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2013-03-19
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I had very high hopes for the dimsum at this place since it was quite hard to book. Alas, it was not to be. Perhaps the first clue is that although they were apparently always fully booked, the restaurant was 1/4 empty at 1:20pm...Food: I'm surprised that a restaurant of this calibre can screw up the basics so badly! Maybe this place really is for fine dining only. But if that's the case, then they made a big mistake allowing basic dimsums to tarnish their rep.Prawn spring rolls - Let's s
Food: I'm surprised that a restaurant of this calibre can screw up the basics so badly! Maybe this place really is for fine dining only. But if that's the case, then they made a big mistake allowing basic dimsums to tarnish their rep.
Prawn spring rolls - Let's start with the positive - this was the only dish that I liked. No points for creativity, but it was chock full of bouncy shrimps. B
Har Gau - This was ok in flavour, and the skin was fine, but the shrimps were not as bouncy as the ones in the spring rolls and there was a lot of water inside the dumpling. B-
Pea Shoot Dumpling (dau miu gau) - I was really looking forward to this one and had hoped it would turn out like the one at Shanghai Garden in Hutchison House. These were generous in size and had ok texture, but had no flavour whatsoever. So bland! C+
Ham and onion pastries (Wong Kiu Siu Beng) - these were ok, but tasted pretty doughy. None of the fragrance expected from this dish eventuated. Significantly better option at East Ocean (especially the Wan Chai branch) C+
Chicken buns - these were cited to have mushrooms - where were the mushrooms? I was expecting nice niblets of shitake mushroom inside a lot more chicken filling than what was actually there. C
Tricolour Harm Sui Gok - This dumpling couldn't make up its mind between sweet and salty and ended up tasting like a floury mess. It apparently had foie gras in the filling, but I just didn't really taste it. I think I just don't like harm sui gok in general, so I will give this one a handicap of half a grade. C
Pricing:
For food that was slightly worse than your very average dimsum place (like Star Seafood or Maxims palace), the prices were more than slightly above average. Most of the dimsum ranged between $42-60. That would be acceptable if they were good, or even just average, but unfortunately they were neither.
Service: Nothing wrong with service. Rather nice chap came after me with an envelope which I'd left behind.
Ambience: Nothing special apart from the view. It felt a little bit bare.
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