Hong Kong

[sparkycom]

Hi Folks,
Anyone here have recommendations for restaurants in Hong Kong and/or Beijing? I'm doing my homework by looking at the numerous travel forum sites for tips, but I'd much rather get the advice that only Rockwellians can supply. We will be in Hong Kong Dec. 26th-Jan. 1, then Jan. 1-6 in Beijing. (Brrrr....) Many thanks!

Sparkycom (aka Snarky Bomb)

[LolaDC]

You are going to have so much fun!!! I can recommend two places in Hong Kong that I tried earlier this year and absolutely adored. The first is an Italian place in Lan Kwai Fong called Va Bene (58-62 D'Aguilar Street; Va Bene's Website). The food is incredible (Chef Tony Tonetto earned a few Michelin stars in Italy) and the wine list impressive. Highly, highly recommend this place.

Also suggest trying Petrus, which is the very fine French restaurant in the Island Shangri-La hotel. Not cheap, but what the heck -- you'll be in Hong Kong where everything else IS cheap.

I realize neither of these places serves Hong Kong's regional cuisine. Perhaps one of the others can help in that department?

Enjoy, and be sure to report back!

Lola

[sparkycom]

Thanks Lola! I so appreciate your suggestions, and will report back. As far as authenic HK-cuisine is concened, I plan on being adventurous. (I''m no Anthony Bourdain, but I'll go as far as I can!)

Again, many thanks!

[sparkycom]

We’re back! This post will be a test of my (sadly lacking) tech skills both in photo-taking and photo-posting, so bear with me. Also, jet-lag is a harsh mistress, so bear with me on the writing as well.

I did not get to Petrus or Va Bene because we simply ran out of time exploring all of the options. I am happy to report we did partake of a lot of local cuisine in both HK & Beijing and came away very satisfied. In HK, we stayed in Mong Kok, which was not as touristy as other parts of Tsim Sha Tsui or HK Island, so we had lots of great local venues. All of the noodle houses serving Cantonese in our neighborhood were fantastic. Big, simmering pots of yummy meats in tasty stock would call our names on every block. And the street food! If you are traveling to HK or Beijing, in the words of Oprah, “don’t be scared”, otherwise you will miss out on some delectable (and cheap!) goodies. Moist chunks of lamb, beef, chicken or pork on skewers dunked into vats of hot oil and seared to perfection, oh my. The highlight in HK was my brother and sis-in-law’s wedding banquet at the Pacific Club. A parade of raw oysters, lamb lollipops, and roast suckling pig were just part of what I would call the best buffet ever. I unfortunately do not have any pictures of the food because I did not want to embarrass my brother. (My husband and I had already done a fine job of that with our karioke rendition of "Blue Christmas”. We were so bad, they gave us a do-over.)

In Beijing we stayed on Wangfujing Street, which is home to (what I hope will become famous) Wangfujing Snack Street. Here are some of the delicacies that we did not partake of. I was sorely tempted, but I wasn’t sure I could handle the creamy goodness of the grasshoppers or the cicadas. My 10-yr. old daughter and I debated the crunchy texture of the scorpions and sea horses and camethisclose to trying them out. Instead we chose some yummy skewers of pork and lamb as well as dumplings and noodles to chase away the chill of Beijing.

My personal favorite was a restaurant In Beijing called Yuelu Shanwu in the Dongcheng neighborhood. We had beef that was coated in fresh cilantro and a prawn dish combined with red and white chiles. (Please note that both dishes had been partially consumed by my husband and daughter before I could get the camera ready.) Another highlight was the Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant off of Wangfujing Street. IMHO, duck fat rules. (In modest quantities, of course.)

And finally, a photo of this restaurant on HK Island. Perhaps this will be the start of a new contest for traveling Rockwellians.

If you are traveling to HK or Beijing anytime soon, I would be happy to share more to help you in your travels. PM me anytime.

Edited January 12, 2006 by sparkycom

[Al Dente]

Excellent photos. I'm glad you found the Hong Kong branch of my vast international restaurant empire!

[sandynva]

A colleague of mine (totally lucked out) and gets to spend a week in Hong Kong. Does anyone have any reccomendations or advice for him? he's particularly interested in the more "street food" type dishes and the boats where they catch seafood and cook it for you.

Thanks!

[dcs]

Interesting article.

A Chinese Chef’s Long, Diverted Path to 3 Stars

[jparrott]

Longer report to come, but suffice it to say: Hong Kong is the best lunch town, ever.

