Dinner at Lung King Heen

11 Jan 2012:  Robert, our house guest, took us to dinner at Lung King Heen, the 3-Michelin starred restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel, HK.  As Robert was our host, we deferred to him for the choice of food.  As a lover of the fine cuisine and visitor from Australia, Robert came to the most logical conclusion - the tasting menu.....menu degustation that normally would allow you to experience the high quality culinary skills of the chef in a Western cuisine restaurant.  From memory, the tasting menu at Lung King Heen was:

Trio of barbecue pork, roast suckling pig and roast goose
Sweet and sour seafood soup - which I had changed to salt and pepper seasoned frog's legs as I thought sweet and sour soup would not work well with our wine
Lobster in a spicy sauce
Steamed garoupa and braised abalone slice in oyster sauce
Sautéed wagyu beef cubes with morel mushrooms and capsicum (I had the capsicum removed because of Robert's allergy)
Fried rice with scallops and vegetables - which I had changed to plain stir-fried noodles in soya sauce, as Richard is not a big fan of scallops
Ginger flavoured crème brûlée
Petits Fours

Mount Phoenix organic tea

This menu came with wine pairing which we didn't need as we had brought our own wine.

The meaty first course trio included some Cantonese classics and while they required great roasting skills to ensure juicy meat and in the case of the suckling pig, crispy skin, I could not see how this dish could be a fine demonstration of the creativity and culinary skills of the chef. 

Salt n pepper seasoned frog's legs

The salt and pepper seasoned frog's legs were quite yummy but again its production did not require much creativity. 

Lobster smothered in spicy sauce

The lobster dish didn't work so well for us - it was completely smothered in spicy sauce, that it was hard to taste any freshness in the lobster.  We all slept rather badly because of something not so agreeable and digestible in this dish, possibly the garlic and spice?

Abalone and garoupa in oyster sauce

The next dish was drowned in intensely flavoured oyster sauce, so much so that the sauce completely overpowered the not-so-tender garoupa and there was just too much sauce. 

The wagyu beef was tasty and well-executed but you could frankly have this dish in less prestigious institutions.

I liked the plain stir-fried noodles in soya sauce best - simple, tasty, not too oily, with the just right texture for the noodles - moist and not quite al dente!  But sigh!  This is a daily 'dai pai dong' staple, along with your plain congee and deep-fried dough stick!

The ginger-flavoured crème brûlée was tasty but it's a rather common local interpretation of the classic French dessert - seen in more than one restaurant in HK. By this time, we concluded that we had had a most ordinary Cantonese cuisine meal, with no highlights at all, rather disappoing for a restaurant with 3-star fame!  We were at least delighted with the superior quality of the organic Mount Phoenix tea, which was rather sublime, bitter sweet, elegant, lovely fine-textured tannic finish.  Marvellous!

Service was impeccable, but it was the food that really disappointed.  We probably should have gone for the a la carte, but anyone would have expected the tasting menu of a 3-Michelin restaurant to provide you with the opportunity to sample the culinary skills of the chef.....one that would leave you thinking that you had had a very refined dining experience...instead we felt that we had just had an ordinarily good Cantonese dinner, with no intention to return in a hurry (rather a relief because it's so difficult to get a table there nowwith its starry fame J)!  The restaurant may wish to rename the Tasting Menu as the Cantonese Classics Menu and have another menu that would be more representative of the quality of this institution.

We were quite pleased with the wines I took to dinner:

1992 Meursault-Perrières, Comtes Lafon: Golden with some amber highlights. An intensely rich and hugely complex bouquet rose from the glass, layered fig, guava, pear tart, brioche, and honeysuckle, with lashes of honey, nougat and liquorice.  Simply stunning and utterly fulfilling on the palate, a harmonious and totally integrated medium-full bodied wine, well-balanced and eleganty structured with firm and vibrant acidity.  I felt compelled to take time to allow the complex flavours to fill each part of the palate, with a finish that went on for a very long while.  Drink at peak now but will go on drinking well for at least 5 - 6+ years.  18.5/20

2007 Hospices de Beaune Corton Grand Cru Cuvée Docteur Peste, élevage by Jadot: Lovely ruby colour. A very pure nose of red fruit (cherry and raspberry), rose, nutmeg, cloves, developing into earthy, mushroom and tea leaves with time in the glass. Some well-integrated fine-textured tannin with not too much acidity. Classic, charming, expressive and well-structured given the vintage. Drink now and over next 10+ years. (I have become a big fan of 2007 vintage - the best, even the Grand Cru (with a bit of aeration), is drinking so well in youth, with so much more going for it! Very much underappreciated and misunderstood!) I still have a bottle of this and it will make interesting comparison with the same wine, but 'tended' by Faiveley (one of the barrels we bought for the 2007 vintage). 17.5/20

Suffice to say we're not in a hurry to go back to Lung King Heen.....another rather disappointing Chinese restaurant experience....next time we'd better go with someone who's well known to the restaurant to ensure a first class experience (not being a 'who's who' is a real handicap when it comes to these famous Chinese restaurants in HK - so what about the consistent quality that the Michelin guide values so much??!!!).