Fook Lam Moon     福臨門  

While the price is not cheap and the restaurnt maybe filled with tourists, yet it is truly worthwhile for its authentic food and service. Well, cannot miss its famous abalone plus duck fin. Duck fin was particularly excellent with all sauce absorbed. Smaller size abalone with 30 heads was good enough.Equally excellent dish was this --- pork belly steamed with chinese pickles.I am a big fun of this dish but sometimes it tastes too oily -- this version was perfect with no grease.And lotus leaf-wrapped rice with dried scallops and so forth --Excellent desert to finish off the traditional meal, running-egg castard buns.

I am usually not a big fan of traditional, old-school Chinese food, but there is a traditional Chinese dessert at Fook Lam Moon that I really adore.

(1) The Leaf Wrapped Glutinous Dumpling with Red Bean Paste is really amazing. Wrapped in a piece of leaf, as the name suggests, the glutinous dumpling is smooth and fabulously stretchy. The red bean paste filling is not overly sweet and has a strong, natural taste of red bean.

Fook Lam Moon, long a Hong Kong institution, has a long history of providing top-rated cantonese cuisine, with prices to match. Is it worth it

Going for yum cha on Boxing Day, we arrived to find the restaurant surprisingly empty at 12:45pm. We were promptly seated and tea brought to us. The hostess also brought over some english dim sum order forms also, although the menu options were considerably less than the standard version. (Ok for most but if anything special you want, and don't have someone who can speak canto, is to get someone to write the dishes you want on paper for you before arrival.)

There were just two of us but we ordered eight dishes. The roasted pork (siu yuk) was heavenly. Although this can be found all over Hong Kong, the FLM version was perfect, with just the right balance between the crispy skin and the meat marbled with fat. Wow.We ordered the steamed shrimp and vegetable dumplings (鮮蝦蒸粉粿). Not to be confused with the more common "har gao" (also offered at FLM), these are made with shrimp mixed with bits of water chestnuts and vegetables. The skin, very nice and thin and steamed perfectly, complemented the filling without being too sticky or heavy.

We needed some vegetables and went with the choy sum fried with garlic. Again, nicely done but nothing special compared to other kitchens. I wanted to try the dau miu (peashoots) since its the season but was overruled.... Also on order the salt water dumplings (Haam Sui Gao 家鄉咸水角)....another dim sum standby, these can be too heavy at times, or overly sticky. These were neither. The filling was a little similar to the steamed shrimp dumplings mentioned earlier but the texture of the casing makes the taste totally different. As if we didn't have enough shrimp already, we also went with the fried bean curd skin with shrimp filling. These were a little oily but the taste was also very fresh. FLM definitely doesn't skimp on the filling, or try to substitute expensive shrimp with cheaper vegetables or starches.

I wanted to try the steamed beef tripe (薑蔥牛百葉). While tripe may not be everyone's cup of tea, the execution here is excellent. The tripe is steamed long enough so its tender with just the right amount of chew. The 'soup' is made from celery and onion with a taste of something sweet, but I can't place it. In any event, highly recommended.

We also went with the spring rolls. Again, these had a generous filling of shrimp and vegetables. Actually, it was nearly all large pieces of shrimp. The rolls themselves were so fat I could barely get half of one in my mouth.

To finish off we had the steamed brown sugar cake...light and fluffy, and not too sweet, it was a nice way to end the (very filling) meal.

Service was efficient and pleasant. This place has a reputation for favoring VIP's and regular customers but we were treated very well and made to feel welcome even though it was our first visit to the original Wan Chai location.

FLM is not cheap, lunch for two was over $600, but for special occasions, or for top notch dim sum in an upscale environment, FLM is well worth a visit.

