Not just another dimsum lunch

I didn’t come to Lung King Heen for meals as often as I would like to, simply because there were way too many good Chinese restaurants around town than I had time to eat. But they do consistently delivered excellent dishes from a few times I was here over the years, including this one weekend afternoon recently when I met up with some foodie friends, joining them for their "quarterly meet-up" at the restaurant.

We didn’t order anything extraordinary, just a few dishes from their dimsum list followed by some in the a la carte menu plus desserts at the end. The baked barbecued pork buns were my favorite among the dimsum dishes we ordered. Nowadays almost every Cantonese restaurants in town offer this in some shapes and forms, but I reckon the one at Lung King Heen was the best in town, served in a soft warm bun with sweet and fluffy top, with pine nuts added to the charsiu filling adding to the texture. The abalone puff may have been their most-instagrammed dimsum dish, but I think the baked goose and chestnut puffs served in a buttery pastry shell with bonito flakes on top were just as good in taste, and more reasonably-priced.

We went for a couple meat dishes from the a la carte menu. I was amazed by their signature roast chicken which we ordered the half-portion, with the crispiest skin and juicy and tender meat. The fact that they deboned for us before serving was just icing on the cake. I never thought of Lung King Heen serving the most outstanding char siu dish, but the one we had was spot-on, with the right fat balance, and the firm meat texture. If there's any complaint, it would be for not having a charred crust like the way I wanted and the honey glaze was a tad bit too sweet for me. Our last savory dish was one called “Not the usual rice” as written in Chinese. Turned out it’s puntalette done a la Cantonese fried rice with minced beef and XO chili sauce. The use of this rice-shaped pasta gave the dish a more bouncy bite.

I personally think there's really nothing to write home about for the dessert of chilled mango and sago cream with pomelo, despite it’s one of the restaurant’s signature items and one on their menu since Day 1. It’s fine with mango pudding mixing with mango cream, sago and pomelo bits, but honestly nothing special. But the few sweet dimsum/pastries we ordered were delightful. We didn't know what to expect when we picked the baked fermented bean curd puffs with lotus seed paste, since I never thought fermented bean curd would work in a dessert, but turned out it worked well with the nutty taste of the lotus seed paste with just a slightest hint of that sweet savory flavor. The steamed cream custard dumplings were beautifully presented like a flower in the stainless steel basket (and was delicious), and so were the pair of petit fours – the osmanthus and wolfberry jelly, plus the mini sweet egg dough fritters.

Definitely good enough that we are already plotting of coming back for a re-visit comes next quarter – that’s about how often we managed to get a reservation at this ever-popular, always consistent restaurant.

More photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/g4gary/albums/72157682813727626

When? April 22 2017
Where? Lung King Heen, 6/F Four Seasons Hong Kong, 8 Finance Street, Central
Menu Highlights? Baked Barbecued Pork Buns with Pine Nuts
Web: www.fourseasons.com/hongkong/dining/restaurants/lung_king_heen/