[jparrott]

My first trip to Hong Kong. Not my last. Not by a long shot.

It's not much of a drinking town. There's one good beer bar (more later). There's one "proper" cocktail bar (more later). Other than that, the best beer available is Guinness Foreign Extra Stout (about USD1.25 a can from 7-11, and drinking on the street is permitted, though rarely practiced).

There's plenty of English around, but not always on the printed page. From a dining perspective, being able to read is much more important than being able to speak. But if a noodle stall or other small joint isn't busy, there's usually someone around to help you navigate in decent-enough English. Oh, and bring your own napkins.

The following is more-or-less in chronological order, no real organization. I've left out places that we went to randomly and were just OK.

Fa Yuen Cooked Food Centre--123A Fa Yuen Street, 3rd floor. A nice older man-waiter helped us get to a typical breakfast of decently-chewy instant noodles in broth with a bit of beef, plus the sugar-needed jolt of HK milk tea. Free wi-fi, cheap, near the flower market. A few of the other stalls had English menus, but we got by. Lots of older men walking with their caged pet birds in this neighborhood.

Jade Garden--Our first of a pretty-much daily yum cha (dim sum) ritual. "Nicer" place, though in the classic banquet-hall style. Carts with English signs. Very good and reasonable compared to the US, though no better than average of the places we went. One of our dining companions brought his own tea, which is apparently considered OK pretty much everywhere.

Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao--A chain with several locations in the endless luxury malls on both sides of the Harbour. Excellent, chewy noodles in spicy or non-spicy broths. "Siu lung" bao good as well. Most of the dim sum places had soup dumplings, which aren't a classically Cantonese thing, but hey, people love em.

Soy Street--the local street-food street near our hotel in Mong Kok. Overwhelmed with young people in the evenings. Pretty normal streetfood, plus a few Japanese items like takoyaki and yakitori.

Lin Heung Tea House--the only place we went twice, both times for morning yum cha. Crowded and raucous, but quite easy to deal with once you are seated and order tea (it does help to learn the names of the normal teas--Heung pin (Jasmine), bo-leh (Pu-Erh), Wu-long (oolong), etc.). Tea is drunk "gong fu" style--lots of leaves, small pot, quick infusion. Tea geeks everywhere. Delicious dim sum from carts, including oddball siu mai. Old, old, old school. Loved it.

Mak's Noodle--Another local noodle chain, focusing on wonton noodles. Bowls are quite small but make a good snack.

The Globe--the aforementioned beer bar. About 12 drafts, lots of good English bottles. And Real Ale! A Cathay Pacific pilot has a garage brewery in HK (Typhoon Brewing), making a best bitter and a strong (5.5%) pale. The best bitter "T8" was lovely on cask here.

MX--The counter-service, fast-casual branch of the huge Maxim's restaurant group. Good hainanese chicken rice, fast and easy on a chaotic Saturday night.

Chung's Cuisine--One of the oodles of fine restaurants on the top floors of HK's endless malls. This one, near the top of the sprawling Times Square complex, served precise and delicious dim sum (from check-off menus--which is the preferred mode at most places and leads to fresher, more precise results, usually) and excellent tea. Very modern design for an HK place, and it filled up quickly. A dim sum lunch will cost here about what it costs in the States, which is to say, about twice as much as places like Lin Heung cost.

Yung Kee--We picked up a half of their famous roast goose here. As good as advertised, the fat fully rendered, the breast meat not grievously overcooked. We took it out to a relative's place in Tin Shui Wai, a housing estate in the New Territories, where it served as appetizer before beautiful abalone and razor clams from the local wet market.

Tim Ho Wan--An inexpensive dim sum parlor that earned a Michelin star. Not exactly sure why--the tea is low quality, and most of the dumplings were below Chung's level. But the crisp, biscuity, baked cha siu bao? Crack.

Hokkaido Ramen Santouka--6th floor of iSQUARE, a mall on Kowloon. Well-executed, generous bowls of ramen for HKD58, or HKD2 less than a pint of Tetley's the night before at an expat bar. Good ramen cheaper than crappy beer? I could get used to this.

Hakka Ye Ye--An outpost in Lan Kwai Fong specializing in meat-heavy Hakka food. Traditional pork belly with preserved veg was not that fatty for pork belly, actually. Easy to navigate menu, not expensive by US standards at all. Convenient to the expat bars.

