The roast goose was supposedly their signature but it didn't wow me at all. The skin had a slight crunch, the meat was succulent, it was presented in a pretty pipa shaped dish, but honestly I couldn't discern it from other roast goose I've had from lesser renowned restaurants.
This is definitely the most expensive oyster omelette I've had in my entire life. Unfortunately it was just so, SO oily, even divided between the 4 of us it felt really heavy. Despite the generous distribution of oysters there was nothing that justifies the $260 price tag, it's not like oyster omelettes are a super delicate and time consuming craft. Lesson learnt: don't bother to try a local delicacy that was already perfect in its own way at a fancy restaurant. You're better off finding a good one on Temple street.
Now this was disappointing. This portion is pitiful for it costs almost $1000, there was nothing remarkable about the seasoning and the way it was cooked, the lobster itself was fresh but it really is just a lobster stir fry with mushrooms and peppers.
The braised garoupa was nothing out of the ordinary, the garoupa was meaty but the portion felt a bit small. The clay pot was just decoration as it wasn't sizzling hot when it came to the table. Again, typical Chinese restaurant flavours.
Here comes one of the redeeming dishes of the night! The fish noodles were absolutely delicious, we were told that they were made from 3 different kinds of fish (though I can't really tell
), it had the same bouncy texture as fish balls, only in the form of noodles. The seasoning of the stir fry was great and the other components were subtle to let the noodles shine.We ordered 5 dishes for the 4 of us to begin with, thinking that it should be more than enough but the portion sizes turned out to be smaller than expected, so I ended up randomly picking something from the chef recommendations, I decided to go with red meat since we've already had seafood and poultry.
The menu described this dish as deep fried spicy beef with nuts and honey, in my head I had envisioned whole nuts tossed with the beef as commonly seen in Chinese dishes. So it took me by surprise when I noticed that the nuts were actually grounded and adhered to the beef with honey. The first bite was SUCH a pleasant surprise, from the crunchy coating of nuts to the sweetness of the honey, to the extremely well seasoned beef that was still juicy on the inside. The beef wasn't the tender kind, but I liked how there was a bite to it, it allowed me to savour the well balanced flavours and textures that were going on inside my mouth, I was almost tempted to order a beer to go with this dish!
I don't know what I was expecting from the mango mochi, I was just happy that they put a birthday sign without me having to remind them. But the "mochi" was actually a ball of cream with bits of mango inside. I guess it wasn't the kind with actual mochi and a large chunk of mango. We also ordered the mango sago and ginger milk curd, which took a really long time and the waiter assured me the ginger milk curd takes longer to make. The mango sago was average, and the ginger milk curd was not quite a curd,
I guess the chef sort of failed to make the curd happen. Nonetheless the curd had a nice and intense ginger flavour which I absolutely loved! If only the curd had been successful.Overall, service was topnotch, I always find that good service can make a bad meal somewhat tolerable. Not that this meal was bad by any means, but there was nothing that wowed me enough to warrant another visit. In my opinion the restaurant suffers from an identity crisis which is common to almost all western style Chinese restaurants, it isn't sure if it wants to be modern and hip, or really focus on the craft of Chinese cuisine.
Oh yes and the teapot was a major, major fail, it leaked water out the spout every time tea was being poured, the restaurant seems to be aware of this otherwise there wouldn't be a napkin and a plate underneath the teapot. No matter, soon the plate couldn't hold the water anymore and I was wary of tea landing on my phone/camera every time the waiters filled up our tea cups.
