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2010-05-23
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One sometimes wonders if all Maxim's run Chinese restaurants have a bit of a Cantonese feel to them regardless of the respective cuisine. You could even tell their base stocks and sauces in each of their restaurants whether it be Cantonese, Northern Chinese, Hunan, etc, must somehow all taste simlar and probably transported here via trucks from a centralised location! Despite the pretty cutlery and Chinese porcelain dishes, there was no escaping this couldn't possibly be too authentic to
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辣青瓜豆腐乾
This is almost ubiquitously served in most Maxim's Chinese restaurants with very little twist. Having said that it was enjoyable as a starter. 3.5/5
湖南長沙豆酥銀雪魚
I like 豆酥 and I wanted to compare this to a vegetarian dish I'd had before. The cod fish was nicely cooked, on the verge of flakey but not over done, even a bit fatty! Good. The 豆酥 sauce was pretty good but it was not crunchy and too oily moist. Not perfect but enjoyable. 4/5
無錫灌湯小龍包
Again the name of this is hilarious, considering this wasn't a very good Xiao Loong Bao! The skin was slightly thickish, which I can live with, but the pork inside is what really disappoints as it lacks pork sweetness taste and was densely packed. There isn't much soup within either, but the very little there is inside was enjoyable I guess, tasting more like chicken feet stock than the authentic pork stock. 2.8/5
金華密汁火腿
Anyone who knows how to cook this dish will know that Yunnan Ham is to be poached and soaked in a honey-sugary solution first for many hours, before the ham's saltiness becomes reduced, yet the base sauce itself should absorb back some of the ham's unique flavours. Unfortunately, this performed far away from an idealised version. The ham was a bit tough for one. The honeyed sauce meanwhile lacks depth as it was cloying sweet and carried none of above mentioned, soaked yunnan ham flavour. Even the Lotus Seeds were too sugary, not powdery good but just plain hard crunchy! For a 2009 Michelin 1 Star dish, I am sorry to say, I could have cooked this dish better as its not hard to do. In actual fact, I've bought better Instant Versions in groceries in KLN! 2.5/5
四川樟茶鴨
Another disappointing dish. The flavour of Tea Smokiness was nowhere to be seen, and the duck's skin was chewy rather than crispy. A great version of this should carry tea smokiness and duck fat flavour penetrating right back into the bones, making one want to gnaw on them for the whole night from head to neck to bones to the tail. This was not good at all! At least the 鴨仔餅 were fluffy and sweet. Very disappointing rendition of this dish. 2.5/5
江南公子芙蓉醉仙蟹
Another funny name! This had a fair bit of unburnt chinese yellow wine intact, but its obviously not a very good aged yellow wine as it was just straight up alcohol pungent and layerless. This could have benefitted from burning off more of the alcohol first as it wrecked the overall balance or it could have done with a bit more chicken oil to cancel this effect. The version at 英記 in Sai Wan beats here with ease.. even though that's not famous there! The steamed watery-eggs were actually done well, but it didn't really absorb any 花蟹 crab sweetness flavours. Very forgettable dish. 2.5/5.
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There used to be a similar restaurant here in Hutchison House many years ago, probably a 戶江春 or named similar which we used to eat here like 15-20 years ago. So I think this is just an updated version of that by Maxim's? The Food is localised too much, it doesn't serve mostly Shanghainese cuisine either but is made up of a bit of everything Chinese to suit the general market. Nothing wrong with this approach provided the food is any good, unfortunately it isn't. I think Ye Shanghai close-by is equally a little bit modernised but at least that serves much more sophisticated food and one could tell from the cooking methods, the dishes at Ye Shanghai would have taken a lot more time to preparing the dishes! Not sure I would return here in a hurry.
TO LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, THIS RESTAURANT IS RELATIVELY AFFORDABLE COMPARED TO ITS SHANGHAINESE PEERS.
張貼