I was delighted to have lunch with my colleagues in Fook Lam Moon to celebrate the success of a project after hearing many positive comments from this well-known restaurant in Wan Chai. We had ordered many dim sum dishes including cha siu baau, shrimp dumplings, shaomai, rice noodle rolls, curry squid, phoenix talons, lotus leave rice, spring rolls, tofu skin rolls, turnip cake, steamed sponge cake, etc. The dim sums were delicious but our forward-looking dish was the freshly-made Roasted Pig!! The roasted pig was served in two-way: the blistered, crispy skin and the succulent porky meat! We were so comfortably full after finishing the whole pig!

Mother in Law celebrated another year of her ripe old age. After trying many different venues, her favourite seems to be Fook Lam Moon still, so for the last few years, her birthday dinners have been here.

The menu was decided by Brother in law, so we just turned up for a good meal. I forgot to take photos of the 6 starters as we were all too hungry but remember thinking they were quite nice.
The first dish was roast whole suckling pig. For some reasons, the skin was not crispy. Luckily the sliced meat of the pig was also served and it was tasty, with a good texture and with the saltiness should have on the underside.

Tea per head was charged HKD20 - you should set some expectation for this restaurant.
Dim sums were all good.
Services was excellent.
For a normal visit, it would be charged at least HKD130 - 150 per head for simple dim sum selection.

So normally my family I have a few dim sum places that we consistently go to. Not necessarily because the food is amazing but more so because my parents, like a lot of people, are creatures of habit. Anyway, for some odd reason my parents decided to book a table to Fook Lam Moon for dim sum on Sunday. I made sure for them to call the night before and reserve the BBQ pork pie & the egg tarts since I was a little concerned with either:

1) Them running out of either dim sums
2) Having to wait 10-15 minutes for them to make it

Environment: The place is spacious and seating is relatively comfortable for Cantonese restaurants standard.

Service: Service was pretty good but not without flaws. For some reason I feel the waiters are a little careless when serving. For example we ordered 2 different pots of tea and one waiter refilled my dad's tea cup without asking him what tea he had. Although with that said he was extremely apologetic and immediately gave my dad a new tea cup with the tea he wanted.

Food: We ordered a good selection of dim sum:

BBQ Pork Pie (蜜汁叉燒酥) - Visually the size looks a little sad (it's quite small) but it's big on taste. The pie exterior has kind of a crumbly cookie texture and a great compliment to the 'creaminess' of the BBQ pork. The BBQ pork was very flavorful and in a way the bite size nature of it...was just right contrary to my initial impression. Yum.

Steamed Crystal Prawn Dumplings (筍尖鮮蝦餃) - I think in terms of prawn dumplings this is pretty close to perfection. The skin was perfect thickness and the prawns had great 'prawn' flavor. One thing that is hard to do is to have a filling that both feels generous and texturally also not too solid. Did it blow my socks off per say? Maybe not...but it was still a very good prawn dumpling.

Pan Fried Cured Meat and Radish Cake (香煎蘿蔔糕) - The radish cake had great consistency/texture but the real star of this dish was the fried cured meat...it was really tasty! The flavor was quite intense but just right. Throw in a little sweet sauce...I quite liked this dish.

Stewed Honeycomb Tripe (炷侯金錢肚) - Overall a pretty decent dish and the tripe was quite tender. Although with that said it was about the same tastiness as the stewed tripe dishes at other dim sum places. Pretty decent.

Steamed Rice Rolls With BBQ Pork (叉燒爽滑腸粉) - The skin exterior was quite nice and thin while the BBQ pork inside was just as tasty as the BBQ pork in their BBQ pork pie. This was more of subtle dish and was quite good.

Deep Fried Prawn Spring Rolls (鮮蝦炸春卷) - When I first ate this I nearly burnt my tongue since it was piping hot! Overall quite a good dish. The spring roll was super crispy and the filling was quite flavorful.

Deep Fried Prawn Balls (炸多士蝦丸球) - Fook Lam Moon really knows how to deep fry their dim sum. It's basically the interior of the prawn dumpling but the exterior is like fried shrimp toast (炸蝦多士) but in ball form. The exterior was really crispy and light while the filling felt substantial and flavorful. No idea why we ordered this dish but I'm glad we did. Tasty.

