Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Snow Garden 雪園壹號

Snow Garden is located on the basement of South Pacific Hotel in Causeway Bay, renowned for its Shanghai cuisine. Because I only make booking on the same day, the three of us get a table that frankly does not offer the best dining experience on the night.

The décor is nice though, with wooden floor, soft lighting but does not feel dark. There are booth seatings on one side, while the rest are more traditional table setting of different sizes. In addition, there are also a few private rooms.

We order Traditional Shanghainese Smoked Fish ($138) to start. Instead of using grass carp as in most restaurants, here they use small pomfret, deep-frying the fish before soaking in the thick sauce briefly. What we like is that the fish has less bones and also a richer fish taste. Good starter.

Next comes Spicy and Sour Soup with Fish Maw ($168), enough for four people. The soup has the right balance of sour and spiciness, with abundance of ingredients, including fish maw, wood-ear, tofu, shrimp, shredded meat, bamboo shoot, and peas. I end up finishing two bowls, one of the best in town.

Then comes Sauteed River Shrimps ($238). The shrimps here are slightly bigger than what we get in another famous restaurant we frequently visit, but they have a richer shrimp taste in my opinion. With the addition of a bit of vinegar the flavours are amazing. Definitely worth trying.

With the hairy crab season started, we also order Crab Roe Tofu ($398). Served sizzling hot in a claypot, the rich and luxurious crab meat and roes, with its amazing fragrance and taste, perfectly complemented with the soft and silky tofu. With a bit of vinegar, it is heavenly. Another must try in my opinion.

We also have some dim sum, including Fried Rolls ($38). While the surface of the roll is crisp and the interior remains soft and moist, it is not having the individual ‘threads of dough’ inside, making it feel more like a fried mantou. The taste is decent though.

The other dim sum we have is Crab Roe Xiao Long Bao ($38 each). The signature xiao long bao has been added with the crab meat and roes, and like the tofu, the taste is very good. However, the dough is too thick and while making it less vulnerable of breaking when picking up in chopsticks, it is less delicate.

For dessert we order Deep-Fried Souffle Egg White with Red Bean and Banana ($18 each) and Glutinous Balls in Fermented Rice Wine Soup ($42). The egg white has probably been mixed with too much corn starch, making it less fluffy, and the glutinous balls are too tough and chewy, as if they have not been cooked sufficiently. The desserts are overall a bit disappointing unfortunately.

Service is decent, with the staff attentive. While the table is not the best overall it is not too bad, perhaps more incentive for us to reserve earlier in advance in future. The bill on the night is $1,399 and overall it is a good place to have some nice Shanghai dishes, but they would need to pay more attention to its dim sum and desserts.