I joined a group of chefs and foodies for dinner tonight at Ming Court (明閣), the Michelin 2-star restaurant. I had never been here due to its location, but figured I'd check it out after its promotion from 1 to 2 stars. The menu was preset ahead of time, including a few special requests.

Chilled bean curd sheet with shredded duck meat in chili sauce (井岡山腐皮火鴨絲) - definitely pretty yummy. The shredded duck was very tasty with just the right amount of spiciness, and a very nice bite. What a great way to start the meal.

Chilled drunken pigeon (太白醉香鴿) - the meat was pretty tender, and the taste of the Chinese wine was fairly prominent.

Stir-fried fresh shrimp with egg white (海生蝦炒蛋白) - very much like the Shanghainese imitation crab (賽螃蟹), prawns were de-shelled and stir-fried, then topped with a layer of soft egg white that wobbled. Vinegar added some additional flavors to the otherwise bland egg white, as one would do with the Shanghainese original. The deep-fried Indian mustard (雪菜) was good...

Braised shredded winter melon and mashed carrot accompanied with broccoli top with egg white (珊瑚素心燕) - this was actually very interesting, and pretty good. The yellow topping was not real crab roe, but made of carrots and egg white to achieve the same look. The winter melon was tasty.

We reached the turning point of the meal, where things went very wrong. We were on a schedule as some of us needed to leave by a certain hour, and for some reason the kitchen stopped sending dishes our way for about half an hour. They were clearly told to pace the dishes at intervals of around 15 minutes each, and we got pretty upset. The manager came to apologize, and said that the kitchen was extremely busy and overworked. That may be, but everyone else around us was getting dish after dish - except for us! This is certainly not the way a Michelin-starred restaurant should run its kitchen, and there were 4 chefs present at the table...

The next dish that showed up was the stir-fried sliced garoupa with assorted mushrooms and dried shrimp roe (蝦籽鮮菌麒麟斑). My first couple of bites were wonderful - the mushrooms were very tasty, as was the Chinese cabbage. The garoupa, however, was a total disaster. The taste was very muddy, as least to me and a few others. I debated about whether or not to swallow what I had put into my mouth, and eventually regretted not spitting it out. I'm pretty sensitive to muddy fish and I found it mildly nauseating, and I was surprised that a Michelin 2-star restaurant would be serving poor quality fish like this. We complained to the manager and ask the staff to taste the fish. The restaurant decided not to charge us for the fish.

Stir-fried pigeon eggs with crab meat, scallop, egg white and yellow oily crab roe (芺蓉蟹粉白鴿蛋) - this was much better, and actually pretty delicious. Definitely liked the very young pea shoots, and of course the combination of crab meat, scallop, egg white and crab roe was right up my alley. I've never had pigeon eggs before, and the translucent egg white was pretty interesting.

Crispy fried chicken (朗豪炸子雞) - special request was made to "age" this live chicken for 3 days after killing it. The result was very tender and juicy meat, and I had a large piece of the breast! Very well done.

Stir-fried giant garoupa stuffed with shrimp paste in soya sauce (龍皇披金甲) - a pretty interesting creation, where garoupa fillet was inset into a layer of shrimp paste. It would have been nice, except that once again, there was a hint of muddiness in the garoupa. By this time I've pretty much had it with this place.

Osmanthus jelly and mango pudding (桂花糕/芒果布甸) - this was comped by the restaurant for the poor service, and arrived with the dry ice presentation. Taste-wise the jelly was a little too tough and chewy, and probably the worst version I've had in a while.

Steamed custard buns with egg yolk (明閣流沙包) - the signature dessert certainly did not disappoint. The salty egg yolk filling was very runny, and incredibly delicious. At least the dinner ended on a very good note.

While the meal turned out to be fairly cheap - thanks to the fish being comped and some additional discount privilege we were able to use - I think it will be some time before I would have the desire to go out of my way for a revisit...

original blogpost with pictures: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2010/07/muddy-waters.html

Went back for lunch after a long absence. We ordered pig's heart, stomach, liver, and trotters. The liver was very, very tender like always, and I really liked the white pepper broth of the trotters... kinda reminds me of the bak kut teh I love in Singapore. I also had some Hsinchu rice vermicelli in soup... very nice.

I love pig offal, so this is definitely the place for me. And no, there is no MSG. My tongue told me so.