Fresh Baked Egg Tart (酥皮蛋撻仔) - Another signature item from Fook Lam Moon. The egg custard portion was very creamy and 'eggy' while the pastry portion was light and flaky. It almost completely falls apart when it enters your mouth. I personally favor the western pie crust style egg tarts but these bite sized egg tarts at Fook Lam Moon were of high quality.

With all these positive things said about their dim sum I do wanted to mention a minor negative...consistency. We actually ended up order 2 orders of the shrimp dumpling and the egg tart and on both occasions I think our first order was better. Could it have been that our palette reacted differently after eating so many other dim sums? Maybe...but my here's my minor gripe about them:

2nd order of shrimp dumplings - Still a very good shrimp dumpling but this time it was slightly overcooked so the shrimp filling feel a tiny bit dry and more solid.

2nd order of egg tarts - I think they overcooked this slightly as well since the pastry feel more 'cookie dough-like'. Although still quite good the pastry took a little more chewing unlike the earlier light and flaky egg tart we had.

Overall I see value in these higher priced dim sum dishes from Fook Lam Moon. Would definitely come back again for dim sum.

we have chosen fook lam moon (福臨門) as the venue for our farewell dinner with L, who is moving back to san francisco tomorrow after goofing around in hong kong for 3 years =) fook lam moon is THE upscale cantonese venue with its own exclusive farm supply. the restaurant is dubbed "tycoon's canteen" and prides itself in serving exquisite cantonese food such as shark fins and dried abalones. FLM won michelin one star back in nov 2008, although many local foodies consider the restaurant to trump lung king heen, which won a 3-star status in the same year. on the other hand, lung king heen does serve significantly different food quality depending on who the customer is while FLM is relatively more consistent - so the battle is still on.

cha siu: i am nearly addicted to bbq pork these days. the cha siu at FLM was leaner, mushier, and the honey coating was slightly too thick compared to fu sing. they also used a hint of food coloring during the roasting process which although was no big deal but i thought the kitchen would be too proud to use it. i like my cha siu at fu sing more.

fried battered frog legs with salt and pepper: normally i don't eat frog leg but this looked really good on the menu. the batter was just the right thickness and very light/airy; the frog leg had perfect spongy texture - tender but not mushy. it was so delicious that i had second (and third) serving...

sweet and sour pork: it was a much leaner cut of the pork ribs than i have elsewhere. the crust was a bit too chewy and thick, and the sweet/sourness scale was too light to my liking. the meat inside was overcooked. it wasn't my favorite dish of the night...

braised bamboo fungus, mushrooms, and other chinese vegetables: it was a very yummy dish. it was high quality wild bamboo fungus soaked in stock, crisp texture with a very clean taste.

crispy chicken: this is another signature dish at FLM. the skin was very thin and crisp; chicken meat was tender and low fat content, and tasted very "chickeny". also much less greasy than other restaurants.

baked stuffed crab with onions and fresh crab meat: the crust was baked/browned and inside was a mixture of (lots of) crab meat, julienned onions. it was flavorful and meaty, and the crab meat was very fresh and spongy.

braised dry bean curd: the bean curd was very tender inside and outer crust crispy but light.

smoked pomfret: it was then slightly overall pan-fried and the skin was crispy but not greasy. the meat carried a light sweetness and very aromatic. taste-wise, it was a delicious dish. however, overall presentation was very bad... the fish was falling out all over the plate like a jigsaw puzzle...

sweet walnut cream: the walnut cream was very intense and not too sweet. it did not add much milk to cream up the soup like most other restaurants, so it was all grounded walnut with a slightly sandy texture. according to H, walnut has great mix of vitamin B's that is good for your brain.

sweet almond tea with egg white and milk: a light sweet soup.

sesame paste bun: very intense sesame flavor and not too moist/gooey inside like other chinese restaurants.