Lily--The first attempt at a US-style craft cocktail bar in HK. Not a bad attempt at all, but the combination of space and liquor costs means that cocktails here are US-level prices (HKD 98-120). But any place that puts Sam Ross's iconic Penicillin cocktail on the menu is a friend of mine. Gets crowded with expats, as you might imagine.

Tim's Kitchen--Two Michelin stars, and the service philosophy here is definitely more in line with Western norms (i.e., you don't have to flag down a waiter). The lunch is quite reasonable. A menu of dim sum, some classic, a few their own (crabmeat-mushroom cheong fun, crabmeat dumplings in superior soup), all bright, clean, and with uncommon depth of flavor. We supplemented these with a little roast meat, and had a really nice lunch. Despite the bottles of La Tache on display in the (smaller) ground floor dining room, there really isn't much of a wine program here.

Noodle shop, SE corner of Woosung and Nanking St, Jordan, Kowloon--It has a posted name in Chinese, but we couldn't read it. Dad cooks, mom waits, son and daughter make the wontons right in the front of the place. THIS was the little noodle shop we'd been waiting for all trip. Firm noodles, excellent wontons with a very rough-chopped texture. Brilliant.

Nanhai no. 1--One Michelin star. More inventive cooking, this time with a lovely Harbour view from the 30th floor of iSQUARE. We supplemented a few dim sums (and some really good oolong tea) with two dishes. One, a cold salad of thinly sliced octopus and thinly sliced, lightly picked bitter gourd. Stunning. In the other, an intense lobster "consomme" was loaded with lobster and ground pork. To this was added golden brown toasted rice at table, creating a sensation somewhere between Japanese rice soups and Italian lobster risotto. A really lovely lunch dish, and another quite inexpensive "nice" lunch.

I really do feel lunch is the way to go to the fancy places. You never need a reservation, the tariff is gentle, you can linger.

Also, on Macau:

Litoral--Very traditional Portuguese. Had a really good grilled black cod.

Wine and spirits are MUCH cheaper in Macau than in HK. I scored a couple bottles of Nikka "Yoichi" Japanese whisky for about 40% off what I had seen them for in HK.

[Sundae in the Park]

We have one day to spend in HK. Any recent suggestions on an activity/meal (preferably in conjunction)? We'll have a 6-yr-old with us and be coming in from the airport on the metro, so can go pretty much anywhere.

[Sundae in the Park]

^{A trip to the Tian Tan Buddha, also known as the Big Buddha, is an excellent way to kill a short day in HK while waiting for your next flight. We stayed out at the airport, so it was an easy trip from our hotel (the Sky City Marriott - nice, modern space with a beautiful indoor pool and very convenient free hotel shuttle to the airport and nearest metro station) because you don't have to leave Lantau Island. The gondola station to the Buddha is also visible from the Novotel, which is built right on top of the mall/metro station in that plaza. The gondola ride takes you over the mountain (there is a hiking trail, if you are so inclined) and to the village (very commercial including a Starbucks) that leads to the Buddha statue and the monestary serving it.}

^{Across the sky walkway from the mall, there are additional shopping spaces. If you go down the escalator and hang a left, there are various little food shops and stalls where you can get excellent buns, noodle soups, and fruit. Grab a bite, then pick up some buns.mangosteens(!!!) for the excursion. It's a great and easy day!}

[jasonc]

I'll be living here until December so if anyone has any good recommendations, please send them to me.  Right now I'm working of JParrott's excellent work.  And if you are in town, say hi!

[jasonc]

An underrated part of my trip so far to Hong Kong is the dessert shops.  The above is mango with some kind of very light ice milk - gossamer strands of icy vanilla flavored milk.

Since it's been about 90 and humid each day, these are welcomed respites from the heat.

[turbogrrl]

Spent the better part of a week in Hong Kong/Kowloon, ate ourselves silly. In no particular order:

Tsui Wah- a chain of chinese diners scattered all over Kowloon and the island, we hit the Admiralty, Central, and Jordan locations for mid-afternoon snacks. The Jordan location had the elusive pineapple bun with butter, but the real crack is the toasted bread with condensed milk which is available at all of them. Paired with one of the milk tea options, it's bliss. (Note, if you are ordering the milk tea iced: the Central location uses a glass full of ground ice, which is perfect for giving you delicious brain freeze. I ate my ice and Nick's. The others use ice cubes. You can also order it "champagne style", which is a bottle of the tea served in an ice bucket.) Other snacks included the fish ball (and cake) soup, and a scrambled eggs dish with truffle and okra. A relative says the curries are also good. Picture menus with english make ordering easy. Usually around $160 HKD.

