Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - The Chinese Restaurant

This Cantonese restaurant is in Hyatt Regency Hotel, located in K11 Tsim Sha Tsui. The decoration offers a modern feel but incorporating some tea-house concept, like the Chinese paintings on the wall, the wooden side-tables and cabinets. Our seat is a comfortable 'booth' on the window side, though the view is blocked by the ventilation unit outside. Still it gave us good coziness and space.

We ordered the Gourmet Set Menu, with the first dish being the Marinated Sliced Abalone, Chilled. The abalone has a nice chewy texture but not rubbery at all, easy to chew without having to use a knife to cut to smaller pieces, though the abalone taste was not particularly apparent. On the side there are some asparagus and jellyfish, with both tasty and offering the crunchiness to contrast with the abalone.

Next comes the Double-Boiled Crab Meat Soup, Bamboo Pith in Young Papaya. This is one of their signature dish with the soup very delicate but full of flavors, with the crab meat on top, and the other ingredients like bamboo pith and Chinese ham diced finely providing the bite. I am not a big fan of papaya but there is no strong smell of the fruit while the fragrance seeped into the soup nicely to not overpowering any of the other ingredients but enhancing them.

The third dish is Wok-fried Whole Live Lobster Tail. Decorated beautifully with the lobster on the plate, the meat is flattened and then coated with a thin layer of batter to wok-fry, then served with a cheese sauce. I think the concept is a contemporary version of the traditional baked lobster in cheese, and certainly this is a much more premium offering and less messy to eat. I quite like it but Ivy thought that it only reminded her of prawn cake.

Fourth is the Steamed Fillet of Garoupa, Bean Curd and Homemade Pickled Chili. This is another signature dish, with the fish nicely cooked to the right timing and the bean curd silky smooth, but the best is the seasoning, with the pickled chili giving a sour taste complementing perfectly with the spring onion and fermented soy beans, creating a complex and interesting flavor. It is also a pretty dish with the red chili, green vegetable, white fish and bean curd adding a visual element to the feast.

Originally the fifth dish is Stir-fried Diced Japanese Saga Beef with Organic Black Garlic. But I asked the chef to change to another dish for me as I normally don't eat beef. They came back with a Braised Goose Feet with Sea Cucumber, which is a nice alternative with the abalone sauce tasty, the sea cucumber soft yet gelatinous. However, I believe the beef would still be the better option in terms of the taste.

Sixth is Fried Rice with Seafood in Whole Young Pineapple. Unfortunately on the night there was no young pineapple available so the rice was not served inside one, but still the rice got fresh pineapple pieces. Probably the pineapple aroma and taste would be stronger if served inside one, nevertheless the rice was cooked well, with each rice separated as what a good fried rice should be.

Lastly is the dessert which is Chilled Mango Pudding, which is good with mango pieces in the pudding as well as a good piece on top. The pudding also has the right firmness, not too watery nor hard, with a fine creamy taste to wrap up my meal.

Service is fairly good with the staff attentive and prepared to handle our request on changes in the set menu, though maybe like most Chinese restaurant they did not pay much attention in introducing the dishes. I understand this may not be something normal in the tradition, I still think it could help the customers appreciate better the dishes and enhance the overall enjoyment of the meal.

The total bill was $2660, and that was after a 15% discount because of credit card promotion. Certainly not cheap but considering the cost of the food we have it is not very unreasonable. If there are more people I would suggest going for their other signature dishes on a la carte instead of this gourmet menu, however.

My scoring for this dinner was 63/100.