Warning: “popular” used in the title does not necessarily mean good. It just means that this is a place that is usually crowded. There are even people queuing on weekends, but I personally do not get it. I ended up at Dim Sum Square a couple of times mostly because I did not have much time before going to the airport.
The visit
Contrary to what you may find on some websites, the entrance is not on Hiller Street (perhaps the official address), but on Jervois street.
Even on a weekend during the protests of 2019, the place was pretty crowded. But no line. I could see a lot of tourists in the crowd.
Ordering was pretty easy thanks to a bilingual menu.
I had their siu mai with crab roe. It was just ok. It did not taste particularly fresh even if it was supposed to be steamed on order (and do not get me wrong, I am sure it was, just the result was not remarkable).
The rice rolls with mixed vegetables were ok.
I tried something different, a osmanthus flower coconut milk cake. It was basically a jelly cake. It was interesting.
The “lava buns” with creamy custard were difficult to eat, with the filling that was too hot.
The check
I spent 100 HKD (12.75 USD). Tea, as usual, was included, but there was a small cover charge (4 HKD). For what I got, it was actually not cheap.
The dishes were not bad, but just regular. I think a random cafeteria could do the same. I really do not understand all the rave reviews, unless they are coming from clueless tourists. I do not know, maybe I was put off by the touristy environment. but I found this place just average.
Dim Sum in Hong Kong can range from modern refined luxurious venues with waiters in white gloves and where people speak softly for no apparent reason to noisy diners where you will most likely end up sharing the table with strangers and where you will need to compete with other guests to grab the latest dishes flying out from the kitchen. Sun Hing falls into the latter category. An authentic experience that was recommended to me by a local friend.
The visit
Sun Hing is located in the Western district. It is the store with the pinkish sign in the photo above. It is a couple of blocks down Kennedy Town metro station and further down do not miss the view of the harbor. As most of these traditional dim sum joints, it is open from the early morning to just after lunch time (in this case, to be precise, from 3am to 4pm). At peak lunch time (noon to one) a queue is quite normal.
I arrived before noon and I did not have to wait long. I was seated in a table near the entrance that I would soon share with two unrelated senior citizens. The staff helped me to wash the bowl and cutlery with hot tea, a tradition in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
They have a bilingual menu, but only on the wall… it can be a good idea to take a picture and use it to point what you want to order, just in case your Cantonese is rusty.
Honestly I am not sure how I got my dishes… it was mix of pointing, nodding, and smiling. The best is to just look at what is coming out from the kitchen and go for the freshest dishes available. A number of dim sum baskets are always available in a corner of the cramped and lively dining room.
My first dish was a selection of their fried dim sum. They were delicious. The best was the fried milk dim sum, absolutely sensational.
I had to have a second one.
The classic suo mai was solid.
The other classic, the shrimp dumplings (har gar) were rich and almost transparent, which is a good sign.
The big dumplings with minced meat were one of the signature dim sum dishes of the store. If not mistaken I had one with pork meat.
The check
It is just a pity that I could not taste more dishes. But what I had was filling, fresh, and tasty. I did not mind the noisy surrounding. The staff was friendly and compassionate with the only foreigner in the shop. A very nice experience.
The mysterious check indicated just around 10 USD. A steal.
For a more relaxed experience you can also consider my other favorite old school dim sum in Hong Kong, Three Minus One Restaurant. However Sun Hing should not be missed.
Where in Hong Kong: Shop C, G/F, 8 Smithfield Road, Kennedy Town, Western District.
I rarely enjoyed a dim sum meal like this. And it was not in a luxury location like Mott 32, the Swan Hotel, or Yi Long Court. It was an old-school dim sum joint in West Hong Kong with a quirky name: Three Minus One (Saam Hui Yaat 叁去壹點心粉麵飯). A friend explained me the story. Initially the restaurant was planned to have three owners, then one stepped down and the name was adopted.
The visit
The storefront with a sing using only Chinese characters.
The owner let me take a picture. He was a very friendly individual Luckily they had an English menu, so ordering was not an issue.
The classic shrimp dumplings were full of meat and super fresh.
The Chiu Chow (or Teochew) dumplings came with a perfect crystal skin and I could taste the aromas of the different herbs used. It is a vegetarian dim sum from a cuisine distinct from the classic Cantonese dim sum.
I am not usually a fun of these big steamed dumplings, but I enjoyed this one with a chicken filling.
Finally I had a pair of tasty meatballs.
