Yung Kee @ Wellington Street, Hong Kong

First thing we did in Hong Kong (on a day trip from Macau), was to look for lunch. Someone suggested to eat roasted goose and I thought, "Yea, why not."

My friend led us towards Lan Kwai Fong and this restaurant is easily recognisable from across the street.

roasted goose, char siew~

entrance to the restaurant

a poet and goose?

certification

menu

maybe super rich customers sit near the dragons?

We took a lift to Level 3 and was promptly shown our table. It was about 12pm and there were many unoccupied ones. Probably still early.

We were served century eggs with ginger soon after we arrived. The waitress said it is a specialty in their restaurant. Nobody in my group said anything, so we just accepted it. I reckoned its like being served peanuts in Chinese restaurants, ie. chargeable.

century eggs with ginger

I like 'pei dan' or century eggs. So this dish was enjoyable. First time having smooth and soft center for century eggs. Their version of century eggs here do not have the usual pungent taste. It was actually nice!

yummy yolk~

My table is a bunch of budget conscious tourists (after all, we flew by budget airline....), so we ordered just two dishes; meat platter and vegetables, and a pot of tea and a round of white rice.

pot of Pu-er + chrysanthemum but why is the English wordings called "Pu Li"? No idea man.. 

vegetable with oyster sauce (choi dam in Cantonese)

soft and crunchy stems

meat platter with various sauces (attentively placed near its matching meats by the waiter)

ta-dah! Roasted goose!

pork slices

char siew

jellyfish

The jellyfish was actually quite bland tasting. Char siew was nice and soft although not charred. The roasted chicken was not as tender as the char siew. The pork slices was nicely refreshing when dipped in the vinegar sauce. The roasted goose, well... I guessed the good stuff comes from its oil? There's a layer of fats underneath its skin that oozes flavours when bitten into. Goes well with rice. Otherwise, its meat was kind of tough and reminds me of duck meat.

roasted chicken on steamed rice

condiments for roasted chicken was simply oil, ginger and spring onions equals to yums!

roasted goose

yummiest part of roasted goose was.. the skin?

Guess how much we racked up for this meal? A grand total of HKD918 for 5 pax! That is like SGD$30 per pax?! Whoa! After we paid, the bill only stated the total and not the individual charges for the dishes. But I remembered from their menu that the plate of vegetables costs HKD75, a bowl of white rice is HKD14 and the century eggs should set us back like HKD10 per head.

Service was efficient. We just need to lift the lid of our teapot and in less than a minute, someone would zoom in and remove our pot to refill the water.

I think we were pretty hungry and finished our meal in less than 40 minutes. On our way out, we saw many people waiting for their tables.

Wong Chi Kei @ Largo De Senado, Macau

This place has been written up by so many travellers, that I couldn't resist going in when happened to pass by during a recent trip to Macau. Located at the touristry Senado Square, this place looked pretty small and there was a small queue outside the restaurant on a Thursday night. Get a queue number and wait for someone to call. We were just slightly slower in responding (the lady called twice in a successive manner) and in return, we got "ngiam-ed" (probably can be translated to something like nagged at in a slightly sarcastic manner?) at.

outside of the restaurant, at about 8pm

Once inside, the place is separated into upper level, lower level and ground level. We were told to go to the lower level where there are probably about 5 tables. It was not fully occupied, so we got the entire table for 5 pax to ourselves.

table setting

hot Chinese tea, on the house

chili oil

Tried the 云吞虾仔捞面 (wanton shrimp eggs dry noodles). Think it was the priciest noodles at MOP42 (~ SGD7). There's another version of this without the wanton and it's called "虾仔捞面". There are other side dishes available, but we were not that hungry so did not order any.

the red bits are shrimp eggs

closer view of wanton and shrimp eggs

after mixing

whole prawns in wanton

The noodles were a tad too dry and too 'al-dente' for me. Would have preferred it to have more sauce. Saw a lady putting red vinegar (found on every table, along with pepper and chili oil) onto her noodles and I tried that too. Slightly better but only if you like sourish-sweet taste. Think the noodles needed another few seconds of cooking time.

There was not much taste from the shrimp eggs too. But it gave some contrasting texture. Imagine crunchy tiny bits of roe with the smooth wantons. Wantons were nice with whole prawns in it. Fresh but slightly salty. But overall, it is not something that I would crave for. So much so for novelty! Noticed that in Macau, the noodles are seldom served with vegetables. Maybe only a chopful of spring onions at most.

They serve chinese tea to all diners, on the house. Service is functional.

Sushi Tei @ Vivocity Part II

What do you think of, in summer? Breezy sunny day, with splashes of bright colours? I think of ayu fish because apparently Sushi Tei's summer menu features it. So off we went to Sushi Tei, in search of this fish that I've been wanting to try since Japan Hour days.

As usual, one need to wait to be seated during lunch hour at Sushi Tei Vivocity. The big menu displayed at its entrance listed out aji, unagi, sakura ebi and ayu fish as their featured items for the summer. Can't wait. Or so I thought.

We were seated at the corner of the restaurant where one can see the waters. Not bad. A seat with a view.

summer promotion menu

view from our seats

After a few minutes of deliberation, we were ready to order. Ordered the grilled ayu shioyaki and imagine the surprise when the waitress just shot back, "Not available." I must've worn quite a crestfallen look on my face and my colleague was quite symphatetique. "Next time better call the outlet before coming..." There was no where on its online menu, nor the printed menu nor the entrance menu that stated the inavailability of this item. Appalling, indeed.

