce (RM15) was just a simple dish of radish cake cubes fried with bean sprouts and egg but it was absolutely delish much to our delight. The radish cake was crispy on the outside and soft/wobbly on the inside. The XO sauce was very salty but very flavoursome. Highly recommended.
The Signature Prawn Wanton Noodle Soup (RM14.80) had four plump wantons that were filled with whole crunchy prawns. The noodles were springy but the broth was a little plain.
Been craving for horfun for a while now so decided to order their Fried Horfun with Seafood (RM20.80) that came in a lovely mess of gravy.
There were plenty of ingredients too – sliced fish, prawns, squids and even scallops. Thin kway teow noodles were used instead of the usual thick ones in Singapore and they had a pleasant taste of wok hei flavour which was most important for a fried horfun dish. The gravy was silky smooth and very flavoursome with a good mix of egg in it.
As we were eating the dish midway, we found one of the fish slices to be undercooked in the middle. It was like the fish wasn’t thawed properly so the middle part was still raw. We decided not to finish the rest of the horfun and highlighted the issue to one of their service staff who then alerted their manager. They offered to redo the dish at no extra cost and even asked if we wanted dessert as take away. Since we were already stuffed and couldn’t eat anymore, we had to reject that. We were expecting a full refund of the dish but were given a 10% discount off the final bill (which couldn’t even cover half of the price of the horfun dish) instead.
Prices indicated here excluded 6% GST and 10% service charge. Braised peanuts was charged at RM2. Towels at RM1 each. Filtered iced water cost RM1. I had the flowering red amaranth tea (RM5.80) which was pretty aromatic. Entire meal for two persons cost RM82.90 (after the 10% discount) which was <S$30 after currency exchange.
While Dragon-i exceeded our expectations previously, we thought Canton-i was just average. The radish cake with XO sauce was extremely tasty but the rest were probably more misses than hits. To be served with a dish that had uncooked fish in it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting and seriously, their service recovery attempt didn’t impress either. Though the meal we had wasn’t expensive in SGD, it just wasn’t a satisfying experience.
Canton-i
Lot No. J3-05, Level 3
Johor Bahru City Square (Office Tower)
106-108 Jalan Wong Ah Fook
80000 Johor Bahru, Johor
Malaysia
Tel: +60 7 222 6888
Website
Jennie Lam, thank you very much for good service to us. We will be back next time.