lotus leaf steamed rice: this is another signature dish at FLM. the rice was loaded with dried scallops and crab meat, with shredded scrambled eggs and roasted ducks. it was very yummy and each rice grain was the perfect moist level - not too sticky nor dry. however, there was not much lotus aroma in the rice.

the night was also a college reunion so we did not order any upscale dishes like abalone and bird's nest. overall food quality was high, although there was no "wow" factor. for each individual dish i can right on top of my head name another place that serves better food quality, but FLM was able to score high in every dish. i also think there was a lack of creativity in the dishes, rather the chef was focusing on traditional food done to excellence, or not.

one thing i need to praise on is the service. waiters were prompt and friendly, and check was issued almost right away. also i was guided point-to-point on my arrival and greeted by all staffs during our exit - while they usually do it at western restaurants, many chinese restaurants seem to miss out this little detail.

original post with pictures: http://randomnomad.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/fook-lam-moon

Too expensive to eat at night, so it is better to have a Sunday afternoon dim sum. After doing a thorough research, we do target at what we are going to have:

Tradition shrimp dumpling - pretty little dumpling with a transparent wrap and a rich shrimp filling
Chicken praw - we did order again since it is not oily and the bones fall easily. Of cuz, the flavor is very good ... dunno how to explain, it is of great taste, strongly marinated
Chicken in 'Chuk Sang' Wrap - I have not eaten as I am not a fan. But they said it is good and I see the fillings are very full
Pan fried cuttle fish cake - its look is not appealing, yet the texture is really nice with strong sticky cuttlefish
Grilled goose/duck *sorry I have forgotten* - excellent! the skin is crispy and the meat is hot, it is true!
Pan fried mooli cake - lots of ingredients in the cake and well-fried, best to dip in spicy oil
Rice roll with fried stuffings - no wonder it gets reputation, it is a unique dish! apart from the fried stuffing, they add a bit of fish filling *i dunno what it is!* anywaz, the different structure can be felt - the outside smoothness, the inside crisp and stuffings!
Rice in lotus leaf - omg, really yummy. not oily and the strong lotus flavor is on every rice, and every spoonful of rice is great
Egg tart - texture likes 'just-baked' ... so, you know how good it is
Almond sweet soup with egg white - this is the only so-so dish among all. not bad, just that i had an eatery which is extremely good at

Nearly all the dishes are great, most of the staff are nice *most, not all* ... worths going again, but better with more people so that you can try more different dishes. Such a price range, the quality is really satisfying overall.

Another meal at Fook Lam Moon (福臨門) with a group of guys (and girl) that seems to only dine here when we meet. Tonight, however, there would be changes to the menu. We had gotten tired of ordering the same old dishes - however delicious they might be - and asked for something completely different. So here goes...

Chicken soup with sea whelk and bird's nest (螺頭雞湯燴官燕) - OK so there was no sharks' fin today, but we had bird's nest instead. It's a pretty darn good chicken soup, except there are expensive ingredients. I'm not big on bird's nest but at least it's more environmentally friendly than sharks' fin...

Shredded soft-shell turtle stir-fried with pickled mustard stem (榨菜絲炒水魚絲) - I haven't had turtle in a very long time as I normally don't order it, but this was pretty nice, especially with the pickles. Yet another dish that's out of the ordinary...

Pan-fried twin eastern star garoupa (煎封雙東星斑) - I really liked this dish, even though this isn't the most popular Cantonese preparation for fish. I have always liked the way fish is braised, having been pan-fried first to have a bit of crispy and crunchy skin. Really enjoyable and a nice break from the normal steamed fish.

Deep-fried crab claw (百花炸釀蟹拑) - these giant claws must have come from Sri Lankan crabs, because there is no way they could be this big otherwise. The shell has been removed, then the claw was coated in a layer of shrimp paste and deep-fried. As we were armed only with chopsticks and spoons, the only way to get at this is to pick it up my hand and chomp... But I have to say that this was really delicious.