The check
In total I spent 76 HKD (around 10 USD) including a pot of tea. It was a hearty and satisfactory breakfast. All the food tasted very fresh and was coming straight from the steamers. If you read this review and are visiting Hong Kong, send me a thank you for sharing this little gem.
Where in Hong Kong: 11 Pok Fu Lam Road, Western District. In Chinese: 西環薄扶林道11號.
Imperial Treasure is a chain of Chinese restaurants hailing from Singapore operating several formats: Fine Chinese Cuisine, Teochew Cuisine, Peking Duck, Shanghai Cuisine, Steamboat. The first restaurant specializing in Teochew Cuisine was established in 2004 in Singapore and the Shanghai restaurant that I visited was their first international location opened in 2012. It is a Cantonese restaurant and for some reason has two Michelin stars. They seem to do good business in Shanghai as they just opened another location using the Steamboat concept. You might encounter them also in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Incheon, and London.
The visit
I went for a brunch on a Saturday. I made a reservation on the phone. The restaurant is huge and occupies an entire floor of YiFeng Galleria near the Bund (across the street from the Peninsula Hotel).
At 11am the place was already packed. It must be their busiest time of the week. It is really a local favorite. For lunch they have a special dim sum menu, but also the standard menu with more delicacies is available.
I started with my bellwether dish for Cantonese restaurants: the crispy pork belly. It was exceptional! On par with Ji Ping Court, better than the one from Lei Garden (the skin was tender, but still super crispy) and juicer than the one I had at Canton 8.
I had their Teochew dumpling, that has a vegetarian filling. I had better ones in Hong Kong.
Their super classic pork dumpling siew mai was also ok, but nothing exceptional.
The fried wonton with shrimp meat were quite good.
The pan-fried carrot cake with Chinese sausage was also pretty ordinary.
Finally, I found excellent their black sesame glutinous dumplings wit grated peanut. The sesame paste filling was particularly tasty.
The check
Final check (also including a bottle of Evian water and a juice) went for 377 RMB (around 52 USD). The value is there, prices were quite reasonable and the setting was high class.
Do not get me wrong, the food was very good, but the two Michelin stars will remain a mystery to me (same with Canton 8… looks like in Shanghai they give you stars if you make a half decent dim sum).
Having visited all the Michelin-starred restaurants in Shanghai with a sizable dim sum menu, I will say that Seventh Son beats all for quality while Yi Long Court has the best luxury dim sum.
Where in Shanghai: L402-403, Yi Feng Gallery, 99 Beijing Dong Lu.
To complete my Michelin challenge, I visited again Lei Garden in Shanghai, this time the branch in IAPM mall that was awarded a star in the 2019 edition of the Shanghai Michelin Guide. (You can read a more extensive review of Lei Garden in Shanghai from my visit at the IFC location.)
The visit
I went to Lei Garden (IAPM) on a Saturday evening. It was a quiet night, not much business in the restaurants. Without a reservation, the receptionist found a table for me instantly.
The restaurant is a bit smaller than the one at IFC Pudong. The main dining room is decorated with an dome resembling a tree embracing the whole room and a piece of rock art.
The table was decorated with a not perfectly achieved swan-shaped napkin.
I ordered the crispy roasted pork that was sold out in my previous visit. I liked it, but the skin was a little too hard.
Then I had their braised chicken with clack bean and shallot (plus some ginger, garlic, and capsicum). It was quite good, the chicken pieces were reasonably meaty. It was a large portion (250 grams of chicken according to the menu).
As a side dish, I had pickled mushrooms in a vinaigrette sauce. Quite forgettable.
The check
The relatively light dinner cost me 359 RMB (52 USD).
With this meal I think I am done with Lei Garden. During my two visits I did not experience any dish that would motivate me to come back, even if it is an impeccable restaurant in terms of service and food quality.
Where in Shanghai: IAPM Mall, 4/F, 999 Huaihai Zhong Lu (Middle Road) In Chinese: 淮海中路999号4楼. Nearest metro station: South Shaanxi Road.
Yi Long Court is the main Chinese restaurant of the Peninsula Hotel in Shanghai. It has two stars in the 2019 edition of the Shanghai Michelin Guide (and one in the 2020 edition). It is run by a veteran: Hong Kong-born Michelin-starred executive chef Tang Chi Keng opened this restaurant in 2011 before moving on to Hei Fung Terrace at The Peninsula Tokyo, and LiLi at The Peninsula Paris. Then in 2016 he returned and he has been at the helm since then.