Tai Hing- previously a great chain to get crispy roast pork, either the Jordan location is just substandard to the TST location, we hit an off night, or they've gone downhill. (we didn't go back to the TST location to compare.) The roast goose was quite tasty, tho. And their milk tea is also tasty, and served by default with an external cooling pack. (bowl of ice to set the drink in.)

Sushi Imamura- back after a remodel, still amazing, but more expensive. (I did not see the bill but think it was around $700 USD a head, though that was also including take-out abalone, many rounds of uni, and vast quantities of sake.) He flies everything in from Japan. It's the best sushi I've ever had, but I don't know if my checkbook could sustain going on my own. (we had bluefish, whelk, uni, uni, yellowtail, octopus, smoked tuna, pike eel, abalone, marinated mackerel with shisho, red snapper, different smoked tuna, uni handroll, tuna cheek, wild tuna aged 10 days then smoked, more smoked tuna, and yuzu sherbert. also vast quantities of sake so i might have missed some courses.)

Hoixe cake shop- a chain, we hit both the TST and the Jordan shops. They make these amazing triangles of bliss called char siu sao- bbq pork in a flaky pastry. This was breakfast most days.

Bakudanya Causeway Bay (広島ã¤ã‘麺ã°ãã ã‚“屋香港本店)- This was an amazing izakaya. We had fried chicken, chicken tataki, tuna sashimi, spicy dipping noodles, edamame, two bottles of sake, some yamazaki 12 year, and some shochu. I know we had a lot more food but can't recall it due to the aforementioned alcohol. But all of the food was great. Ran into an american chef who had his own bottle of whiskey kept for him at the bar, he said it was really popular with industry folks because they were open late and also full of awesome.

Da Domenico- this is an interesting place. The seafood and pastas were very well done, quite fresh, and really tasty. But that's not the point. You can find reviews that go on about just how horrible the service is, how casual the decor, the owner will yell and scream if he feels like it, etc. It's a challenge. For a jaded hong kong palate, a lot of the charm is getting in when others can't, hanging out with the staff, being alternately catered to and reprimanded. If you're reading this board, you aren't traveling to hong kong just to eat italian food. This restaurant, while good, is not geared toward you. We had a great time, I will never try to go on my own.

Rainbow Chinese Cuisine  金碧軒 (Wan Chai)- Set in a quiet hotel, this was the most formal chinese restaurant we went to this trip, with two sets of chopsticks and attentive waiter service. A cousin pre-ordered a whole roast pig, and we set out at lunch with a couple of her friends to try and do justice to it. So freaking delicious. Also served were some shrimp dumplings, a delicate seafood broth with rice and aloe, a red bean congee, and I lost track of what else. I really enjoyed this. $2000 HKD for 5 of us.

Amuse Bouche- A lot of the staff and the chef came from Petrus, mentioned upthread. We had a set menu. First course was truffled prawns, and caviar pasta. A consomme for me since I don't eat oysters. (the others had oysters and an oyster soup.) Next were some delicately grilled scallops with flowers and root vegetables. Seafood ravioli with saffron foam. Abalone and truffle. Bresse pigeon. Souffle with pomelo sorbet. A lovely and well-paced meal, with very friendly and attentive staff, and several wines paired. No idea of cost but assume it is exceedingly expensive.

Somehow I only gained 3 pounds on this trip, I feel like I did something wrong.

[Pool Boy]

Any recent updates? I ask because my wife and I stumbled in to ridiculously low airfare to go here this year. Looking to dive in to all of the local food and drinks scene - from street food to high end and everything in between.

[sandynva]

We went in november. we had a lovely meal at atelier joel robuchon--they even have a vegetarian menu and it was actually less expensive than many places in dc (only about $150 for food). we went to tim ho wan, which my husband really enjoyed, and i enjoyed the few vegetarian items they had (that cake is amazing!) but afterward was still hungry so went to  mak's noodle, which  was very good. ended up eating there twice actually as they have a second location on top of victoria peak, which seemed like the best available lunch option.  

