Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Madame Ching

This modern Chinese restaurant is located in Wanchai Star Street, offering contemporary Chinese dishes with a twist, in a buzzing and vibe atmosphere while customers can still see the kitchen and the familiar BBQ racks displaying the char siu (BBQ pork), goose and chicken.

Arriving early in the evening we were seated in the middle of the restaurant, and while the dining area was fairly comfortable, with more people coming the place became quite packed and there was not much space between tables. If you prefer a quiet place for dinner, this is not the right venue. But if you wants to enjoy some fun and relaxing ambiance, the bar and cocktails offered a nice complement before the start of the meal.

We went for Ching's Banquet Menu ($380 each), and the starting dish was Sesame Prawn Toast. The milk bread was stuffed with a layer of mashed prawn, before deep-frying to give a crispy texture. It was not oily on the palate, with the tare and chives on top serving as nice complement.

The next course was Hamachi Crudo. The yellowtail sashimi was marinated with XO tare vinaigrette to give a slight spicy kick to the delicate fish meat, intense on flavors, while the roasted tomatoes and charred gooseberry were to me even better in taste, robust on the flavors and the acidity matched well with the slightly spicy sauce.

The third course was Suckling Pig, served on top of a celeriac puree and roast jus. Really crunchy, the suckling pig's skin was phenomenal, with the meat also having an equally amazing taste. The smooth and creamy puree was an interesting contrast on texture. This was my favorite among the dishes in the evening.

The next one was Roast Duck, with the best cut served, including the breast and drumsticks. The duck was truly juicy and flavorful, and was great with the sauce. There were also some assorted homemade pickles accompanied, and those were also very good too.

The vegetable dish was Roast Cauliflower, prepared with Xinjiang spices and sweet soy sauce. Quite an interesting way to prepare the cauliflower, because we told the staff to reduce the spiciness of all dishes, I think this one the chef had tuned down a lot, and in the original recipe the spices would be quite intense. Unfortunately this version resulted in a dish lacking its characters.

Next came the Mushroom Egg Fried Rice, which was quite good with some preserved vegetable added. A good wrap up for the meal before the dessert.

The dessert was an great Ovaltine Cake. I originally mistook this to be a chocolate cake but once we tasted the ovaltine characters were profound and unmistakable. A nice dessert, not overly sweet, and a good conclusion to the meal.

Service was generally good, but I prefer to have the staff explained more the dishes. The bill was $900 (without service charge) and fairly reasonable considering the amount of food and the quality. If you fancy something different than your traditional Chinese food, this is a nice choice to try it out.