莲芯茶坊, Lotus Heart Tea House, Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum

A new Tea house: Lotus Heart Tea House with an excellent ambiance is now open at level 2 of Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum.
Located at the rear of the level 2 exhibition hall/museum, you could have easily missed it. So, if you enter the hall, just go all the way to the end & on the left rear end, you can find the entrance to the tea house.

Sample set shown before the entrance

I was told that currently they have 10 Set Meals that they are serving on different days. For e.g. if today you sampled set 9, so tomorrow they will be serving set 10 & repeat set 1 again the day after. So, if you want to repeat the Bento set that you had sampled today, you can count the days that they are serving set 9 again. Interesting:-)

For a price of $5, for today's Bento set, I get to enjoy rice with 3 dishes, soup of the day, appetizer, fruit of the day & free-flow of coffee or Chinese tea.

I didn't know that their rice served is such a big portion:P in comparison to their sample, if not, I would have asked them to give me a smaller bowl. The portion of the dishes served is quite reasonable though it will be better if they could increase the portion of gravy & vegn meat floss (shown on the bowl of rice) to match the big bowl of white rice served:P

Initially, I thought the name "Bento" means Jap rice set but I think here it is more likely used to describe lunch/dinner set in a box as the rice served tasted more like the normal rice we usually eat.

Sorry, I am not really a rice person & there are people who like to eat their rice plain & dry & there are those who like rice with gravy and I am the latter so I struggled a little to finish the big bowl of white rice trying hard to mix with the vege's gravy.

Just a thought, maybe they should serve a smaller portion of rice or ask the customer if they want small (as per sample set), medium (to rim of bowl) or large (mountain as seen in picture) portion of rice & allow top-up if customer still want more so as not to waste the rice.(粒粒皆辛苦) It will be a waste if someone does not have the habit of finishing their food considering it is actually still on temple premises.

And to save the washing of bowl, I would recommend that they just place the rice onto the Bento set section where they place the bowl.

Overall, the dishes are quite well-cooked & I especially like the soft potato cubes & the appetizer which I think is prickled cai xin that I believe will go even better with porridge. Considering the ambiance, I would think their price of $5 for their Set Meals is quite reasonable.

Besides serving Set Meals, they also serve Dim Sum set at $5 per set : "Ingots" with 5 treasures; Walnut pastry; Longevity Bun, etc,

Sweet Delight set at $3 : Peanut candy; Five Spice cake, etc, &

Noodles at $5: Shanghai Rice Cake Soup, Braised Wheat Vermicelli with Vege, etc.

I managed to catch a glance at their Sweet Delight set:-), it looked delicate & nice. I would definitely return to try their other dishes.

Latest: Dinner Buffet at $8!!!

The tea house's operating hours are daily from 11am to 7pm with last order at 6.30pm.

It is located at level 2 of Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum which is located at Chinatown: 288 South Bridge Rd, off Sago street or opposite the famous Maxwell food centre, nearest MRT: Outram/Chinatown MRT.