Cars, Food and the Ladies of Hong Kong & Macau: Hoi King Heen 海景軒 (II)

Friday, November 16, 2012

Hoi King Heen 海景軒 (II) - (Hong Kong)

Actually this is I believe my 4th visit to Hoi King Heen but sorry that I only managed to post 1 previous review about here (Hoi King Heen), one of my favourite Chinese restaurants. There are also other dishes that I like here so do ask me to dig up these dishes names if you need, as for this meal it was to celebrate the birthdays of 3 of our best girl foodie friends! We picked Hoi King Heen because Chef Leung always springs a surprise with his creativity! Eating here is like checking out a Contemporary Art Gallery..

Chef Leung -
He always radiates out a positive aura. His kitchen has won many local Food Competition awards,
and we got to order some of the kitchen’s latest dishes tonight..

Fried Carp Fish Balls 鳳城鯪魚球 -
These were strong in fish taste and springy, actually not many shops do this well nowadays except some local or Macau’s noodle shops. I thought this was easily the best one I’ve had. ~ 9/10

Freshwater Clams Condiment Sauce - 蜆介
There seems to be 2 varieties I encounter, one is salt-cured and alcohol fermented in taste. The version here was the fresher variety and also great. Loved it but thought it could have more alcohol influence too. Not too salty.

Prawn Toast 鮮明蝦窩貼 -
Not the China Town variety, the Cantonese versions usually have a whole deveined prawn fried with Yunnan ham and toast.   The texture of this was great and not oily, but majorly lacked real prawns taste.   ~ 5/10

Honey Glazed Eel 蜜汁燒河鰻 -
I think these were sliced up a little too thinly, and it didn’t had a caramelized glaze. Meat was also not as fat and springy in texture as it should be. I prefer the one at West Villa 西苑.   ~ 6/10

Roasted Pork Stuffed with Chinese Sausage 明爐臘腸卷 -
A Signature dish here and not available anywhere else.   This was still good but tonight seemed to be a little harder than usual. You can also order the specially ordered Liver Sausage version. ~ 7/10

Grouper Fish with Prawn Mince stuffed Mushroom, Broccoli and Egg Puree 龍皇白玉卷 -
The sauce is made from Crab Roe and Salted Egg Yolk.   An award winning dish and a must order every time. The taste varies slightly over time but this time it was perfectly balanced. The sauce had more egg yolk than crab roe taste but still we loved it the best.   ~ 10/10

Stuffed Pear with Beef Ribs 水晶牛肋肉 -
This was this year’s winning dish, but one of the birthday girls tried this during the competition and said the Korean Pear in use was now past the season and has changed to a more sour and harder pear casing.   But still the beef was flavourful and tender.   ~ 7/10

Gingko stuffed Date, 3 Layered Tofu, Tofu Pouch 福袋三味豆腐 -
This dish had people scratching their heads because it had 3 different components unrelated to one another and seemed purely for aesthetic reasons, and certainly tasted so. The date had no point to be there. The trio of Purple Sweet potato flavour, Pumpkin and Soy Tofu layers either had a funky note or didn’t taste like anything. Think it was topped with some undetectable truffle. The right Tofu Pouch was filled with a weak tofu and mushrooms filling. No one got it… ~ 3/10

Melon Balls filled with Preserved Olive Leaves & Pickles 欖菜玉珠 -
I have always thought this tasted too weak vs the name, but tonight changed my viewpoint. The external melon casing was still undercooked hard as usual, but the duo of fillings inside was rather smoky today. 欖菜 Preserved Olive Leaves is one of my favourite ingredients and you can eat it with anything from Chiu Chow congee to rice crackers. ~ 8/10

Orange and Rose Sauce on Fried Chicken 香橙玫瑰炸子雞 -
The fried chicken here always has a thin skin. The sauce? Apparently this is a new dish and others who have tried it previously think the rose was weak tonight. Otherwise enjoyable and moist. The fried Rose Petal on top surprisingly had no rose taste unlike as tasted on another Rose Petal Smoked Scallops dish, another signature here. ~ 6.9/10

Pan Fried Glutinous Rice Dumpling 狀元茶粿 -
Filled with Peanuts, Pork mince, Pickled Radish, this is considered the best version in Hong Kong and they are not joking!! This used to be a half-savoury and half-sweet dish but I think they changed the recipe to become more towards the savoury side which suits me, it’s still always served at the end of the meal as a bridging course before dessert.. Yummy! ~ 12/10

Duo of Sticky Rice 鴛鴦糯米飯 -
The name sounds simple but the recipe is very complicated. The bottom pan fried white sticky & red rice is filled with salted egg yolk and preserved sausages. The above is coated in taro before frying. The sauce is made from Black Rice which is slightly sweet. Some people didn’t like the sweetness in the sauce and my last try was definitely more savoury, but at the end of the course it was ok. ~ 9/10

Osmanthus Jelly 桂花凍糕 -
桂花糕, 桂花凍, 桂花凍糕. We all asked whether it was the same thing. Not much flavours and set a bit hard as usual. ~ 5/10

Mango and Cream Roll with Desiccated Coconut 芒果奶皇卷 -
Surprisingly very flavourful with fresh mango. ~ 9/10

Egg White and Almond Tea cooked A La Carte 生磨蛋白杏仁茶 -
This previously was either too sweet or lumpy. Tonight lo and behold was very smooth and the almond essence taste was just right and not fakish like other places. ~ 10/10

Hope the Girls had a Blast at this Birthday Dinner !!
We bought cakes from Intercontinental Hotel and Yamagawa Patisserie.
Both were quite decent !!