hk diner

It's not often you can have a meal for two at a Michelin starred establishment and pay less than £20 per person. Unfortunately, these types of establishments usually only exist in Asia (and in our case, Hong Kong) and almost definitely never in Europe.

When we lived in Sydney, we used to take yum cha (or dim sum as it's more commonly known in Europe) for granted. We would go maybe twice a month and order our usual staple of chicken feet, char siu buns, prawn dumplings and a whole host of other steamed bundles of goodness.
Now that we live in Prague, getting our fix of dim sum has proven almost impossible. Not only are there no authentic Chinese restaurants here, the handful that serves up remotely passable Chinese food do not offer dim sum.

To satisfy my endless craving for all things food, I ended up investing in a couple of bamboo steamers and started buying frozen 'har gau' and 'siu mai' to replicate dim sum at home. Sad, I know.

On our recent trip to Asia, Hong Kong was our final destination on our two week long holiday. By the time we reached Hong Kong, we were very nearly over the thought and sight of food. Nonetheless, I had already made reservations for lunch at Cuisine Cuisine @ The Mira Hotel and wasn't about to give it up.

Cuisine Cuisine was recently awarded a coveted Michelin Star in the 2012 Hong Kong and Macau guide. What had drawn me in was the weekday all you can eat dim sum special for HKD198 per person. Usually when we are preparing for an all you can eat meal, we would skip breakfast to clear the way for a meal of gargantuan proportions. Fortunately for the restaurant and unfortunately for us, we rolled in at noon with full bellies - the inclusive, made to order breakfast at our hotel seemingly too good to pass up.

steamed prawn dumpling

steamed wild mushroom with black truffle dumpling

steamed bbq pork bun

crispy taro puff with diced chicken and foie gras

steam bean curd sheets with pork & prawn in supreme broth

stir fried turnip cake in X.O sauce

steamed mince pork and prawn dumpling with fish roe

crispy bbq pork puff with apple

steamed foie gras 'xiao long bao'

grilled wagyu beef buns in bbq sauce

crispy glutinous rice dumpling with diced goose & pork

steamed carrot rice flour rolls stuffed with bbq pork

deep fried dough sticks with dried scallops

chilled mango cream with sago & pomelo

chilled mango pudding

Although the all you can eat menu was somewhat limited, we still managed to put away 15 different types of dim sum with a few repetitions from the all you can eat menu and 2 additions from the a-la-carte menu. What I liked about Cuisine Cuisine was that whilst the dim sums were not overly inventive, they had enhanced the traditional dim sums by adding their own modern twists with the inclusion of ingredients such as black truffle and foie gras.


cuisine cuisine (@ The Mira)
http://www.cuisinecuisine.hk/eng/index.html
3/F The Mira Hong Kong, 118 Nathan Road, Tsimshatsui
tel: +852 2315 5222