Wolfberry leaves in ham broth (上湯浸枸杞菜) - no pig liver this time, but I'm really happy that this veggie is back in season.

Steamed goose with plum and taro (梅子芋頭蒸鵝) - a really delicious dish. The taro was done separately and so nice, even for a guy like me who doesn't normally eat it. The goose was fatty and yummy - is there any other way to have it? There were also lots of goose kidneys inside the claypot, and it's been a while since I've had it at a restaurant (instead of mom's). I think this was generally very well-received.

Wontons in soup (上湯韭黃粒雲吞) - really nicely done here. The wontons were plump with a good amount of shrimp packed into them, and the flavors of the yellowed chives was just classic.

I was already stuffed (again) but couldn't leave without having a bowl of the almond cream with egg white (蛋白杏仁茶).

original blogpost with notes on wine: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2009/03/menu-change.html

Came here for lunch due to impulse over a certain weekend, as funnily enough I've only been to dinner here previously and never did its yum cha.

My overall conclusion is simple. It was pretty much what we had expected, which is, its tasty Hong Kong style lunch and dim sims, which would have been satisfactory 25 years ago but is now greatly lacking behind the global trend. More about it later, but let's talk about the food first, from what I can remember:

1) Char Siu - 7 out of 10. Tender, but not artificially so. Not much taste on first bite but upon eating more pieces, realised that I would never coax any more marinade, honey or chargrilled taste out of it. Its the way food is done here. Its soft for the lean meat they were using, slightly tasty yet slightly bland, but its actually quite healthy and not heavy.
Expensive at $110 for barely a few pieces, but this Char Siu was definitely made for rich people watching out for their health.

2) Fried Lotus Cake - 2 out of 10. $110 for barely a few pieces, it was tough, chewy, has no taste, even over-cooked and no crunchiness of the lotus remaining. Sliced way too thin as well, around 2-2.5mm thick. Waste of money.

3) Fried Taro Dumpling - 7 out of 10. Not that impressive to be honest, but already way better than Yung Kee's oil soaked, fat filled rubbish. Slightly chewy rather than outright crunchy, slightly oily at the bottom that made the bottom appear transparent. Which shouldn't happen at this 'smaller than normal size' of taro dumplings but some oil managed to sip through into the inside. Great healthy fillings however, not junk mince thrown in for the sake of making a feeling. Attention was paid here. Not very happy with this but a Taro Dumpling along with the Prawn Dumpling in almost any restaurant is a true test of its skills. Fook Lam Moon is very good with other fried things we tried, almost perfect, but still, they could not nail the Taro Dumpling test.

4) Prawn Dumpling and Siu Mai - 8.5 out of 10. Very healthy and light fillings once again, taste is subtle and that's the way I like it. In fact I love the taste of the food in Fook Lam Moon the most due to this reason - its elegant and subtle, not over-powering. Skins on both dumplings however were slightly too soft (slight over-steam) for my liking, but that's being mean.

5) Rice Paper Roll - 9 out of 10. Smooth, great fillings, light soy sauce. Technically correct therefore the high marks. Obviously, did not expect any 'wow' factors but here, its good enough to get near top marks.

6) Egg Tart - 6 out of 10. I give a low mark because my flaky skin wasn't cooked enough, it was white (looked pretty though!) and it still had that raw dough taste to it. Egg custard also had little egg taste if any. The egg tarts here are the miniature size, therefore, the egg to flak pastry ratio means you're getting relatively more 'pastry' than eggs, esp. if the width of the pastry isn't much thinner than a normal sized egg tart. As such, the egg custard really ought to have enough egg taste to make up for this difference. Its like having a sushi nigiri, but with too big a rice but not enough fish, plus, the rice isn't cooked enough.

7) Had some more other items, which were pretty healthy tasting.


Judgment - Fook Lam Moon as I said, is still living in its past, especially for lunch. Its strong point is also its weak point - in reality its almost the opposite of places like Lung King Heen.

