Birthday dinner @ Lung King Heen, Hong Kong

In addition to the birthday lunch with fabulous French at L'Atelier, we also celebrated hubby's birthday with dinner at Lung King Heen, also a 3-star Michelin restaurant. This gorgeous restaurant was the first (and to date, the only) Chinese restaurant in the world to be awarded the highly coveted three stars by Michelin. Hubby raved to me about this restaurant when he first dined at Lung King Heen with his colleagues in 2010, and had always wanted to bring me there to have yum cha, but the restaurant was always fully booked out during lunch on weekends. This time was no exception, despite the fact that I rang two weeks in advance. It wasn't hard to get dinner reservations for a Sunday, and it was no problem making a last minute booking change to a Monday evening. In fact, it looked like walk-ins are possible on weeknights as the restaurant wasn't at its full capacity, but I would still advise to reserve in advance even on weekdays just in case.

Beautiful interior with well-spaced tables:

The restaurant has floor-to-ceiling windows boasting views of Victoria Harbour (that tall skyscraper on the left is the ICC, the tallest in Hong Kong). Our boy was excited to see our building from the other side of the harbour:

Lung King Heen was spacious and gorgeously decorated. Service was impeccable and amicable, and the waitstaff doted on our boy who was the youngest diner that night. When I changed our booking from a Sunday to a Monday, I was informed that the no-kids-under-3 policy would be observed because it was a weeknight, which gave me the impression that this policy is not the rule on weekends. It is a very family-friendly restaurant, we were well looked after, and our son was a happy chappy that night. As it was a school night, I'd requested for a copy of the menu to be emailed to me so that we could pre-order our selections. As we flipped through the virtual pages of the menu, we were amazed by the number and variety of dishes on offer. There is something for everyone, perhaps even the most fussy palates.

A little plate of tasty vegetables (asparagus, snow peas and baby corn) to whet our appetites:

A trio of chilli sauces of varying degrees of heat and made with different ingredients were placed on the table, to be used as how we liked to enhance our food. I had some fun testing out each sauce with the food, and discovered that indeed one sauce would enhance some dishes whereas another type was better with other dishes:

Lung King Heen Lobster Fried Rice with Seafood, which we'd requested to be served up at the beginning of our meal, so that our boy could begin eating his dinner (the rice dish is traditionally served last in Chinese banquets). This was definitely the most luxurious (and most expensive) version of fried rice I've ever eaten. It was indeed very good fried rice, but fried rice is not the best way to showcase lobster:

Chef’s Signature Appetiser Selection - 3 Varieties: Lobster Roll, Barbecued Pork with Honey, and Crispy Sea Bass. Cute portions, lovely presentation and very high quality (to the top right is the chrysanthemum tea that we enjoyed with our meal):

This was the epitome of the perfect luxurious spring roll. Crispy skin but not overly greasy, and the lobster filling was delectable:

A haute version of the ubiquitous Char siu, this was very moist, very flavourful and a very enjoyable. This was definitely one of the nicest charsiu I've eaten (up there with the barbecued pork at Cuisine Cuisine):

Usually I'm not a big fan of battered-and-deep-fried anything, but this was really good (the boy agreed too, hence I got to enjoy only half of it). The portion was just nice for a deep-fried item:

Crispy Scallops with Fresh Pear, one of Lung King Heen's specialty dish. I loved biting through the crispy shell to the moist and tender scallops which was nicely contrasted with the slightly sweet crunchy pear. It was surprisingly not greasy at all:

The most visually appealing dish of the evening was the Pumpkin Stuffed with Sautéed Vegetables, Mushrooms and Fungus (the waiter had already begun cutting it up (as you can see in the photo), but he obligingly stopped and held the dish up to my camera when we requested to take a photo of it). The pumpkin was sweet, and there were at least five different varieties of mushrooms and fungus which I really appreciated because I love mushrooms. The portion was too big for two people, and we struggled after awhile to finish the whole thing (but we managed to do it!):

The Chinese birthday bun, sau bao (which translates to "long life bun"), usually comes in the shape of a peach (a symbol of longevity) with smooth lotus seed paste. At Lung King Heen, the sau bao came with two types of filling - the always-tasty traditional lotus seed paste, and a delicious sesame filling. I have a soft spot for fluffy steamed 'bao' with savoury meat filling and sweet pastes alike:

A complimentary plate of sweets - osmanthus and goji berry jellies, and a little walnut pastry. I love that Asian desserts are so light and easy to consume especially after a big meal (unlike most Western sweets):

It must be said here that we didn't order any sweets for our boy, and the waitstaff must have felt bad that neither the sau bao nor the complimentary jellies and pastries were suitable for the boy due to his allergies, so they served him mango pudding.

Probably the best mango pudding you can get from a Chinese restaurant! This is the perfect dessert for any mango lovers - pudding made with real mango and mango bits all swimming puréed mango sauce:

Unfortunately, our son disdained the thoughtful gift and wanted none of the delicious mango pudding. The waiter noticed the rejection, and brought him a scoop of vanilla ice cream! (Don't worry, hubby and I happily polished off the pudding.) That boy got spoiled that night by strangers who were happy to spoil him

If only he was that enthusiastic about vegetables:

Hubby said the experience fell below his expectations because he found many of the dishes were too greasy. The unusual thing is that between the us two, I'm the one with low tolerance for grease, yet I found the food pretty good and not greasy at all. We put it down to him not feeling well that night. On the whole, we had a good time at Lung King Heen, which is an excellent fine dining choice for families. I would love to come back for their lunch time dimsum dishes.

Lung King Heen
Podium Level 4
Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong
8 Finance Street
Central
Hong Kong
Tel. +85 2 3196 8880