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2015-08-30
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I was reading around some food awards, as I am wont to do, and some magazine or other (I forget now) said this place had the best dumplings in HK. Then I came to OpenRice and supersupergirl said this place had the best dim sum in HK. Then my wife's hairdresser recommended it to her. Then we went.On a Saturday with no booking, we had to sit at the bar. That was fine by me. The restaurant has a poor use of space, from a restaurant perspective, because most of it is for a dance floor (? I guess? So
On a Saturday with no booking, we had to sit at the bar. That was fine by me. The restaurant has a poor use of space, from a restaurant perspective, because most of it is for a dance floor (? I guess? Sorry, I'm not young anymore) for the evenings. The feel of the restaurant is definitely "offensively and expensively tacky". The service is slow and bumbling: drinks don't arrive and you have to ask after them; drinks you didn't order are charged to your bill; someone hands you a check and runs off-- then you spend 15 minutes trying to call someone over to take your money-- that sort of thing.
Dishes cost around $50 HKD and you can order a la carte. That's the way to go if you ask me; they've got an all-you-can-eat for $188, but that price point is more than I can eat, if you measure by how much it costs on the a la carte menu.
Anyway, the dumplings really are fantastic. Great porky interior, very juicy inside with already a little bit of vinegar, nice skins with a delicate crisp. They are not the best dumplings in town, but they are very good.
I couldn't resist "deep fried wild mushrooms and yam spring rolls," despite eating God-knows-how-many spring rolls on a recent trip to Indonesia. The yams are soft and slightly sweet, the mushrooms are mushrooms. If you like spring rolls, you can't go wrong here.
A friend of mine has been extolling the virtues of the dim sum beef ball for a while, so I stumped for this beef ball w/ parsley. It was extremely soft and questionably pink inside. It was not really a texture that I liked for beef. This may be a good rendition of the dish, but neither me nor my wife was much of a fan.
I can't really recall what was in these taro puffs, if anything, but they were very large, a little bit crispy, and a lot like mashed potatoes.
The last thing that arrived was "chilli wontons" or something like that (I'd look it up, but the website for the restaurant is annoyingly dreadful). They come smothered in a thick black sauce of oil, vinegar, and chillies. The dumpling quality was good. Surprisingly, the sauce was reasonably spicy (which has never happened to me when ordering this at dim sum places before). However, I thought the sauce was a bit gritty, like there was some sand in it, and its flavor was a little off (like the flavor of hot chillies burnt in hot oil). I wouldn't get this again. The food here is good. The chef has definitely thought about how to cook the dishes in a way to make them superior versions and not just "that thing that you can get just as good a version of at any random dim sum place". But there are a number of dim sum places closer to me that I enjoy more (and that have better ambience and service-- and at a lower price), so I won't be back. If you do go, get the dumplings.
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