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2017-06-18
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This place was still in soft open stage when we visited. Accessible by elevator from a tiny entrance tucked in between an exit of the Sai Yin Pun MTR station and the Ecotree Hotel, the restaurant is clean and bright, if somewhat oddly laid out--its floor plan is dumbell-shaped with kitchen in the middle and seating areas on both sides. There's an outer terrace that seems to be part of the restaurant and must be fairly awesome to sit on when the weather permits, but it was rainy pretty hard when
The food was quite delicious--the menu contains a lot of very solid Xiang spicy food options, including the fish head stewed in pepper, among other things, but I was pleasantly surprised by a few slightly unconventional options too. For example, the place is one of the few restaurants in HK offering luffa (絲瓜?), and it was cooked in a milky, hearty fish soup with a light dusting of ginger, just lightly seasoned enough to allow the fresh ingredient itself to shine through.
We ordered smelly tofu as well-- the dish was very well done, the tofu soft and tendre on the inside and light and crispy (not oily) on the outside, with minimal amounts of pepper on top to give slight variation and interest to the standard smelliness.
We also had two traditional Xiang dishes--dried beef stir fried with pepper and pork with white pepper--and both were quite nicely done and went very well with simple white rice to offset some of the cuisine's characteristic spiciness and saltiness.
The wait staff was very friendly, but obviously the place was still working out some operational kinks--three separate staff members separately asked us what kind of tea we wanted, we were not given menu for a while after sitting down, and one of the dishes we ordered actually was not available but we weren't told of it until twenty minutes after we've placed the order. Still, all are forgivable in a new restaurant with a team that is still trying to figure out how to best operate together, and the very friendly attitude of the staff makes up for a lot of small imperfections. The food is solid enough that I'm glad there's now another spicy Chinese food option in the western side of the island.
Other Info. :
We received 20% off for dinner because the restaurant is still in the soft opening stage.
(The above review is the personal opinion of a user which does not represent OpenRice's point of view.)
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