[Sundae in the Park]

On 4/27/2016 at 6:28 PM, sandynva said:

We went in november. we had a lovely meal at atelier joel robuchon--they even have a vegetarian menu and it was actually less expensive than many places in dc (only about $150 for food). we went to tim ho wan, which my husband really enjoyed, and i enjoyed the few vegetarian items they had (that cake is amazing!) but afterward was still hungry so went to  mak's noodle, which  was very good. ended up eating there twice actually as they have a second location on top of victoria peak, which seemed like the best available lunch option.  

Agreed on Mak's noodle (Victoria peak location) - quite decent and looks a lot better than anything else up there. It's been a few years and I mostly remember that we grabbed street food here and there and at markets. The fruit is wonderful and wonderfully cheap, and you can get mangosteens!!!! The 10,000 Buddhas Monastery is an interesting long walk up a big hill between rows of shiny statues (no meal food at the top, as they are not actually a working monastery). The Night Market is a good place to grab a variety of street food but the shopping is mainly for trinket and knockoff stuff (if you do buy, bargain briskly!! It's expected!). If you have time, pop over to Macau for another stamp on your passport and a little piece of European Asia. The egg tarts alone make the trip worth it!! We also liked the view from the Tower - my husband still regrets not taking the bungee plunge there.

[Pool Boy]

Just got back from a week in Hong Kong. I will update my thoughts soon, but if you ever get the chance to go - DO! It's a great town, and not just on the dining front.

[Pool Boy]

OK so we stayed at the Intercontinental Grand Stanford. We were originally going to eat out for breakfast more often, but ended up eating at the hotel 5 of the 8 days at their very, very extensive breakfast 'bar'.  Basically, you have just about anything you might want for breakfast. There were 8 kinds of hot/cold cereals and all of the additions. Fresh fruit out the wazoo (with additional options of the yogurt variety) - the pineapple was in particular notable for being allllllmost as good as Hawaiian pineapple (I had it every day we were there (Indonesian? Malaysian? Taiwanese? I can't remember). 4 kinds of fresh fruit juices. Many kinds of green and black teas. Coffee (though it was more or less 'per cup'- never an opportunity for a pot for your table). Sliced meats and cheeses. Bagels and breads of every sort along with the things you'd expect to use on them (salmon, cream cheese, butters, jellies, jams, honeys, etc). Pastries of a local and more international sort. A waffle, pancake and french toast station with someone making whatever you wanted with all of the usual additions. Around the corner, all of the egg and omelet things you could want. Sausages, bacons, potatoes, hashes, and more. Then we got fish cakes, crab cakes, fried rices of several sorts, all sorts of goodies in the pan (ham cut from the bone, too). A rotating group of maybe 8 steamed dumplings. Spring rolls, fried and steamed pork buns, more. There was a person working the noodle station where you got to pick one of 4 kinds of noodles, one or more of 2-3 greens, usually 2 kinds of already cooked meat concoctions to top the noodles with, and loads of broth - several toppings to pick from to amend your bowl of goodness. There was something that tasted quite currylike that was probably there to make people happy from India or Indonesia or Malaysia.

And then there was congee. I was dreaming of trying this. There was a place (that we unfortunately never made it to) that offered lots of options, including one with pigs intestines. Dang.  Well anyway, they had two kinds of congee - plain and one augmented with small bits of pork and veg. I tried both over the 5 times we were there, both delicious. But the fun begins when you add all of the additions - pork floss, pork cracklins, preserved vegetable (OMG), something that looked like a soy-mush paste augmented with a smidge of heat), peanuts, scallions, slices of tiny pickle, slices of tiny croutons, and more. OH HOW I CRAVE THEE my most awesome CONGEE. I think I will learn how to make it once I get to Super Best to see if I can get some preserved vegetable.

While I am sure there were interesting, cheaper and/or better options for breakfast (we did dim sum twice for a third of the cost, for example), this was hard to beat for pure satisfaction.

[Pool Boy]

We went to one fast food chain place called Tsui Wah. It was indeed pretty fast food. And the menu is voluminous. Is it really damn good? I think it can be - we had one hit and one just ok.  I am told there is pretty significant variability among the (several? many?) locations. This location was in Kowloon.

One of these is broth with fish balls and fish cakes. The broth was decent, the fish balls pretty good and the fish cakes rubbery and pointless.  The other is a similar broth with tom yum sauce adding depth to it, with more of the aforementioned pointless fish cakes, but some really darn good pork. We had some iced milk tea (very good!) and a lemonade-drink with some spice in it (very good!).