Here, the food is cooked almost to its maximum potential but still way within the normal expected standards. Its tasty, it feels lighter and healthier than many places, but there is little innovation to the selections, its ultimately too boring and also expensive. In Canton and Guang Zhou, some restaurants are actually developing more and more to catch up with the rest of the world, they put their heart into pushing forward Chinese cuisin and there are much more innovations in the Dim Sims and Cantonese dishes up North. Not only that, but overseas Chinese restaurants are following the same trend, be it Canada, Australia or Europe, etc. I've even had some really great Yum Cha lunches in Japan, which beats anything else I've tried so far in Hong Kong.

Fook Lam Moon meanwhile is being complacent. Its the kind of place that will get 1 Michelin Star but will never ever get another star in its lifetime. Its chefs will never win in an Iron Chef contest, because they're stubborn cooks who think they know best.

There is simply not much heart put into the food or drinks and generally towards furthering more improvements. The WINE LIST was pathetic to say the least, full of big name Bordeauxs too young for drinking and barely a few bottles of white Chardonnays (Mersaults, Montracets, Chablis?) from around the Burgundy region, with absolutely no chance of pairing up with the food nicely. No signs of a Gewurtraminer or Riesling or even a Sauvignon, little signs of Pinot Noirs Burgundies. Not even Wines by the Glass.

Lung King Heen in contrast, at least has put a heart attempting to make some innovative dishes and dim sims, some great wines, etc. They're not fully complacent over there, you could feel it reading the menu and from the food that they've at least given it a go (even if a half-hearted attempt).

The biggest similarity between the 2 places is that both cook less oily, healthier, subtle types of food. The differences however are much more than words can convey - Fook Lam Moon's food tastes better in general. Lung King Heen seems to be hit and miss with their food quality, some dishes had downright disappointing executions, something you'll hardly see in FLM. However over there its a bit more playful and you could still see room for improvement in the future, as they seem to still be developing and changing.

As such - I do agree that Lung King Heen > Fook Lam Moon in my experience. At night time especially, what you can get at Lung King Heen can sometimes give a 'wow' factor as they create some modernised versions of chinese dishes, even if the cooking isn't too good over there. The reason why this is important is because - surely, you don't expect all French restaurants in France to stick to cooking the same traditional dishes? Obviously someone has to make an evolutionary step - and that place, isn't Fook Lam Moon.

My last meal with my guests from Geneva took place at Fook Lam Moon (福臨門), the restaurant known as the tycoons' canteen (富豪飯堂). Having been here numerous times, I had no doubt that this place would completely cream Lung King Heen in terms of quality of the food...

We started with the roast suckling pig, which has got to be one of the best in Hong Kong. The thin layer of skin is so crispy and crunchy. The tiny legs of the pig are also great to munch on. Yummy!

Next came the baked crab shell (釀焗蟹蓋) with Worcestershire Sauce. After the horrendous crab claw at lunch today, my guests were transported to heaven with this dish. There was so much sweet crab meat here...

Once again I ordered the fried giant pomfret (香煎大鯧魚), which is smoked and then pan-fried. While the portion tonight wasn't as large as what I'm used to, it actually was enough given the number of dishes I have ordered. As yummy as usual. It still amazes me how big the pomfret is...

Stir-fried lobster with black beans and green peppers (豉椒炒龍蝦球) was a hit. For people who do not get to eat high-quality Chinese food, this is an unsual way to do lobster, but it is sooo good! The lobster was so fresh, so that the flesh was sweet and the texture had the right bounciness. Wow!

For veggie we had pea sprouts blanched in ham broth (上湯浸豆苗), since the pea sprouts are in season. While I love pea sprouts and can eat it day in day out, I was really hoping to have something out of the ordinary for the veggie dish. In particular I had hoped for wolfberry leaves, but apparently those are only in season during summer/fall... Oh well, gotta wait a few more months.