Stopped by for a quick lunch. Knew that this was an Italian joint operated by Japanese, so I expected that 1) many things were not likely to be "authentic", and 2) there would be some Japanese-influenced items on the menu.

I ordered a lunch set with pasta, and chose pasta with whitebait and anchovy sauce. It's pretty interesting and you'd never see it on the menu of regular Italian restaurants, so I decided to order it. It was very tasty, and pretty salty thanks to the anchovy sauce, but I really liked the combination. I seriously needed a glass of ice lemon tea afterwards, though...

I also saw some borgata pasta on the ALC menu, which I'll order for my next visit. Again, this is something that you just don't see at most "mainstream" restaurants. Makes for some interesting eats.

I think the last time I had dinner at Gaddi's was some 10 years ago, but for some reason I just never found the urge to return, despite the obvious talent of Philip Sedgwick and his successors. Tonight I finally had the opportunity to return, thanks to a dinner hosted by my friend.

The amuse bouche was OK, but honestly not very interesting.

Layers of marinated goose liver with slow-cooked Bresse chicken, celeriac cream - honestly... not a fan. And I don't say this very often about foie gras. I have no idea why the chef thought Bresse chicken and foie would be a good combination... I didn't like the tough texture of the chicken with the foie. Didn't particularly care for the ham (Parma?) on the outside, either.

Braised white asparagus gratinated with a black truffle crust - not bad at all. I always find it hard to cut poached or braised white asparagus, but I do love the flavors. There was plenty of foam and what looked like to be Hollandaise sauce. There was some spinach with the black truffle...

Lightly-poached Atlantic turbot carpaccio with Oscietra caviar - the dish was OK, although I'd hardly call poached fish "carpaccio"... I also totally didn't realize that the caviar was actually Oscietra... thought it was just plain lumpfish...

Combination of beef prepared 3 ways with a red wine oxtail jus - the wagyu fillet was reasonably tender and nice. The braised beef cheek was done like Chinese style, and was not bad. Finally there was the tête de veau, tasting a little acidic and deep-fried.

All about mango - I love mango so this was right up my alley.

Some words about the service... I was a little annoyed and surprised when our waiter decided to interrupt our conversation at the start of the dinner, to announce the names of all the dishes in one go. I was annoyed because he insisted on interrupting our conversation, just as we were started to get acquainted. And why would anyone announce the names of all the dishes in one go, instead of introducing each dish one by one? Does he truly expect us to remember them all? I am truly surprised at this kind of service at a restaurant of this caliber.

original blogpost with pictures and wine notes: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2010/05/lamour-lamour.html

I don't know how we ended up here, but what a mistake it turned out to be!

Cold tofu with shrimp and crab relish (蝦兵蟹將凍豆腐) - I took one bite and knew instantly it was gonna be a disaster. I was thinking to myself that the dried shrimps (蝦米) were some of the toughest I've ever chewed on, when my friend blurted out the exact same thought.

Greenhouse tomatoes in wasabi sesame sauce (芥末胡麻醬拌日本溫室蕃茄) - one of two dishes that tasted OK.

Sichuan spicy chicken (招牌口水雞) - the only other dish that tasted OK to me. Nice chunks of cold chicken marinated with spicy vinegar, served with mung bean pappardelle, century eggs and some peanuts.

Crispy stuffed duck with glutinous rice (香酥糯米鴨) - this was so bad but somehow I ended up having two pieces, and I had to ask myself why I bothered with the second piece. These were really hard as bricks... the duck was tough, made into blocks with glutinous and deep-fried. My friends were smarter...they refused to eat a second piece.

Radish patty in XO sauce (囍宴XO醬炒蘿蔔糕) - another dish when it took one bite to know we're heading into disaster territory. The cubes of radish cake - stuffed with mushrooms and sausage - were hard. I ended up eating everything else but the radish cake.

Fried spring rolls with radish and dried oysters (原隻蠔豉蘿蔔絲春卷) - the only dish I ordered, and wasn't great either. While I liked the flavor of the dried oysters, the thing was just too salty.

This really was a disaster. I remember a time when a meal at Xĭ Yàn was something to look forward to. Has the franchise over-expanded to the point where quality control simply went out the window? After this meal, I can't imagine any of us wanting to come back. Ever.

original blogpost: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2010/05/definitely-not-happy-meal.html