Sunday, March 30, 2014

Poon Choi - Plate Version

A friend of mine send me this photo after her recent Guangzhou tour.  I find it really interesting and would like to share it here.

I remember some years back I had an article about Poon Choi in Hong Kong.  This has become one of the most popular posts in this blog.  While many of you are interested in this traditional Hong Kong Cantonese cuisine, I'm sure you would find this Guangzhou Cantonese plate version of Poon Choi attractive.

While Poon Choi has everything served in a giant bowl, this plate version has everything served in a giant plate.  How giant?  My friend told me it was brought to the table by four people.  The dish was cooked to the number of people, so this plate is good for 10 people. 

Poon Choi - Plate Version
 (photo taken from Guangzhou)

I've counted there were 11 courses, namely

  1. shrimps
  2. scallops
  3. mini abalone
  4. clams
  5. a whole fish
  6. lotus
  7. taro
  8. green beans
  9. roast chicken
  10. roast duck
  11. stir fried noodle

I didn't tasted it, so I had no idea about how delicious it was.  But the presentation was really magnificent!  If I were to comment, I would love to have more greens.  As counting in the stir fried noodle, there were only 4 non-meat items, may need a better balance between meat and vegetables.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Yat Tung Heen Dim Sum

I earn some interest lately, time to enjoy a relatively luxury dim sum lunch.  Yat Tung Heen is a member of the Eaton Hotel and it has a restaurant at Great Eagle Centre in Wanchai. So I took my sister there today for a lunch.  The place was reasonably nice, not too crowded or noisy like many other dim sum restaurants in Wanchai.  However the price is quite expensive.  There are many things in life that quality not associated with money.  Today's lunch is an example.  I can't say it's bad, but there are rooms for improvement in relation to the money they are charging.

Stir Fried Rice Roll  XO醬炒腸粉
Good, hot and delicious.  Presentation - nice.

Deep Fried Shrimp Spring Roll 蝦春卷
Very crispy, hot and delicious.  Presentation - nice.

Prawn Dumpling 蝦餃
Freshly steamed, fresh prawns.  Nicely presented.

Deep Fried Tofu with Salt and Pepper 椒鹽豆付
Nice and delicious, crunchy outside and soft inside.

Deep Fried Stuffed Eggplant with Garlic and Pepper 避風塘茄子
Quite nice, although I prefer it to be in the size of the mini tofu.  I must say it is quite a specialty, as I didn't find this same dish elsewhere.

Pan Fried Waygu Guotie (dumpling) 和牛鍋貼
This is absolutely below par.  When it arrived, it was like 4 messy lumps of something splashing over the plate.  I had to re-arrange it in a relatively tidy manner in order to take this photo.  Waygu?  No way.  Can't taste or smell anything beef like, although there were some minced meat inside that was kind of beef-look.

They served a pot of tea and a pot of water.  Water was served over a little stove to keep warm.  Even so, the tea was below any comfortable temperature for drinking.  Regardless we requested to refill with boil water, there were no improvement.  After all we found that the tea leaves were put inside kind of a bag inside the tea pot, hence the Pu'er tea we had didn't offer the real fragrance of it. Tea drinking is an important part of any dim sum lunch.  Poor tea definitely spoil the meal.  

Total:  HK$333.9 (US$42.8) (for two persons, inclusive of 10% service charge and the tea/snack charge below)
Tea:  HK$18 per person
Snack: HK$22 per table

Yat Tung Heen
2/F Great Eagle Centre
Wanchai, Hong Kong