Is this place a can't miss or amazing? No. Is it fast food? Yes. Is it priced quite reasonably? Yes. Is there good food here? Yes - I am sure I would, over time, determine the best dishes to order and which branches were better than others. So, YMMV, but there is arguably something here for everyone.

[Pool Boy]

For our first dinner, we hit up Lai Bun Fu. It was a little tricky to get to and up the hills on the extreme southeast corner of the Soho district on Hong Kong Island, The cab dropped us off and pointed down a steep street for us to walk to where we entered the building and took the elevator up to the floor of the restaurant (4th or 5th - I forget). This was a regular thing apparently - not all shops or restaurants are located at street level only. Shops and restaurants are everywhere, including a level or two or three or more (102!) up or even down. It's a very vertical city that way. We're glad we cabbed it, mainly because later in the trip we discovered just how steep some of the roads were - had we metro-ed it and hoofed the last several blocks, we would have been covered in sweat.

It's a fairly small restaurant (maybe 40 seats), but we were likely the only visitors/tourists there. There was a big table of guys that had brought wine to taste all through their dinner (just like my own DC Crü) - they were a hoot.  After some slight missteps in getting all of the desired menus, we opted to go with one of their set menus so we could try lots of stuff. These tend to be sort of tasting menu size portions so you can try stuff without exploding. A la carte is always possible, but generally speaking, it is harder to try lots of stuff this way since the portion sizes are large. You can try half orders, but some things just are not available in half portions. Anyway, on to the food.
 

1. Cripy chicken skin on top of avocado on 'toast'. The most western dish. Very good.
2. Fish cake with matsutake. So damn good. Really.
3. Conch, beef and morels in broth. Very tender conch which was great. Underseasoning the broth was a mistake though.
4. Egg white on the bottom, then beet juice colored egg white, then a nice piece of fish on top and some truffles. This was a very good dish, but the truffle somewhat overpowered the dish a smidge.
5. Arguably course of the night. Fish maw in a broth with some greenery that tasted berween chinese broccoli and that tiny vertical cabbage. Really great. Fish maw is basically the dried swim fish bladder of certain kinds of fish. This version was excellent. Later meals had larger versions that required some effort to figure out how to eat (if you wanted to stay chopsticks only at least).
6. Braised short rib, deep fried with a nice indo-malay inspired curry. So good. This was kind of east meets east in a good way.
7. Tofu sheet slices with more greenery and broth - this was quite good, if a little unwieldy to those where chopsticks are not their first utensil. Yes my chopsticks fu is weak.
8. Their special fried rice with lobster, abalone and ham. Excellent stuff.
9. Sweet walnut soup with lily bulb. This was just odd. Many of the desserts we tried while on this trip were just not to my tastes. I am sure some of them were good, but this dish, to me, was kind of a fail.

The wine selections were not entirely up to date on their list. The main person helping us apologized and made sure to offer some options of similar type and price (gave us a 10% discount on it actually) so we could pick something to go with the menu. Hong Kong in general does not seem like a strong drinks town, but there is evidence that this is improving (from what, not sure - we had no problem finding wines that went well with meals, beers were a bit haphazard, and cocktail options were sometimes inspired and other times misguided or astray).

Anyway, we had a very good overall meal here. I would certainly go back and likely order off of the a la carte menu.

[Pool Boy]

Getting back to this finally. While we had adequate food units visiting Victoria Peak and the Big Buddha earlier in the day, dinner was really what we were looking forward to on the culinary front.

We decided to splurge on going to Tin Lung Heen - a restaurant at the Ritz Carlton in Hong Kong at the top of the International Commerce Center (currently 10th tallest building in the world, was the 9th when we were there). We knew it would be expensive, but the lure of the view, and the lure of the menu won us over. Besides, who knows if we will ever get back to Hong Kong and when? Splurge time.

The elevators are fast and almost silent. We were up to the top in record time. Very nice welcome when we got there. It was not very full, so the staff showed us to a great table with a wonderful view of the city as the sunset was already starting too fade in to night. Very nice space. Whenever you go to the bathroom, you pass through a hallway where all of the viewable wine storage is (amazing). The bathrooms, interesting are wall to wall windows as well - nobody can see you up there anyway. Ha!

