King's Dumpling     金牌小龍  

My friend was raving about this "award winning siu lung bao" so we had to try it out. First on the list of foods to get had to be the dumplings, was disappointing considering this is their best dish recommended. We tried to order the pan fried dumplings but they didn't tell us it wasn't available to order just crossed it off our order, was bit annoyed about this. Service wasn't great, had to ask quite a few times for the waiters to top up our tea. Glad we ordered this other dumpling in chilli sauce, very good, recommend this. Starters were not very good and didn't taste like the traditional flavours of shanghainese dishes, "cold dishes" were warm, very strange. Service was poor and portions were small. Very disappointed in the siu lung bao, i've had better versions else where.

Just wanna have a casual dinner before movie time. Time a bit rush and no need to wait so we just go in and give it a try.
The signature dish Pork dumpling was disappointing, only got some tasteless juice inside, and dumpling size was small also.
Fried dumpling wasn't hot, only mildly warm. This killed the dish at once. Moreover, the taste was only mediocre.
The "crystal egg", again only very mild sweet taste on the preserved surface layer of the egg white, tasteless egg yolk....terrible.
"粉蒸排骨"...a complete different version from what I had in Taiwan. Dried meat and some strange taste.. we didn't finish this dish.
肴肉is tasteless, again!
The most normal dish is 津白, remember is only normal.

Totally ruined our mood before the movie!

It was a Friday and it seemed like all the restaurants at The One were full. We had to wait for almost an hour before we finally managed to get a table at King's Dumpling.

We started off with the semi-spicy (thinly) sliced beef with nuts. It was very good - the beef slices were soft and thin and you can really taste the sauce in every bite. I also liked how the nuts added not just texture to the dish, but also helped soften the tang of the spices.

Then our dumplings arrived.
We had the King's Special Xaio Long Bao We also ordered another dumpling (but I've forgotten what type of dumpling this was. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't exceptionally remarkable either.) And we had pan-fried meat buns which were lovely! Of these three dumplings, I enjoyed the xiao long bao best. The soup inside the bun was very tasty even when it started to get cold.

We also ordered some steamed vegetables - again, it wasn't bad, but there was nothing exceptional about it either. The last dish to arrive was our fried rice. Now this one, I absolutely loved! It was very tasty without being too salty, and there was an ample amount of fresh shrimp in the fried rice which were cooked to perfection.

As for the service, well, it was good for the most part - fast and efficient. But there were instances soon after we sat down that it felt like my dining experience was being hastened to its end. I suppose it must (at least partially) be because it was a very busy night, but then again, that's no excuse for not making your guests feel like they're being pampered.

All in all, I think it's a good enough restaurant, but not exceptionally great that I would want to back to it over and over again.

Today is a specail day for me any my wife. We went to our lawyer and signed our wedding docuement. We want to do the legal thing first and get it out of the way.

My good friend came to be our witness. He insist to take us out for a dinner. We went to The One. Wife want to try this restaurant. The renovation is not bad, so we went inside.

We sat down with high expectation because the hostress outside say this restaurant is famous in China. We saw they have a few stores in China and more than one in HK.

The picture menu looks great. However, the selection is simple. We ordered a few simple dishes.

The price is not cheap. You can see the pictures for the food we order. The place is not too packed with people, but the food took a long time to come.

In general, the food taste nothing special at all, but in considering with the price we paid, it is not good.

Some of the dishes took a long time to come. We asked the waitress to check, the waitress just told us that the dishes will takes time and ask us to wait even before go checking on the item. Service not acceptable!

In general, nothing wrong with this restaurant just not worth the value

First Chinese cuisine in X'mas Eve with my buddy B~
We are both starving, so we both ordered 4 dishes~
Signature Siu Lung Bao : Good, but better eat in warmth (great with its dumping skin)
Fried rice with meat : Great, not salty at all
Hung Yao Miu Sau: Quite spicy lei, even B is spicy-fanatic, she also thinks it's too HOT
Tai Tai Noodles: Rich in peanut paste, but better eat in warmth
Ordered 2 soy beans (so interesting that they have classified into 3 categories - cold,mid warm and hot, which we feel weird between the difference of mid warm and hot one)
Definately will try again, staff there are so welcoming and courteous.

Date: Monday 11th october 2010 9.30pm
Ordered: 擔擔麵, 金牌小籠包, 糯米燒賣

Taste: 擔擔麵 was the best out of all the dishes we order. It also came first. I really liked the texture of the noodles, was quite thick and very smooth. It wasn't too soft for being in the hot soup for too long. I have never tasted a 擔擔麵 like this before. the soup is not watery but quite thick. Before you even get to taste it, it smells quite spicey and INDEED it is so spicey. You can taste a faint taste of peanut butter and what I really love about this noodles is there are slices of chinese mushroom, and funny enough, the taste actually matches and taste good. I can not eat spicey food, I would rate this 5 out of 5 for spiciness, But it is definately one of the best and would come back for just this noodle.

