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中華廚藝學院

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Chinese Culinary Institute

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27 Reviews

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1019

Pok Fu Lam

$51-100

International Stir-Fry Salt & Sugar Reduction Restaurant

18

3

1

Info:
Restaurant:	Chinese Culinary Institute

To promote a new salt and sugar reduction (RSS) dietary culture and living style to the people of Hong Kong, the Environment and Ecology Bureau, the Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food and the Centre for Food Safety of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department have launched the "Less-Salt-and-Sugar Restaurants Scheme" ("Scheme"). Restaurants participated in the Scheme will offer less salt or sugar options to the consumer or even tailor-make less salt or sugar dishes in designated restaurants. Participating restaurants will be granted with the Scheme Labels for displaying in the premises for public identification. For details, please click here: https://www.eeb.gov.hk/food/en/committees/crss/restaurants.html

Kumabeardiary

Level3

51

2

Hong Kong really has a vibrant history of Chinese Cuisine Culture, and probably is the only city that you will find restaurants that specialise in dishes from all regions of China. Aiming not just to specialise, but to expertise in all Chinese cuisine in Hong Kong is one of the goals for this institute, the Chinese Cuisine Institute. The Chinese Cuisine Institute or CCI is stealthily situated along the Pok Fu Lam Road along with the T-Hotel and Western Cuisine Institute, which have similar natu

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Hong Kong really has a vibrant history of Chinese Cuisine Culture, and probably is the only city that you will find restaurants that specialise in dishes from all regions of China. Aiming not just to specialise, but to expertise in all Chinese cuisine in Hong Kong is one of the goals for this institute, the Chinese Cuisine Institute.

The Chinese Cuisine Institute or CCI is stealthily situated along the Pok Fu Lam Road along with the T-Hotel and Western Cuisine Institute, which have similar nature that was interweaved by The English-Speaking Dining Society (TDS). Bus is certainly an option, but I really suggest you to go there either by taxi or drive by yourself due to the rustic location. There is no parking charges, but you will need to inform them in advance if you are driving, and in fact, I suggest you to book a table every time as most of the time, walk-in is hardly possible.

In order to enjoy the facilities of having Chinese Cuisine, Western Cuisine and living in the T-Hotel, one need to be an associate member with an annual fee of $1228 and anyone can be an associate member. There is no 10% charge for restaurants and that might be one bargain point for you to become a member.

On Arrival, you will need to walk pass all those waiting area, tea descriptions area and history section of the CCI before reaching the dining area.

Promoting hygiene is the most applaudable point in customer's point of view and CCI is so proud that they will let you see their kitchen as well. You are also welcomed to see how their students prep & cook. What has to kept in mind is that all service and food for the night are provided by their students and what these students want is I'm sure the high-end service that they can use one day when they graduate. They are here to learn and I won't be too picky to point all the tiny mistakes and blame them for this and that.

The CCI is one of those places where it is nice to enjoy the dinner or even a business meal. They provide exclusive service mimicking those high-end hotel including service for seating, servicing dishes, explaining dishes and wine and answering request etc., and of course, shyness is still one of their hindering point. They only serve around 8 to 10 tables per night and tonight, we were given a table that was equivalent to a table for 10 in other restaurants. Most of the time if you dine in CCI, it will consist of 6 courses: Appertisers, soup, barbecued, hot dishes, rice and dessert. The only thing that they change is the theme and they change in a regular basis and you will never get bored with CCI. Beside the exclusive service, CCI also focused on entertainments and usually will have someone playing classical Chinese songs with Gu Zheng.

The dinner theme for tonight is "North to South Regional Dinner Menu", but before the appetiser, some students came with a wine trolly and introduced all their wine to us. Remembering the tasting note isn't easy and that particular student did it very well. She explained several regions and several grape with pretty accurate tasting note, and with my passion in wine, I feel guilty for pushing her to the limit. But anyhow, I think the student was fantastic and at least good enough to pursuade me to choose the Gewurztraminer by Domaine Weinbach from Alsace.

This appetiser consist of 4 small portion of nibbles: the sauteed fresh water shrimp, spare ribs in dark vinegar sauce, smoked egg and celtuce in sesame oil. Each choice is a famous dish from a specific region in China and each item has only a hint of its regional taste, not a strong execution but at the same time, not a bad appetiser.

