Rice dumplings, stuffed with luxe ingredients like salted egg yolks, hearty meats, and seafood, are best enjoyed with friends and family. But did you know that an ancient Chinese poet gave rise to the annual tradition?
The annual Dragon Boat Festival is a cultural and historic occasion in Singapore hallmarked with traditions that go back over 2,000 years to the Warring States Period in China. These include the time-worn practice of dragon boat races, along with far more enjoyable feasts centred around rice dumplings — hefty parcels of glutinous rice, stuffed with luxe ingredients like salted egg yolk, beans, nuts, meat and seafood, wrapped in bamboo or lotus leaves, then steamed or boiled until everything comes together into a delicious mound.
Sounds tasty, though they do have a darker past in the ancient legend that spawned them. As the story goes, the much-loved poet and court official Qu Yuan threw himself into Hunan province’s Miluo River as an act of protest against the rulers of the time. In a rush to save him, villagers piled onto long boats, paddled out into the middle of the river, and tossed rice dumplings in to draw the fish away from his body.
But the leaf-wrapped snacks have come a long way since then. Rice dumplings are nowadays exchanged among friends, family, and colleagues as a symbol of good fortune and togetherness. Though traditional flavours remain a strong favourite, ingenious chefs at hotels and restaurants in the MICHELIN Guide Singapore are continuously innovating with new and exciting ingredient combinations, too.
Here are five MICHELIN Guide spots to get the latest and greatest in rice dumplings, just in time for the Dragon Boat Festival that falls on 10 June 2024.
Summer Pavilion
One MICHELIN StarMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2023
MICHELIN-starred Summer Pavilion bucks the trend of novel seasonal flavours, returning instead to the familiarity of its tried-and-true Hong Kong-style rice dumplings, which come heaving with hearty goodies like roast duck, roast pork, dried scallops, dried shrimp, salted egg yolk, mushrooms, lotus seeds, chestnuts, and green beans.
The package is loaded to a final weight of 600g when all is said and done, making for a bountiful snack that’s sure to draw attention when brought to the table (after it’s done steaming for a minimum of 30 minutes, of course).
The Summer Pavilion rice dumpling is available to purchase from 29 May till 10 June 2024. Orders can be placed via phone at +65 6434 5286 or email at rc.sinrz.summerpavilion@ritzcarlton.com. Summer Pavilion is located at The Ritz-Carlton Millenia, Level 3, 7 Raffles Avenue, 039799, Singapore.
Golden Peony
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2023
New rice dumpling flavours abound at MICHELIN-Selected Golden Peony, celebrating the joy of the convivial Dragon Boat Festival with an exquisite selection of curated treats. The trio of new additions include the Signature London Duck Rice Dumpling, brimming with a Cantonese-style take on the fowl, prized for its supreme succulence; the Multigrain Rice with Korean Kimchi Sauce Rice Dumpling, an inclusive option for vegetarian-friendly feasts; as well as an innovative dessert dumpling in the Thai Mango Sticky Rice Dumpling, naturally paired with a splash of creamy coconut milk for extra decadence.
These can be enjoyed with other evergreen flavours like the time-tested Hong Kong-Style Rice Dumpling and a locavore Singapore Black Pepper Chilli Crab, Prawn and Bedford Scallops Rice Dumpling in the Golden Peony Luxury Bundle, made complete with all five dumplings mentioned above and an extra bottle of house-made XO chilli sauce.
The Golden Peony rice dumplings are available to purchase online here from now till 10 June 2024. Orders can also be placed via phone at +65 6432 7482. Golden Peony is located at Conrad Centennial Hotel, Level 3, 2 Temasek Boulevard, 038982, Singapore.
Jade
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2023
For Dragon Boat Festival this 2024, MICHELIN-Selected Jade is unveiling two new flavours to celebrate the time-honoured occasion. The first takes the traditional filling of pork belly — an ingredient found in many different local dialect groups’ interpretations of the dish — and jazzes it up by marinating it with premium Moutai white liquor for 48 hours, tinging it with the booze’s smoky complexity and later pairing it off with dried scallops, Chinese ham, and mushroom for a newfangled twist on a classic dumpling.