金牌小籠包 came in a 6. Two already broke as soon as i went to get it with my chopsticks so I expected the outer layer is very thin. But instead it was quite thick. I did not like how thick it was and the meat was a small portion. It was real hot I nearly burnt my lips with the soup. you can taste sesame oil and soem wine in the soup inside the pork bun. Overall it was okay,but not the best and I don't think this could be good enough to be their signature dish.

糯米燒賣 was something I was really looking foward to. i have had 糯米燒賣 at 鼎泰豐 before and it was rather good. But this was rather disappointing. It was hard and dry. usually the rice inside would be quite moist and chewy. But this was just VERY dry and hard. I had to keep dipping it into soy sauce. There was no taste to it. it was like eating a dry lump of rice. i really hope they could improve on this dish


Overall
I was disappointed with this restaurant. there were lots of people queuing up here evreytime I go pass here. Their menu look very tempting and delicious. But it looks better than it taste. I have definately taste better with this same price!
BUT I did quite like the interior. all white and very simple design. with alot of seats. The service was So So. The reception seemed very dreamy and when we requested a seat by window, she promised us to give the seat to us. But instead we waited for another 20mins because she gave it to someone else. And when we chased her up, she could not even say sorry and explain to us, but avoided us. It was very rude. the waitress who took our orders seem like she was in arush and half way through they took away our sauces/salt/pepper etc without asking. The service could really improve.
ONE MORE THING, the tea was from tea bags. Majority of these restaurant usually uses Tea leaves which give more of their vibrant taste. But using tea bags, the taste was faint. rather cheap.

So far @ The One, this is the worst restaurant. I have also tried the Chinese restaurant on 17th floor (dim sum), Taiwanese Noodle, Cambodian, the Japanese Cutlet and yogurt store - Tuttimelon... okay let me tell you why...

1. soy milk - they have 3 choices - hot, warm & cold
I ordered a hot one and turned out to be warm
2. xiao lung bao - overall, not good enough if you compare to Crystal Jade. the outside is too thick, not enough taste, okay juicy
3. appetizer - garlic white meat - the picture in the menu looks a lot better than the real thing... not enough sauce and the meat is way too dry...
4. dan dan noodle - the sauce is too thick and the noodle is too soft... I think they overcooked it.
5. soy bean cold noodle - okay... i think this is the best out of everything...
6. garlic stir fried vege - nothing special, hard to chew...
7. sweet and sour soup - bad... only tasted the sesame oil... not spicy nor sour!
8. preserve eggs with chili - okay... nothing really special

There is always a line for this restaurant so save your time... go somewhere else!

First time to “The One” and went to this restaurant at around 2:30pm on a Sunday. Only needed to wait for a couple of tables but when we looked into the restaurant while we were waiting, there are many empty seats inside. The reason we were waiting is the tables are not yet cleaned up, lack of staffs.

Anyhow, we ordered some so call 招牌菜 but none of them really worth to try again. The skin of the 小龍包 and 菜肉蒸餃 were thin but is absolutely tasteless which is completely opposite to 台灣菜. The Chilly & Sour Soup also tasteless, not chilly and sour AT ALL. They were very disappointing.

As see in the photo, each item doesn’t cost too much but I have to point out the quantity of 葱油拌麵 was really poor, for $27, the size is smaller than a pack of 出前一丁. Again, nothing special and the noodles were so soggy.

Lastly, they pretend to be a place for 台灣菜, I don’t understand why they were charging 茶水 for a place which is not for 飲茶. There is no reason to visit this place again.

Have heard good things about this restaurant so we decide to have a try. What a mistake! The food is overall bad and with some extremely bad. The 金牌小籠包 is so-so and I can name maybe 30 restaurants that are better. The 小籠包 with crab meat is actually a little better but not salty enough. The 2 good things about this is the steam beef soup which is quite good and the "rice cake" is not bad either. Now, the worst food I ordered is in fact the fried pork chop which they have a "medal" sign right next to it which means their speciality... and yeah I'd say it's SPECIALLY bad. It's tough and taste like paper and it's been a long time I've seen that a dish actually nobody touches (well, actually everyone had a bite of it and put it down immediately). I'm surprised Mr. Lau actually allow this restaurant to be in his premises... ^^;

Sorry but of course I'll never go again.