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2009-02-12
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Came here for lunch due to impulse over a certain weekend, as funnily enough I've only been to dinner here previously and never did its yum cha.My overall conclusion is simple. It was pretty much what we had expected, which is, its tasty Hong Kong style lunch and dim sims, which would have been satisfactory 25 years ago but is now greatly lacking behind the global trend. More about it later, but let's talk about the food first, from what I can remember:1) Char Siu - 7 out of 10. Tender, but not
My overall conclusion is simple. It was pretty much what we had expected, which is, its tasty Hong Kong style lunch and dim sims, which would have been satisfactory 25 years ago but is now greatly lacking behind the global trend. More about it later, but let's talk about the food first, from what I can remember:
1) Char Siu - 7 out of 10. Tender, but not artificially so. Not much taste on first bite but upon eating more pieces, realised that I would never coax any more marinade, honey or chargrilled taste out of it. Its the way food is done here. Its soft for the lean meat they were using, slightly tasty yet slightly bland, but its actually quite healthy and not heavy.
Expensive at $110 for barely a few pieces, but this Char Siu was definitely made for rich people watching out for their health.
2) Fried Lotus Cake - 2 out of 10. $110 for barely a few pieces, it was tough, chewy, has no taste, even over-cooked and no crunchiness of the lotus remaining. Sliced way too thin as well, around 2-2.5mm thick. Waste of money.
3) Fried Taro Dumpling - 7 out of 10. Not that impressive to be honest, but already way better than Yung Kee's oil soaked, fat filled rubbish. Slightly chewy rather than outright crunchy, slightly oily at the bottom that made the bottom appear transparent. Which shouldn't happen at this 'smaller than normal size' of taro dumplings but some oil managed to sip through into the inside. Great healthy fillings however, not junk mince thrown in for the sake of making a feeling. Attention was paid here. Not very happy with this but a Taro Dumpling along with the Prawn Dumpling in almost any restaurant is a true test of its skills. Fook Lam Moon is very good with other fried things we tried, almost perfect, but still, they could not nail the Taro Dumpling test.
4) Prawn Dumpling and Siu Mai - 8.5 out of 10. Very healthy and light fillings once again, taste is subtle and that's the way I like it. In fact I love the taste of the food in Fook Lam Moon the most due to this reason - its elegant and subtle, not over-powering. Skins on both dumplings however were slightly too soft (slight over-steam) for my liking, but that's being mean.
5) Rice Paper Roll - 9 out of 10. Smooth, great fillings, light soy sauce. Technically correct therefore the high marks. Obviously, did not expect any 'wow' factors but here, its good enough to get near top marks.
6) Egg Tart - 6 out of 10. I give a low mark because my flaky skin wasn't cooked enough, it was white (looked pretty though!) and it still had that raw dough taste to it. Egg custard also had little egg taste if any. The egg tarts here are the miniature size, therefore, the egg to flak pastry ratio means you're getting relatively more 'pastry' than eggs, esp. if the width of the pastry isn't much thinner than a normal sized egg tart. As such, the egg custard really ought to have enough egg taste to make up for this difference. Its like having a sushi nigiri, but with too big a rice but not enough fish, plus, the rice isn't cooked enough.
7) Had some more other items, which were pretty healthy tasting.
Judgment - Fook Lam Moon as I said, is still living in its past, especially for lunch. Its strong point is also its weak point - in reality its almost the opposite of places like Lung King Heen.
Here, the food is cooked almost to its maximum potential but still way within the normal expected standards. Its tasty, it feels lighter and healthier than many places, but there is little innovation to the selections, its ultimately too boring and also expensive. In Canton and Guang Zhou, some restaurants are actually developing more and more to catch up with the rest of the world, they put their heart into pushing forward Chinese cuisin and there are much more innovations in the Dim Sims and Cantonese dishes up North. Not only that, but overseas Chinese restaurants are following the same trend, be it Canada, Australia or Europe, etc. I've even had some really great Yum Cha lunches in Japan, which beats anything else I've tried so far in Hong Kong.
Fook Lam Moon meanwhile is being complacent. Its the kind of place that will get 1 Michelin Star but will never ever get another star in its lifetime. Its chefs will never win in an Iron Chef contest, because they're stubborn cooks who think they know best.
There is simply not much heart put into the food or drinks and generally towards furthering more improvements. The WINE LIST was pathetic to say the least, full of big name Bordeauxs too young for drinking and barely a few bottles of white Chardonnays (Mersaults, Montracets, Chablis?) from around the Burgundy region, with absolutely no chance of pairing up with the food nicely. No signs of a Gewurtraminer or Riesling or even a Sauvignon, little signs of Pinot Noirs Burgundies. Not even Wines by the Glass.
Lung King Heen in contrast, at least has put a heart attempting to make some innovative dishes and dim sims, some great wines, etc. They're not fully complacent over there, you could feel it reading the menu and from the food that they've at least given it a go (even if a half-hearted attempt).
The biggest similarity between the 2 places is that both cook less oily, healthier, subtle types of food. The differences however are much more than words can convey - Fook Lam Moon's food tastes better in general. Lung King Heen seems to be hit and miss with their food quality, some dishes had downright disappointing executions, something you'll hardly see in FLM. However over there its a bit more playful and you could still see room for improvement in the future, as they seem to still be developing and changing.
As such - I do agree that Lung King Heen > Fook Lam Moon in my experience. At night time especially, what you can get at Lung King Heen can sometimes give a 'wow' factor as they create some modernised versions of chinese dishes, even if the cooking isn't too good over there. The reason why this is important is because - surely, you don't expect all French restaurants in France to stick to cooking the same traditional dishes? Obviously someone has to make an evolutionary step - and that place, isn't Fook Lam Moon.
张贴