With half the mood gone, I ordered the sakura ebi kakiage (@$6.80++), yaizu sushi set and my colleague ordered a garlic fried rice and salmon temaki.

sakura ebi kakiage with salt

tiny black dots for the eyes

a little too much flour?

The sakura ebi kakiage were pretty to look at. A bit tiny. And the waitress said, "Eat it with the salt." Ok. So I did. Tasted a little too floury, hence the ebi taste was quite muted. The salt did little to bring out the flavours. Maybe, they should use sea-salt or flavoured salt like matcha or ume.

salmon handroll

garlic fried rice

The garlic fried rice was tasty, served piping hot and it came with small chicken pieces. Nice, but my colleague preferred a more garlicky version.

yaizu set (@$16++)

My sushi set was colourful and it has uni sushi in it. Yay! First time I had it, they ran out of uni sushi, so it was replaced by chutoro. Nice. But it was always apprehensive to try uni because the first time I had it (elsewhere), it has a certain 'pong' taste to it.

uni sushi

The uni sushi here looked 'dryer' than the ones I had elsewhere. Maybe that's a good sign? Not plump nor juicy, but just smooth. No weird taste. In fact, it doesn't have much taste. Hmmmm.

The rest of the stuff were pretty run of the mill. But the ebi sushi that day tasted not as fresh. Maybe I should've eaten that first rather than uni.

ebi

negitoro

This meal for two pax costs about $40+ in total, without using their wet towels (chargeable).

Before leaving the restaurant, I asked the waitress when will the ayu fish be available and was told, it would be available in August. I think it will be prudent to find out prior to visiting the restaurant, to avoid any surprises. Dear readers, feel free to tell me, if you ever get to taste the ever elusive ayu (at least for my case) whether it is nice.

Crystal Jade @ Toa Payoh

Was there for lunch. The place was bustling and we had to wait about 10 minutes to get a seat. This place has live seafood. Cool!

live seafood tank

After a while, we got our seats. Expect to sit near other patrons during lunch hour.

dim sum menu

We ordered flowy custard bun (my must order item in all places that serves it), mixed part porridge, roasted duck (my colleague insisted on having this!) and cheong fun with spicy shrimp paste. You will need to exercise a certain amount of patience while eating here. The service staff looked quite harrassed, and patrons were waiting for their dishes to arrive.

porridge

The porridge was smooth and can't see a single grain of rice in it. It has intestine, liver, meatballs and stomach and ironically, each ingredients came in pairs so, just nice for sharing amongst two pax? Hahaa.

roasted duck

crispy skin roasted duck

The roasted duck came with bones. I found that to be quite a hassle. It has nice crispy skin but I found the seasoning a tad too salty. Good to eat with the porridge though.

I was surprised to see a cheong fun that doesn't look like the usual cheong fun. I thought it was carrot cake instead.

cheong fun in disguise?

But the cheong fun was quite tasty. Nice and mildly spicy.

flowy custard bun

yummeh

The flowy custard bun here was nice orange coloured balls of goodness. But the fillings were too watery. Tasted good though.

This meal costs about $36 for two pax.

Graze @ 38 Martin Road

Located at 38 Martin Road, this restaurant is very near Robertson Walk. Went there to celebrate the July babies birthdays. Liked the restaurant for allowing us to bring our own cake for the celebration.

entrance

opening hours

outside of the restaurant

We were greeted at the door by the friendly service crew (dressed in cute restaurant uniform). Next we were asked if we would like sparkling or still water. Neither. Tap water will do. And yes, this restaurant do serve tap water. Another plus point.

The restaurant has a nice ambiance. Think candlelight dinner.

candlelight dinner

interior, directly facing our section

drinks coaster

menu

We ordered starters like wok seared calamari and chipolata and beef carpacio. For mains, we had lamb rump, sirloin steak, wagyu steak, salmon steak and seafood pasta. Noticed that the restaurant menu is different from its online menu. They were having a promotion for champagne where a bottle of veuve cliquot was going for $85++. So we had that as well.

complimentary bread

starters: beef carpacio (top) and wok seared calamari and chipolata (bottom)

We were served complimentary bread while waiting for our food to arrive. The bread was soft (at room temperature) and nice to eat with the tangy balsamic vinegar in olive oil. My friend commented that the beef carpacio here was one of the better ones that he had tried thus far. I liked the wok seared calamari as it was tender and nicely fragrant with the wok fire.

waiting for our champagne

cheers to the birthday girls

Noted that the food arrival was pretty slow paced. We had our mains 20 minutes after our starters.

seafood pasta

sirloin steak

salmon steak

lamb rump

I liked the seafood pasta. It has two good sized prawns, some clams and al-dente noodles. My friend commented that the noodles were a tad too dry.

The wagyu steak did not taste as tender as I envisioned. It has less fats marbling than I thought. Same for the sirloin steak. Chewy but not jaw-achingly so. Nicest part was the one with some fats. Liked the fries though. Served hot, with soft midpart. Pair it with tangy tartar with lemon. Yums!

Salmon steak was quite dry. I was disappointed with the lamb rump. The meat was a little too tough, and it was sitting atop of something foreign that I can't make out what it was. Did not like the taste too, unfortunately. The roasted cherry tomatoes were good though.

Service was commendable but unfortunately, expected more out of the food. The price is on the higher side. The restaurant online menu can be found here.