Sea shelk soup with fish maw and pak choi

After finishing the appetiser, the soup follows. It is a sea whelk soup with fish maw and you can taste the essence of the salted ham and definitely has a good flavour. The classical taste with big fish maw and perfect texture of pak choi, I would say they nailed this dish.

For Chinese cusine, it is an old faithful to kick off the menu after the soup. First after is the barbecued dish - the roasted pigeon. One of the most famous dish from Guangdong, you can almost have this dish all around HK. Slightly rough for the meat, suboptimal juiciness and slightly dull on crispness make this dish just a par dish overall. The salad with lemon vinegar was odd.

Pan fried yellow croaker

It is yellow croaker next with seaweed batter mix. This yellow croaker is really excellent, tears apart nicely and robustly seasoned. Outter crust is crisp and not heavily battered with the seaweed occasionally enhancing the palate. Matched nicely with the lychee taste from Gewurztraminer.

Sauteed prawn with salty egg york

Next is the Sauteed prawn with mashed salty egg york. This dish is one of my kryptonite, the coarse mashed salty egg york with a fresh well cooked prawn is just perfect! The taste combination is just so classic and the execution is also impeccable. If you are not a healthy freak, this dish, I would say, is a dish that is impossible not to love!

Stir- fried diced beef with walnut

Half-way through the "Hot dish" is the stir-fried diced beef with walnut and asparagus. The walnut and the sweetened chilli sauce is the soul of the dish. However, the chewiness and lack of beef essence was in fact too significant that drag the overall experience, and more importantly, the beef was too uneven to be called "diced" as described.

Steamed bamboo fungus with minced fish

The Last hot dish is the steamed bamboo fungus stuffed with minced fish. The portion size here, as we can see, was not too busy in order to let customers has wider range of choices. Fungus was invigorating and caused good contrast with the minced fish. It was less savoury and gave a softer taste and seemed to work like a sorbet, which clean your palate before your next dish. Not a bad choice, but I wasn't impressed as the fish was slightly too mashed up.

Fried ricewith chiken and conpoy

Rice dish is certainly one of the old faithful dish for Chinese but this fried rice with diced chicken with abalone sauce was slightly bland. Individualized rice and similar sized chicken dice was ok, but the abalone sauce can be richer. Up to this point, I kind of have an eerie feeling that there was something missing. I thought for so long and tt was the dish decoration and I would say it was minimal. It wasn't obvious as each dish has colourful ingredients that kind of compensate the dull and mundane presentation, but perhaps, I was too influenced by this trend. But on reflection, this does has an impact for diners as "appearance" was also one of the factor that trigger your desire to eat.

Glutinous rice with Chinese dessert

Last but not least, the dessert! It is a double- boiled red dates, lotus seeds, medlar, dried longan and snow fungus and all worked together very well, capturing all the flavours and at the same time enjoying all the original ingredients in a bowl. Sided with a pan-fried glutinous rice, and my only issue, was that the glutinous rice was stuffed with chestnut and pumpkin, which wasn't that pureed and slightly ruined the experience.

With all the food above, each person only cost $298 and without 10% charges it is such a bargain. With the king-like service and food quality, CCI is certainly one of my all time favourite. The loo is somewhere that you must visit, not mentioning that it is tidy and clean without any urinated smell, there will also be someone in the toilet passing towel after your hand wash and again, the experience was fantastic. The meal was certainly correlated with the menu title and shadowing each region's characteristics wasn't easy. The CCI isn't however out to impress the diner, or to serve to become a Michelin star restaurant, but to provide practical environment for student to learn and I think this alone worth my support to them.

What's up for CCI? If you want to be a true King, then the Qing Nuptial & Imperial Feast on Mar 10th & 17th is a must go! CCI did a thorough research and revive 10 particular dish of the Qing Emperors and will be conducted at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum for $488/person. CCI is truly a first class training institute and with aim of high standards that diner nowadays expect and with all the targets that they set, CCI will beyond doubt provide diners with food, environment and service to match.

The entrance lobby of CCI, WCI and T-hotel.

Internal environment of CCI

Internal environment of CCI (the history section)

(The above review is the personal opinion of a user which does not represent OpenRice's point of view.)

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