A small tip: enter the Peninsula from the entrance on the Bund (precisely Zhongshan East Road). The restaurant is on the second floor.
The visit
I dined at Yi Long Court on a Saturday. I did not have a reservation and the restaurant was almost empty.
The main dining room was impeccably appointed and exuded understated elegance as you might expect from a Peninsula hotel. From the windows you can see Zhongshan road and some of Pudong’s skyscrapers at a distance.
I ordered the chef’s seasonal set menu reinforced by two dim sum dishes. The first was a trio of vegetarian steamed dumplings with mushrooms and truffles. The truffle flavor was quite distinct. Delicious.
The other dim sum was scallop dumplings with caviar. The caviar was probably unnecessary, but the scallops were meaty and tasty.
Then the first dish of the set menu arrived and it featured more dim sum items alongside two barbecued meats: glazed pork and chicken, a delicious spring roll with shrimps, and a classic shrimp dumpling.
At this point I also got the house spicy sauces: one based on tomatoes and one based on fish. Both only lightly spicy.
Finally I received a complimentary snack: sugar-coated walnuts. These were particularly addictive.
Then I was served a soup: the broth was based on dried scallops (conpoy) with shredded sea cucumber. The soup had a creamy texture and was enjoyable.
The next dish featured a wok-fried king prawn (yes, it was really big) with some scallops and vegetables. Perfect dish.
Next was braised minced pork with bean curd and hot chili sauce (known as mapo tofu). This dish marked a departure from Cantonese classics, introducing a Sichuan dish. The meat had a very good taste. It was a big dish to the point to be difficult to finish and markedly hot.
While I was still working my way through the mapo tofu I was served the last dish before the dessert, a bowl of Yangzhou fried-rice, particularly generous with shrimp. This is a simple dish but it was perfectly executed and cannot remember a better specimen anywhere else. It helped in finishing the mapo tofu (it would have been good to have the two dishes together since the beginning).
The last dish was a chilled mango pudding (with an almond cookie). I am not a big fan of mango, but this pudding was excellent (and also a big portion).
The check
Total check was 756.73 RMB (or 111 USD). The set menu alone was less than 500 RMB, the rest was an expensive bottle of water and the two dim sum dishes. The dim sum menu that I believe is available only for lunch has excellent value.
Overall I enjoyed the lunch very much and I was particularly impressed by the dim sum dishes. Thinking about the Michelin Guide, this restaurant is way above other Cantonese restaurants that I have visited so far in Shanghai, including Canton 8 (two stars as well), Lei Garden, or Seventh Son.
Where in Shanghai: 2/F, Peninsula Hotel Shanghai, 32 Zhongshan East 1st Road, Huangpu District Booking and menu on the hotel website.
As part of the Shanghai Michelin Guide Scramble, I headed off-the-beaten path to try Canton 8 in Runan street. The restaurant is located in an interesting part of town full of creative industry companies. Modern cafes share the space with traditional Chinese restaurants.
The visit
I went on a weekday without a reservation. I was a bit worried by a review posted by The Shanghai Kid that claimed to have waiting for one hour and half (but it was a weekend). No problem, I arrived at around 11.30 and I was offered a table on the spot. But the restaurant got busy quickly.
The dining room is not enormous (not a Chinese banquet room) and decorated with modern taste.
They had an interesting tasting menu for 500 RMB, but I preferred hand picking my dishes. At lunch, dim sum items are available.
I had the chef’s soup of the day: it was a relatively thick stock with pieces of winter melon, duck meat, and pearl barley.
In a Cantonese restaurant I usually order crispy roast pork. This was good, with the skin not too crispy making it a very tender bite.
The two classics, har gar (shrimp dumpling) and siu mai (marinated minced pork meat dumpling with crab roe) were ok, as many other I ate.
I also tried one of their “delicacies”: a Boston lobster claw in shrimp paste. It was a nicely presented dish, illustrative of their extended menu that is not just dim sum.
Finally I had the Hong Kong style pork “pineapple” buns (no pineapple used of course). The baking was perfect.
Finally I had a almond creamy soup as a dessert.
In the Shanghai Kid’s review that I mentioned service was bashed harshly. Service during my visit was impeccable. One member of staff did speak English and was particularly nice, to the point to ask if I needed fork and knife (me, the poor Westerner!) or a taxi at the end. That’s above and beyond most restaurants in Shanghai.
The check
This substantial lunch cost me 280 RMB (41 USD). Someone says that Canton 8 hold the controversial record of cheapest two star Michelin restaurant. Maybe. But it is not very important.