Menus were in English and Chinese together. The staff was very willing to help and guide us through the menu, but mostly just clarified a few preparations so we could confirm our selections. Pacing was perfect for a nice, leisurely and indulgent meal. Great wine list, too. Service all through the night was perfect, threading the needle of being available to us and disappearing as appropriate. It's like they read our minds.

So, off to the food! They brought us an amuse bouche which I cannot remember what it exactly was, but it was delicious! I think it was squid of other seafood over top of some kind of preserved or compressed pepper and eggplant maybe (with a delicious sauce/broth).

Next up was deep fried frog legs with garlic. Delicious!
 

Next up was our selection of 3 of the 5 barbecue selections from the chef - kind of a make your own sampler. We shared everything, including this dish, but I wished I had my own! The pork was great - exceptional actually, and so was the beef shin (my wife's favorite and mine, too, but the goose was technically my favorite by the slimmest of margins) but the goose, MY GOSH the goose. Mind-blowing. Can't I have two favorites?
 

Next up was the best shrimp toast I have ever had in my life. Hooboy.
 

 

Next up, we had stir fried matsutake mushrooms with bamboo shoots. So simple and so good.

 

Fried shrimp with more garlic. I kind of wished we had realized this dish was a similar (but not identical) preparation as the frog legs. Oh well. It was great!

 

The piece de resistance was the Wagyu beef with other tasty tidbits. Simply incredible.

 

Desserts came next - deep fried sesame dumpling filled with egg custard. Not overly sweet at all. Wonderful!

And finally, one of my weaknesses - a fruit gelee (albeit bigger than I am used to) - chilled hawthorn and preserved plum jelly

Start to finish a great meal and great night. Very memorable. We were there for as long as we wanted to be, able to talk about a wide range of topics, enjoy delicious food and drink, have a staff seeing to our every need in a perfect way all with a backdrop of an incredible view. I would not hesitate to come back here again.


Forgot the wine and the wine storage shots. Here they are!
 

 

 

[Pool Boy]

Hoi King Heen was in our hotel. We opted to dine there during the typhoon day. Not bad at all. It seemed like a lot of people from the hotel were there probably for similar reasons. They had some service/timing issues, but we still enjoyed ourselves.  The fish maw is essentially (I think) the air bladder used inside fish to help regulate bouyancy to go up and down in the water. It was great! The Garoupa roll was fantastic. The beef dish was a little overwrought, but damn tasty.

Double boiled fish maw soup with  Chinese mushroom and white cabbage

Steamed crab claw with egg white and wine

Braised winter melon balls stuffed with olives and mustard

Steamed garoupa roll with Yunnan Ham

Diced Beef with Lingzhi Mushrooms, osmanthus flowers and raisins

Pan fried glutinous rice with chicken, mushroom and taro

Mango pudding

 

[DonRocks]

15 minutes ago, Ericandblueboy said:

Yes, upon receiving the bill at $47 pp (split btwn 3 and before tip), I commented to Steve whether this is the most expensive Chinese meal we had.  The answer is no, we've been to Hong Kong and spent over $300 pp at a Michelin 3 star joint (not worth the money).

Do you remember the name of the restaurant?

[Ericandblueboy]

Quote

Dinner was at Lung King Hin, our only Michelin 3 star restaurant on this trip. 

From our 2014 trip to HK.

[DonRocks]

4 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

From our 2014 trip to HK.

Thanks - in case you're curious, here's Andy's review on Lung King Heen. It's quite the kick in the teeth that he rated it a poor value for the money at only 90 quid per.

In the Four Seasons - well, I guess the atmosphere was at least beautiful.

[zgast]

2 hours ago, DonRocks said:

Thanks - in case you're curious, here's Andy's review on Lung King Heen. It's quite the kick in the teeth that he rated it a poor value for the money at only 90 quid per.

In the Four Seasons - well, I guess the atmosphere was at least beautiful.

I've actually eaten there several times for dinner. Always just an entree and glass of wine, though, as it tended to be my last meal with my college roommate before I flew out.  While I always found the food very good, I had no idea that it was Michelin 3*.  That seems - excessive.  

[Ericandblueboy]

Didn't know that Tim Ho Wan (cheapest Michelin star restaurant in HK) is now owned by the same group that owns Panda Express.

https://mothership.sg/2021/08/jollibee-take-over-tim-ho-wan/?fbclid=IwAR0A2nWTI60qntRmWz69_AoNW-AdKUEJFD4gnXwX2LWp-G7zMiL1KD9IUHE