蓮香樓

Lin Heung Lau
36
12
7
等级3
49
1
Summary: Amazing local & authentic dim sum experience. The Goods: Great authentic experience. Staffs were quite friendly (even with my limited survival Cantonese). Better food than before (more on that below). The Bads: A bit of a struggle to find seats (you find your own seats). No English menu so you eat what you pick lol. Also you need to share the table with other people if you're in smaller group. Damage: We (2 persons) ordered 7 dishes plus 2 teas which is a lot really - we barely walk str
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Summary: Amazing local & authentic dim sum experience. 
The Goods: Great authentic experience. Staffs were quite friendly (even with my limited survival Cantonese). Better food than before (more on that below). 
The Bads: A bit of a struggle to find seats (you find your own seats). No English menu so you eat what you pick lol. Also you need to share the table with other people if you're in smaller group. 
Damage: We (2 persons) ordered 7 dishes plus 2 teas which is a lot really - we barely walk straight afterward - and paid HK$248. That's HK$124 per person, yes it's a bit for super local restaurant, but don't forget 1) we were close-to-vomit full and 2) you're also paying for the experience.

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This is my 5th visit and still like the challenge of getting my food orders right! You better go with a Cantonese (or at least Mandarin I guess) speaking friend. There's no menu for dim sum - you just pick the dim sum from push cart! The only 2 ways to know are 1) look at it if you recognize it and 2) ask the staff (in Chinese). The other challenge is getting the dish that you want. The staple dishes (like siu mai and ha gao) are in high demand, and if you want them you need to keep look out for the bamboo basket stacks and go over and grab one before it runs out! These are on top of when you arrive at the restaurant, it's free seating - meaning you find your own seats before being served! I put 2 minutes as waiting time for the time I spent finding my seats.

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It's a very nostalgic experience into seeing the real Hong Kong tradition, and it's also a very great local eat experience. I was told it's the only one of very few dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong that is still serving by push cart (the more modern way is, well, order it in one go and they serve it to your table). 

What we ordered (or rather, "grabbed");
First start with the tea. With my very limited Cantonese, I think you have the option of either a pot or "bowl" of tea. I have no idea of the price difference but we ordered the bowl option for 2, and we picked Heung Pin (Jasmine tea). To be completely candid, I think the tea quality can be better. It's a bit sour to taste, and at times too bitter (well, probably because we didn't drink fast enough too). The good thing about the bowl option though is that we got to see more of the staff bringing the big pot of boiling water to refill!
Tea (Heung Pin)
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The first thing we were able to get is the steamed rice roll with shrimp. It's one of my (I think more like, everyone's) must order at dim sum. I personally think that the rice roll is a bit too soft/wet compared to other restaurants. I don't know about other people but I like it firmer and has more texture to chew on. The shrimp is great, and the sauce is great too, no complaint there. All in all, it's still a great dish, just tiny complaint (from a non-HK, mind you).
Steamed rice roll with shrimp
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Then we got slow cooked ginger, pork knuckle and egg, in vinegar and soy sauce (not sure what's the official English name for this). Funnily I know of this dish through a colleague whose wife had a new born and the tradition is that you have to share this dish with your colleague. Spoiler alert, you can eat the (whole) ginger! I was a bit surprised seeing my colleague eating ginger like any normal food, and it turns out it's very soft and soaked up a lot of the sauce (which by the way is pretty sweet from sugar too), so it's not too spicy. Anyways, back to our dish here. I think it's a great one (although I don't eat it enough to know). The pork knuckle is soft and gelatin-y. Ginger is also very soft and not too spicy. The sauce is not too strong of any flavour (sweet or sour). All in all, a great place to try this dish if you haven't.
Slow cooked ginger, pork's knuckle, and egg in vinegar and soy sauce
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Then we got lucky with a staff pushing her cart right behind us and we got a bunch; deep fried spring roll, BBQ bun, and fish maw wrap with tofu skin. OK, one by one. 
Deep fried spring roll is super crispy. I mean, the skin is very thin and crispy, we slowly eating everything and it stayed crispy the whole time. My wife said, this is even better version than our Thailand's one (for the skin). The filling is good, but I have mixed feeling. I know it contains pork, but probably that's it. Not a lot of texture to grab on. It's still well seasoned so not bad at all.
Fried spring roll
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Next, BBQ bun. The bun was soft and not too wet. The pork filling is not too sweet and has very well balanced flavour.  I would recommend this one. I wish I can say more but really, it's a basic dish but a well made basic dish.
BBQ pork bun
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And we got the fish maw wrap with tofu skin. Fish maw was excellent; it is "fluffy" and gelatin-y. I believe there are more pork in the filling too which gives very nice flavour to complete the dish. Tofu skin is a bit thick and so it's hard to chew and cut in a bite - each piece is quite big so you need to manage it somehow. It's not a bad thing because that's how tofu skin is, but I think it can be a tad thinner.
Fish maw with tofu skin wrap
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At this point, we have 5 dishes and that should be enough, but hey, why not try more! We got one last round of steamed chicken feet in black bean sauce, and the vegetable dumpling.
The steamed chicken feet in black bean sauce is a bit too salty in my view, and probably needs a bit more cooking (not sure how) to make it more tender. In a good one, the skin should fall off from the bone easily and the cartilage between bones would also be softer and easier to fall off too. Not to say that this one is tough - it's adequate but can be better. I would not order this here and try something else. 
Steamed chicken feet
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The vegetable dumplings is great. (A disclaimer, I call it "vegetable" dumpling but it might contain other meat; I'm pretty sure they have dried shrimp in it.) The skin is similar to that of Ha gao (shrimp dumpling), and it barely holds the filling inside - that goes to say.... it's a lot of filling. The filling has a bunch of things in that I really can't say what they are (think it has peanut and dried shrimp) but in combination they're great. Worth a try.
Vegetable dumpling
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Some last words; I always thought if their food as so-so, but always come for experience (I really like the "local" feel of it). but this time I think I will change my review of the food quality to above average.

Also, I noticed that this listing on OpenRice is new and that's because (according to online search, so don't quote me) it's changed hand back to original owner after a year or so of it being operated under a slightly different name. It was on the verged of closing down twice already, which is quite unfortunate that this tradition is fading away (or at least, was about to). Well, once COVID travel ban is abolished I'll bring my friends here more to support them!
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(以上食记乃用户个人意见 , 并不代表OpenRice之观点。)
张贴
评分
味道
环境
服务
卫生
抵食
用餐日期
2020-10-24
等候时间
2 分钟 (堂食)
人均消费
$124 (午餐)
推介美食
Slow cooked ginger, pork's knuckle, and egg in vinegar and soy sauce
BBQ pork bun
Fish maw with tofu skin wrap
Vegetable dumpling