The dim sum was good (but not extraordinary) and the menu also sports many delicacies that could make an interesting dinner. The rating of the Michelin Guide defies logic, but I would have no problem recommending the restaurant for Cantonese food in Shanghai.
Where in Shanghai: 63 Runan Street In Chinese: 汝南街63号 Tip: there is a branch of Canton 8 in a more central location on the Bund.
The White Swan hotel is a 28-story luxury hotel overlooking the Pearl River. Opened in 1983, it is Guangzhou’s first truly five star hotel and in 2015 a massive renovation was completed. It is also a culinary destination in Guangzhou as it features a number of high-end restaurants including a Michelin-starred venue.
They even have a waterfall in the lobby.
The visit
In late January 2019, along with three friends I had a Sunday dim sum in the Hongtu Hall restaurant, the largest dining venue in the hotel overlooking the river. On weekends, they serve the same dim sum menu also in the Jade River restaurant located upstairs (it is the Michelin-starred one).
Dim sum is super popular in Guangzhou and Sunday morning is the busiest time for dim sum. We were handed our tickets and waited around half an hour to get a table in the busy dining room. Number progression was shown on a screen.
With a touch of class, the tea was professionally poured by a waitress.
Various dim sum dishes soon began to reach the table. One of the first was stewed chicken feet. It is an extremely popular dish, but I had to give a pass. I yet have to become acquainted with chicken feet, even if they seem to enjoy a great deal of popularity everywhere in East and South East Asia.
Then we had an excellent crispy egg tart (on the left) and a crispy crumbling pastry called sachima (on the right). This type of pastry originated in North East China and is now popular nationwide. It is made of fluffy strands of fried batter bound together with a stiff sugar syrup, but the result is not too sweet. It was the first time I had it.
Turnip cake. Always nice.
Classic shrimp dumplings. Very tasty.
Baked pork buns with minced pork. This dish had a delicately sweet backtaste.
Steamed rice flour.
The swan-shaped dim sum was a pastry filled with chestnut paste.
A very special dish that we shared was a portion of sun flower chicken. The chicken was served cold and what is special is that it is a chicken mainly fed with sun flower seeds. It is difficult to describe, but there is indeed something special about this chicken meat. Only drawback was that there was not a lot of meat.
The check
Total check was 1154 RMB (or 172 USD). That was 43 USD per person. This can be regarded as expensive for dim sum, but considering the five star venue the final price seemed quite acceptable.
All the dishes were excellent, I could rank them as one of the best dim sum I ever had. The menu is very extensive, so it is a very good idea to go as a party to enjoy more variety.
Mott 32 in Hong Kong was recommended to me by a friend. He usually makes great recommendations. And this was another home run.
Without his recommendation, I would have probably skipped this restaurant as it is part of a group and sounded too pretentious. And the name is just confusing: it is supposedly the address of the first Chinese-owned convenience store in New York. But why this name if the company is from Hong Kong? Ok, to honor the emigrants that showed the kind of business acumen that will make Hong Kong great… but it seems a very loose connection. And that “originated 1891” in the logo is totally misleading… the restaurant opened in Hong Kong in 2014.
The company that started Mott 32 in Hong Kong has successfully opened branches in Las Vegas, New York and Vancouver (and there is one coming soon in Bangkok at the time of writing… they seem to be on a roll) so it has become an international brand.
The visit
The restaurant is located in the basement of the Standard Chartered Bank building in Central.
You need to climb the stairs and enter the bank building.
On the left inside you will find the reception of the restaurant (probably the guy in the picture will have finished to look at his phone by then). You will need to take an escalator down and…
…descend an additional spiral staircase. You are in the bedrock of Hong Kong!
Someones says that the dining room used to be a vault, others say that it used to be a more mundane storage room. Either way, the environment is remarkable: the main dining room has high ceiling and a octagonal shape. Here and there references to New York City as the name would suggest.
They have a very extensive menu of Cantonese dishes prepared with fancy ingredients. Their signature dishes are the Applewood smoked Peking duck (advance order necessary, 825 HKD) and the honey glazed pork, which I did not have, but everything I ordered was extremely good.
Both the dim sum menu and the full menu were available.
I was there at noon, the room got filled pretty quickly. I had a reservation made by email and the process was painless. No deposit or other nonsense required.
Their choice for still water.
My first dish was crispy roasted pork belly. Man, I like this dish and this was perfectly executed. Every bite was succulent and crispy at the same time. I did not feel the need to use the accompanying mustard.
