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| - Our family came here for dinner as a pre-Chinese New Year's celebration. Because of dietary restrictions on the part of some family members, we had elected to go with the "tasting menu" or the chef's choice, giving the chef a budget and the food constraints.
The end result was... well, A-OK.
The food constraints were that there were not to be any shellfish, to minimize foods prepared by deep-frying and low-sodium. Giving the chef a budget of $400 for 9 people, with these constraints was probably our mistake. Since we're cutting out one of the most expensive ingredients in Chinese cooking -- shellfish like lobster, crab, abalone -- I would have expected the chef to choose ingredients that are finer or of higher quality or just special in some way to substitute. Instead, he compensated by increasing the portion size. Hmm... it's just not the same.
To be fair, I didn't get a chance to review the menu before hand and thus, otherwise I would have raised this concern with the chef.
That being said, the food was generally pretty good, if a bit over-sized. One of the more impressive dishes was a fried chicken with a glutinous rice stuffing. The chef had basically de-boned a whole chicken, roasted it till it was perfectly done -- the chicken was moist and tender, but the skin crispy -- including the stuffing which was pearly white tender grains of rice.
Another favourite of ours was the duck braised with sour plum. A roasted duck was probably used since the skin was browned and flavourful. The sauce was rich, its sweetness offset by both the sour plums and pickled leeks, the latter adding an extra bit of kick of contrast. Very nice indeed.
Dessert was not the usual azuki dessert soup, but ginger milk curd, which was a nice change. All in all, not a bad experience.
Note that this review is based on ordering the chef's choice or tasting menu, which had to be booked in advanced. I haven't tried this restaurant's a la carte fare since its renovation about a year ago.
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