Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Hey Hey Kitchen

This small neighborhood style restaurant is located in Shek Tong Tsui, near the HKU MTR station, on Queen's Road West, The first impression I got when entering the restaurant was that it was bright, clean, and you can get an immediate sense that they have a good quality standards. It was early and there were not that many people, but after a while all tables were occupied so I suggest you make bookings beforehand.

This time with my mother along we could order a bit more, and decided to go for Clams in Sake Sauce, Braised Mixed Vegetables with Dry Scallops and Seafood, Braised Oysters with Ginger and Spring Onion, Crabs Baked in Salt, plus Chinese Sausages and Preserved Pork Casserole Rice, with a Egg White Almond Tea for dessert.

When the clams are served, we are quite surprised by the size of the dish. Certainly a big portion, the taste is also good with a nice sake note quite apparent but not overpowering for people who doesn't like alcohol. The clams are fresh and without sand, and overall the dish is a nice start for our meal and setting us up for a good expectation on the other dishes to come.

Next comes the mixed vegetable, which apart from broccoli, choi sum, there are other veggie like Chinese yam, seaweed and black fungus. The dried scallops and seafood provided good savory flavors to the sweetness of the fresh veggie, and they are also prepared in fish stock which further enhanced the taste of the dish. A common dish available in most Cantonese restaurant but also showcasing how the restaurant is paying attention to its food.

The oysters are also nice, with the ginger and spring onions giving a strong fragrance and the oysters, I believe, were blanched a short while before braising, to give it the right texture. You can tell the dish is braised in the pot, and doesn't take the short cut like many more famous restaurants which were simply stir-fried in wok before putting in the pot to serve.

The casserole rice is a recommendation according to the menu, and I agree to that. Before it was taken to us I could already smell that, and the preserved meat and sausages are chopped to small pieces and sprinkled on top of the rice, and after adding a bit of sweet soy sauce to allow to bake for a little while, the rice absorbed the soy sauce and it was really tasty, with me finishing two bowls in no time. My only suggestion is that less fatty preserved pork could be used as there is quite some oil left on the pot after we finished, which for the health conscious it might be a bit difficult to accept.

The highlight on the night was certainly the crab baked in salt. The crab is the smaller one (I don't know its name in English) which is right in the season now and when cut in half you can see the crab yolk simply bursting from the shell. Baking with salt also helped to bring out the taste of the crab. I am frankly not someone crazy on crab yolk but I also enjoyed it very much, and for those of you who like crab I am sure you could easily devour two to three of them!

Service is decent with the staff friendly and helpful, and coming to help us change the plates without asking, and with all that the bill was only $789, a phenomenal value for money restaurant. The food quality overall was not inferior to any of the chain restaurants which would easily charge you double the price. And after the dinner we were given a VIP card which allows us to enjoy a 10% discount next time too.

All in all, a restaurant I recommend and would be coming back again to try some other of their dishes. My score is 65/100.