Then I ventured in some dim sum dishes. The first was a turnip cake with a lightly spicy chili sauce. The turnip cake is a vastly underrated dim sum dish, this was excellent with and without the sauce.
Then there was some theatrics with the lobster Har Gow. This was a huge dumpling that came with a sinister eyedropper containing lobster oil to be used to add the oil as one would see fit.
The next dish perfectly illustrates Mott’s philosophy. Take a Cantonese classic and re-engineer it with fashionable Western ingredients. This siu mai was filled not with the regular run-of-the-mill pork, but with iberico pork (speaking of being fashionable), but also with a soft quail egg and with black truffle. The combination of the three was really good; an effective transformation.
My main dish was the smoked black cod. For a moment a thought to be at the Ultraviolet table as the dish was served covered to leave the smoke (cigar?) lingering around. The sauce was not too sweet and helped stressing the cod’s flavor.
I did not find anything attractive in the dessert list.
The check
Total check was 869 HKD (110 USD) that places Mott 32 in the blog’s category of the luxury dining establishments. A place for bankers, even if most of the customers on the day of my visit looked like tourists from Mainland China particularly interested in the instagrammable properties of the food.
I am not sure what an expert in Cantonese cuisine would have to say, but for a Western palate like mine Mott 32 did a good job in re-creating Cantonese classics with the use of internationally-acclaimed ingredients. Is it worth the hefty price? Well, that’s debatable, but I can think of worse places where to spend this kind of money for a lunch or dinner in Hong Kong.
Where in Hong Kong: 4-4A Des Voeux Road Central, Central. Check the website for menus and reservation.
Lei Garden is a Hong Kong based restaurant chain. Established in 1973, the brand has become synonymous of Cantonese fine dining in Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland China and Singapore. Their restaurant are regularly awarded stars by the Asian editions of the Michelin Guide. In Shanghai they have two branches and both of them were awarded one star in the 2019 edition of the Shanghai Michelin Guide. This review is based on a visit to the IFC branch in Pudong and part of my Shanghai Michelin Guide Scramble. (IFC is a luxury mall in Shanghai.)
Before delving into the review, it is worth noting the story of the founder, from their website:
Mr. Chan Shu Kit, founder and chairman of the Lei Garden Restaurant Group, was born in Guangzhou, China. His father was the famous Kuomintang military general Mr. Chan Ji Tang, who governed the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces of China in the 1930s… When Mr. S.K. Chan was young, his family residence was frequented by social dignitaries and he had the rare opportunity to taste the exquisite cuisines prepared by master chefs. These experiences have engendered in him a refined sense for gourmet food and a cultivated knowledge for what it means to be served.
The visit
I had made a phone reservation for a Saturday evening. They tried to reach me for a confirmation in the morning (but the caller did not speak English). Anyway, they had my reservation when I arrived. Thanks. By the way, all the service was impeccable.
One good thing of Lei Garden is that they are organized to cater to solo diners or couples. They have small tables and not all of their dishes come in huge platters to share.
Unfortunately most of the dishes I was interested in (crispy pork, prawns, a type of scallop) were already sold out (but it was only 7pm!).
I ordered some aged pur’er tea that was replenished throughout the dinner.
Then I decided to have a little splurge and try a bird’s nest soup. I believe it was the first time I tried it. It tasted as glass noodles (the bird’s nest is the jelly-like substance on top of the soup pictured above). I do not think I am going to have it again. This particular soup came with 50 grams of bird’s nest (quantities are indicated in the menu), some small bits of crab meat, minced chicken and egg white.
Then I had a dish with sauteed scallops and vegetables (the vegetables included yellow fungi). This was quite good value considering that there were at least 8 scallops (150 grams) and it also tasted good, but nothing exceptional.
Finally I had a noodle soup with rice vermicelli and some pieces of grouper fish. It was quite good.
The check
Final check was 840 CNY (122 USD). Not a cheap meal by any stretch of the imagination. It should be mentioned that almost half of the bill paid for the bird’s nest extravaganza. So you can definitely eat for a little less, but not that much considering the quantity of attractive and expensive dishes on the menu (a lot of expensive seafood).
I need to try more Cantonese restaurants before making up my mind about Lei Garden.
Where in Shanghai: IFC Pudong, 3/F, 8 Shiji Da Dao, near Lujiazui Huan Lu In Chinese: 世纪大道8号， 国金中心IFC商场3楼， 近陆家嘴环路 Nearest metro station: Lujiazui (one exit is connected directly to a lower level of the IFC mall).
