Celebrity Cuisine....got the food spot on, but definitely not the wine service

9 Mar 2012: First time at Celebrity Cuisine, a 2-Michelin starred institution in Hong Kong, famous for its homecooking style cuisine. After all 4 of us had arrived, they brought round the famous amuse bouche of pan-fried signature turnip cake. The cake seemed rather fragile to the touch, very soft inside, packed with lots of thin strands of turnip, and a smattering of dried shrimp and Chinese sausage. Very well seasoned. It would be nicer if the exterior could be just a touch crispier, giving more contrast to the soft inside of the cake. A tasty dish, but too heavy as amuse-bouche.


Crispy chicken wings stuffed with bird's nest



First course was deep-fried chicken wings stuffed with birds nest (燕窩雞翼), a change from the usual chicken wings stuffed with sticky rice. This went rather well with the champagne. The zesty champagne cut through the very crispy chicken skin and the lean weight of the youthful champagne went rather well with the light bird's nest stuffing.  I couldn't see how the bird's nest complemented the taste of the chicken wing, but it was quite tasty still (the taste mainly from the chicken fat underneath the skin!).

Baked crabmeat in its shell

The baked crabmeat in its shell was also rather delicious (Richard liked it, not me), in a Chinese-style mornay sauce.The dish went nicely with the buttery and creamy Meursault Charmes.

Roasted/Grilled Wagyu Beef

The roasted (or grilled and roasted) Wagyu beef was absolutely gorgeous. The beautifully coral-pink beef had a nice balance of richness, beefy taste and texture, and avoided the rather buttery taste, that you get from rather fatty Japanese beef. The rich intense jus that was poured over the beef was sensational. Not entirely sure why it was served with wasabi and soya sauce, which was entirely not necessary.  The only criticism was that the beef came so suddenly without warning that the red wine hadn't even been poured.  By the time the red wine was poured, we had finished the beef already!

Then came a piping hot claypot of braised rehydrated oysters with spring onion and ginger (薑冲珍寶蠔). We would have preferred the oysters to appear before the beef, naturally.  It was tasty for me - I particularly liked the plump oysters, but I could understand that the intensely umami-flavoured dried oysters wouldn't have been everyone's cup of tea.   

The pièce de résistance was the deep-fried eight-treasure duck (八子全鴨). Definitely my favourite dish of the evening. Flavoursome and moist stuffing of barley, gingko nuts, duck egg yolk and whole chestnut, all soaking up the cooking jus and some melted duck egg yolk, well-packed into the succulent meat of the beautifully roasted duck. The whole assembly was deep-fried before serving, giving it an all-round crispy skin, but giving the impression of oiliness.  The meat jus oozed out of the duck while it was being 'cut up' with scissors (not 'carved').  Served with braised lettuce.   

Braised pork belly with preserved vegetable

The braised pork belly with preserved vegetable (梅菜扣肉) was Richard's favourite dish of the evening. Tenderly braised pork belly meat, ready to melt in the mouth, intensely seasoned with preserved vegetable and soya sauce. A great home-cooked dish, quite salty (expectedly), that would have gone rather well with plain steamed rice.
Finally, stir-fried glass noodles with crab meat (蟹肉炒粉絲). Loved it, not oily at all, with a nice al dente texture to the glass noodles. Very tasty,  lightly seasoned, just perfect.  Nicely presented. 

The complimentary dessert was almond cream with egg white (生磨蛋白杏仁茶).  This was the perfect dish to end the meal, so creamy, with a rich nutty flavour from the almonds, and egg white bits giving the dish a more interesting texture.  This would be my second best dish of the evening.
As for wines, we had the following:
2005 Léclapart L'Apôtre

Bright straw colour.  Citrus, lime peel, acacia, mineral, yeasty, autolytic, toasty, with a salty tang. Racy, with plenty of exhilarating acidity. Still rather youthful and lean, needing time to build out. Very long minerally finish.  Rather youthful, vibrant and taut, showing pure fruit, precise minerality and a very clean and crisp finish. Better in a white burgundy glass. Would be better with a couple more years of development in bottle. 17/20
1995 Roulot Meursault Charmes
Bright lemon colour.  Honey, smokey, nutty, lemon curd and butterscotch. Initially rather closed.  Gained weight and complexity after an hour. Some intensity but somewhat lacking in energy, not the most memorable finish. 16.5/20

1990 Lafleur
Medium garnet. Leather, truffle, mocha, rose petal pot pourri and Asian spice. Silky texture. Low-ish acidity. Much more evolved than 1989. Lovely smooth finish. Drink till 2025+. 18/20
1989 Lafleur
Ruby colour, with garnet rim.  Coffee, liquorice, chocolate, leather, blueberry, violet. Refreshing acidity. Firm structure, built for the long term. More energy than 1990. Fabulous wine. Drink till 2028+. 18.5/20

Richard thought the two Lafleurs demonstrated very well stylistic similarities and vintage differences.
All in all, we were all very satisfied with the quality of the food and would score the food alone at 8/10. I would score the ambiance 6/10 (I left the booking rather late and got the table right next to the kitchen/preparation area where there was constant traffic of waiting staff and noise). However, I did find the wine service seriously poor.  When I first arrived with the bottles, I had asked for an ice bucket for the champagne and white wine.  When I saw that they had just sloppily placed the white wine on top of the champagne bottle, which meant that the white wine was hardly inside the ice bucket at all, I  had to ask for a second ice bucket for the white wine.  The decanting of the red wine was performed by the only member of waiting staff who seemed to have wine knowledge....but I still watched over like a hawk making sure that she left a good inch at the bottom of the bottles.  Then we were assigned a waitress with absolutely no training in wine service. When she was asked to open the bottle of champagne for serving, I was horrified to see that she simply lifted the bottle out of the ice bucket, without using a serving cloth to prevent the water from the base of the bottle from dripping into the decanted red wine, which somehow was placed in front of the ice buckets.  We actually decided to use the white wine glass for the champagne as that would help open up the champagne.  When she was then asked to give us a second white wine glass for the Meursault, we were given champagne glasses instead!  At this point, I felt obliged to speak to the manager to have her replaced with another waitress who knows something about serving wine.  The service of the white wine improved slightly.  By the time we got to the red wine (or when we were rushed to start the red wine because of the unexpected arrival of the beef dish), our neighbouring table had vacated, so we just took over with the 2 decanters of red wine and proceeded to serve the wine ourselves.  Although corkage was a very reasonable HK$ 80 per bottle, I would have expected slightly better wine service for a 2 Michelin starred restaurant.  I highly encourage the management to consider sending all the waiting staff to attend a wine service course at the very minimum!!  So for service, I would score 4/10.