For the fam and I, dining at the jaolao – traditional Chinese restaurants that serve banquet style dishes – is usually reserved for special occasions, such as the birthday of an elder, weddings, and festive events such as Chinese New Year. For the Moo’s birthday this year, Pops suggested dinner at one of these establishments which he frequents with his clients, called Gold Dragon City at Paramount Garden, Petaling Jaya. My dad being very laidback when it comes to food, it’s not often he says that a place serves good food, so we had high hopes for it.

It was a weekend and the restaurant was pretty packed. The interior looks like your classic Chinese banquet restaurant, with red everywhere and large round tables. We sat at a 10-seater because they didn’t have smaller tables.

The restaurant offers set menus (minimum four pax), but since we’re not big eaters, we opted for individual dishes instead. One of their specialties is poached chicken, served with veggies in a blend of soy and sesame sauce. The chicken was tender and flavourful with an incredibly smooth texture. Definitely worthy of being a signature dish!

Veggies are veggies because I don’t like veggies.

Egg tofu with prawns. Prawns were fresh and sizable, egg tofu was silken smooth on the inside and bouncy. The rich oyster base sauce was delicious as well.

The highlight for me was the squid. Deep fried with salt and pepper, each piece was coated in a thin crispy layer rather than being overwhelmed by batter. The salt and pepper + spring onion/chilli mix gave it that extra kick.

Portions were all quite hefty but everything was so delicious we managed to finish them with no qualms. Our meal came up to just over RM150 which was incredibly reasonable, given the setting and the quality. So if you’re feeling like having great banquet style food, this is a good place to go! Only drawback is that you’d have to come in a big group.

• Food: 4/5
• Service: 4/5
• Ambience: 3.5/5
• Price: Reasonable for jaolao style restaurant

GOLD DRAGON CITY 

 14 – 16, Jalan 20/16a, Taman Paramount, 46300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

Business hours: 12PM – 2.30PM, 6PM – 10.30PM (daily)

Phone: +603 7877 0633