The second rice dumpling stages a return to local flavours, presenting a sweetish, bijou dumpling, tinted yellow from its traditional preparation with alkaline water and mellowed out with locavore ingredients like smooth red bean paste and a hit of caramelly gula melaka (palm sugar). It’s not the only nostalgia-tinged item coming out of Jade’s playbook, as you can also enjoy other old-school flavours like the Blue Pea Nyonya Rice Dumpling and the Hokkien Salted Egg Yolk Rice Dumpling. Vegetarians, too, aren’t left out as they can enjoy the restaurant’s returning Truffle and Trio Mushroom Five-grain Rice Dumpling; and of course, gifting sets, here sealed in a reusable woven basket, are available too.
The Jade rice dumplings are available to purchase online here from now till 10 June 2024. Corporate orders can also be placed via phone at +65 6877 8943 or email to fullertonshop@fullertonhotels.com. Jade is located at The Fullerton Hotel, 1 Fullerton Square, 049178, Singapore.
Shang Palace
SelectedMICHELIN Guide Singapore 2023
MICHELIN-Selected Shang Palace kicks off the Dragon Boat Festival with an exquisite bounty of hand-wrapped rice dumpling creations. The cream of this year’s crop is surely the innovative new Fish Maw Pork Knuckle Rice Dumpling, a hefty 650g parcel that reimagines the classic flavours of zongzi, as rice dumplings are also known, with other traditional recipes that embody the spirit of the festivities. In this case, pork knuckle is slow-cooked, deboned and stuffed into dried fish maw that was itself marinated in a rich broth before heading into the steamer for two hours, resulting in a harmoniously melded package brimming with umami.
Other new flavours come in the form of the new Sweetened Purple Rice Dumpling with Custard, featuring a luscious and flowy purple sweet potato custard wrapped with mochi dough and a further layer of black and white glutinous rice — though you can also opt for returning favourites like the pillow-shaped Shang Palace Signature Barbecued Pork Rice Dumpling with Yunnan Ham and Conpoy, or Truffle Pork Rice Dumpling with Salted Egg, also available with other delectable bites as part of the restaurant’s rice dumpling gift hampers.
The Shang Palace rice dumplings are available to purchase online here from now till 10 June 2024. Orders can also be placed via phone at +65 6213 4511 or email to festive.sls@shangri-la.com. Shang Palace is located at the Shangri-La Hotel Singapore, Lobby Level, 22 Orange Grove Road, 258350, Singapore.
Yì By Jereme Leung
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Yì By Jereme Leung, a MICHELIN-Selected restaurant in the historic Raffles Hotel Singapore, rings in the decadence of the Dragon Boat Festival with an array of artfully crafted sweet and savoury rice dumplings, including a new creation inspired by its signature flower — the delicate Yunnan rose, lending its floral fragrance and pastel pink hues to an alkaline-tinged Kee Chang, here taken with a dab of Raffles Signature Kaya Jam.
Photo: Yì By Jereme Leung / Raffles Hotel Singapore
The second new rice dumpling for the season reimagines a local favourite in the Bak Kut Teh & Salted Egg Yolk Rice Dumpling. The Malaysia-style version of the treat — typically featuring pork ribs simmered in an herbaceous, slightly peppery broth — is incorporated into this delicately wrapped parcel, along with a shining golden orb of salted egg yolk in the centre for umami bite. If that isn’t enough indulgence for you though, you can always opt for a returning Yì By Jereme Leung signature in the Traditional Eight Treasure 10-Head Abalone Rice Dumpling, which comes laden with bounties like 10-head abalone, Sakura ebi shrimp, salted egg yolk, chestnut, roasted duck, five-spice pork belly, premium dried scallops, and Jinhua ham.
The Yì By Jereme Leung rice dumplings are available to purchase online here from now till 10 June 2024. Orders can also be placed via phone at +65 6412 1816 or email to rafflesgrabandgo@raffles.com. Yì By Jereme Leung is located at Raffles Arcade, #03-02, 328 North Bridge Road, 188719, Singapore.