The final straw that broke the back of a few camels tonight was the claypot rice with preserved meats (腊味飯煲). The plate of liver and preserved sausages (潤腸，腊腸), preserved meat (腊肉) and the tasty duck (油鴨) was just awesome. What's even better is that we got to have the rice crispies (飯焦), which were so fragrant and crunchy. You can definitely hear it when your neighbor is chewing on it...

For dessert, many of us chose to have almond cream with egg white (蛋白杏仁露), while others had the walnut cream (核桃露). The almond cream was light and heavenly...

original blogpost with notes on wine: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2009/01/tycoons-canteen.html

This was quite a filling dinner with 9 dishes, which are as follows:

Stir-fried shark's fin (炒桂花翅) - light and fluffy as always, it's a great way to start the meal.

Charred fatty char siu - pretty decent, but not the best I've had.

Braised goose feet and abalone with lettuce (鵝掌原隻30頭鮑跟唐生菜) - very good stuff, although not exactly wine-friendly...

Stir-fried tripe (油爆肚仔) - very well done as the tripe had a crunchy, springy texture.

Stir-fried lobster with black beans and green peppers (豉椒炒龍蝦球) - delicious and fresh lobster, with the added kick of black beans.

Baked crab shell (釀焗蟹蓋) - lots of onions to add some crunchy texture, with fresh, sweet crab meat. Delicious as usual.

Deep-fried salt-and-pepper short ribs (椒鹽排骨) - I didn't get around to having this, because our host sent it back complaining about the lack of fat...

Pea sprouts blanched in ham broth (上湯浸豆苗) - one can never go wrong with this...especially when in season.

Claypot rice with preserved meats (腊味飯煲) - we asked for a 2:1 ratio between the liver and preserved sausages (潤腸，腊腸), the usual preserved meat (腊肉), and the wonderfully tasty duck (油鴨). This was a really nice way to wrap up the meal, although all the rice crispies (飯焦) were gobbled up by one person...

I finished with a bowl of almond cream (杏仁露), which was fragrant yet not too sweet.

original blogpost with note on wine: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2008/12/lafleur-vertical.html

It's senior's treat and we ordered a variety of dim sums and other dishes including sauteed chicken with veggies in Kam Wah ham sauces, braised to fu, 竺笙上素, 生磨杏仁茶etc.

Not sure if it had anything to do with whom u were eating with, I did not consider the dining experience a great one. Food was of reasonable standard, so were the services. Yet apparently the staff was well trained and in this respect, higher scores should be accorded.

A plethora of nice cars outside the restaurant, two black BMWs, one porsche, one golden Mercedes Benz, you name it. If you are observant enough, you may even spot celebrities, important figures and their body guards around.

The new decor is quite impressive but in my view it fails to match that say in Peking Restaurant (both Central & TKS shops).

HSBC platinum / premier card, or BEA platinum card gives a 10% discount.

I have been to this place over 20 times so I am familiar with virtually their entire management and more importantly, menu. (I even knew their previous 'look' before they renovated with all the marble walls)

First, management/service. They can be very prejudiced, mainly depending on who they serve. Although they can be ingratiating, this does not mean genuinely great service. However, the place is decently hygenic (providing you don't look into their kitchen). Their renovation works can create an unplesant atmosphere for consuming food.

Secondly, their food. Their speciality is in the most expensive foods available - abalone ('bau yue') and shark's fin ('tsee'). Their roast pig ('yue jue') can be fantastic or can be unacceptable. Their rest of the menu again varies, depending on whether the head chef is working.

Thirdly, environment. Good - attempting to look 'high-class' - but not absolutely fantastic. The worst part is just outside the restaurant - although they do offer a parking service. The best part is that they have a sitting lounge on the ground floor with a TV - where nobody eats, by the way. Everyone has to take a lift (elevator) up at least one floor.

Overall, this place can either be fantastic or quite unacceptable for its price. Definitely not a place for the poor - the prices can be sky-high (and I'm talking 5-figures for a table of 12).

Overall: 6 to 9 out of 10 (depending on the day)