Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Golden Chicken

This restaurant, as its name implies, is specializing in Hainan Chicken, in the Singaporean style. Located in Kowloon City, I think it started in Sai Kung, then expanding into different districts, with this one actually getting a lot of celebrities coming, as you can see the photos of many of them on the wall with the owner.

Frankly the place is a bit dirty and unkempt, certainly not a nice environment but people tends to eat quickly and go, with us being no exception. We ordered the two-person set dinner, which included half a chicken, a choice of different dishes, a vegetable, two bowls of soup and rice. The chicken is in fact quite nice, very tender and juicy, and paired well with the sweet soy sauce, chili sauce and ginger/spring onion paste. I agree that it delivered the promise of the restaurant.

For the other dish we ordered the pan-fried ground meat with salty fish. Originally I mistook the dish to be a steamed one. The presentation was interesting, with the ground meat fairly thin and pan-fried nicely, and look similar to a BBQ sheet of meat also famous in Singapore. The taste was a good surprise, with good balance of the savory of the salty fish, and the texture offering good bite for enjoyment.

The blanched vegetable is nothing unusual, didn't provide any excitement nor disappointment. The soup on the day is a pumpkin soup which got the sweetness of the pumpkin and I heard from the staff that they put a lot of the chicken bones to prepare the soup, and did not put in any MSG. Honestly I couldn't tell, but I really did not feel thirsty afterwards so I think they were not kidding.

Service is decent, and with the above set plus two drinks, the total bill on the night was $181. A very reasonable and inexpensive dinner considering the number of dishes and the quality. In today's terms it has a very good price/value ratio. But the cleanliness and comfort dragged down a lot on its score.

My overall rating is 55/100.