Located in Central Kau U Fong, this Cantonese restaurant prides itself on offering local foodstuff, from vegetables, meat, fish, and even the sauces, trying to provide authentic great taste to customers instead of focusing on premium, but perhaps less sustainable and eco-friendly ingredients. The restaurant is very popular and definitely require booking in advance, even during the recent time, when other restaurants are facing big drop in business with the recent political unrest in town.
Even though we were seated at a table beside the door on the ground floor, certainly one of the worst tables in the restaurant, the dining experience was not too bad. Ordering the Set Menu for Two ($700 per person, plus $140 for the supplement on the steamed crab), we were first served the appetizers, including Deep Fried Crispy Taro Cake with Smoked Duck, as well as Deep Fried Crab Meat and Mushrooms Dumplings. Both were very tasty, with the taro cake melting in the mouth, and the fillings great with smoky flavors. The crab dumplings have a crunchy skin and delicate crab meat fillings. The sauces further provided enhanced complexity in flavors to the dishes. Definitely two signature appetizers worth to try it out.
Next came the Wild Clams Stir Fried with Chili Jam and Basil. The clams are cleaned thoroughly, without any sand, and the chili jam provided a slight spicy note to the clams, stimulating appetite but not overly hot. The basil added both fragrance and a freshness to the taste as well. I like the sauce so much to basically sucked all the sauce when eating the clams.
Then it was the highlight of the evening, the Steamed Fresh Flowery Crab with Aged Shaoxing Wine and Fragrant Chicken Oil (with $140 supplement per person). Before serving we could already noticed the nice shaoxing wine smell, and the crab was also of a nice size. The claw and body was full of meat, firm in texture, with a delicate sweet taste, further imbued with the chicken oil and shaoxing wine. There were also some rice noodle accompanied, which were equally tasty absorbing the flavors from the sauce. In fact we finished the crab first and then the staff came to ask us whether we would like to re-heat the rice noodle. We were impressed by this observant and thoughtful service. A dish definitely worth coming for.
The Szechuan Spicy New Zealand Crispy Lamb Belly unfortunately was not my favorite. The lamb belly was deep-fried before mixing with the coriander, cucumber and green bell pepper, with the spicy chili oil a bit too hot even for me. The taste in fact was not bad, but the other issue for me was that the vegetable and the lamb belly were at very different temperature, and mixing them together was weird. The lamb also were quite dried up too.
The Seasonal Vegetable (Kale) Cooked with Preserved Vegetable was fairly good, with the kale tender and probably cooked with stock beforehand to infuse with additional flavors. The preserved vegetables were not overly salty or sweet, allowing a nice addition of seasonings to highlight the original taste of the kale.
The Fried Rice with Prawns Trio contains fresh prawns, sun-dried prawns and shrimp paste, with an abundance of the prawns. Each rice is distinct and one can tell the chef's attention in getting the fried rice right. With the soft tender fresh prawn contrasting with the chewy sun-dried prawns, the rice was certainly tasty and a wonderful conclusion of the savory dishes before going to dessert.
On the menu Dessert of the Day was a choice of Almond Milk or Wolfberry Ice-cream. We ended up having both without requesting, and the two were great as well on taste. The almond milk was rich, appropriately sweetened, and intensely flavorful. The ice-cream was refreshing and the wolfberry was an interesting and innovative pairing too.
Services on the night was very good, with the staff attentive and friendly, even introducing some of the dishes, seldom done in Chinese restaurants. The bill on the night was a bit on the high side, at $1,848. But if you want to enjoy some nice Chinese dishes this restaurant is a good place to come.
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