Wineshark HK Restaurant Review - Ho Lee Fook

This fusion Chinese restaurant is located at the end of Elgin Street, without reservation service if you are only having a small group, as I found out when I called them for booking. As a result, we arrived before 7 and was given a really tiny table for the three of us, and were also told to hand the table back by 8:15. As there is no reservation system, and there are plenty of empty tables for four, I frankly don't understand the reason we were put in that 2-person table. Although the staff mentioned all these without an arrogant manner, it left quite a bad taste in my mouth to begin with.

The decor is quite interesting with a lot of modern art featuring Chinese elements, but we found it was a bit too dark and noisy, with some loud music on the background. For these settings, maybe if the restaurant is positioned as a bar and tapas place it would be more appropriate.

For appetizers we had Smoked Soy Chicken Salad, Celery, Cloud Ear Mushroom with Lao Gan Ma Dressing. The smoked chicken was shredded nicely, and paired well with the dressing. There was plenty of spring onion added, as well as abundance of sesame sprinkled, to add to the fragrance of the dish. An interesting recipe with a nice taste, which fortunately helped me to re-focus back on the quality of the food.

The other appetizer we ordered was Mom's Mostly Cabbage, A Little Bit of Pork Dumplings, with Sacha Soy Dressing. The dumplings were quite nice too with a lot of fillings, and true to its name there was a good amount of cabbage versus pork, making it more healthy. There is a bit of red chili sprinkled on top which added some spicy taste, and with the coriander and sacha soy sauce additional flavor dimensions were present and it was also tasty.

For the main we had the Steamed Snapper, which was one of the chef's recommendations on the night. Surprisingly the fish was steamed perfectly, as one might think this contemporary restaurant would tend to overcook the fish as most 'western' Chinese restaurant would. The soy sauce was specially concocted with a degree of sweetness in addition to some tartness, making it highly refreshing and even my mother who is more traditional in taste, enjoyed it very much.

Then it was the Kurobuta Pork Char-Siu, and the staff asked us for the degree of 'fatness' we want. As what it should be, we opted for the half fatty half lean style, and you can appreciate the freshly roasted char-siu with a nice honey taste. There are a lot of sauces on the plate, which I think is a bit too much as it kind of soaked the char-siu. But still the taste is fairly good.

Finally we had the Prawn Fried Rice, with Chinese Kale, Bean Sprouts, and Salted Olive Leaf. The portion is reasonably large, with the rice nicely fried without feeling too oily. The rice also was not lumpy, with the good crunchy texture supplemented by the bean sprouts. My only comment was that the prawns were basically without any flavor, and only because we were looking at it otherwise the prawns were not apparent from a taste perspective.

Overall the taste for the dishes were quite good which is a pleasant surprise, though I don't have any comfort at all in the environment and making my whole dining experience essentially negative. I would say it is a restaurant tailored to foreigners only, and if under a better setting it could be a much better restaurant.

My overall rating is 45/100.