Friday, November 20, 2009

Festive China 又一棧, Festival Walk, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Festive China is a Shanghai/Beijing cuisine restaurant of Maxim's Group. The decoration is a bit Shanghai style. The food is a bit derivative.

1. snack before the meal. 2. the table ware.

3. the menu. 4. the table and lamp light.

5. the ceiling. 6. Jelly Fish top part in vinegar HK$75. The jelly fish is a bit over-washed. Good is that it's much cleaned but the bad it lost all the taste. The vinegar is a bit too sweet though.

7. Cold chicken in scallion/oil HK$78. A bit disappointed that the chicken is not a fresh one. The dressing is a bit too bland while the scallion is not fresh aromatic enough to outstand it. 8. bean sprouts stir fried HK$78. This one is pretty good - very quick stir frying in making every bean sprout evenly done, but not watery.

9. Hot fried five belly pork (回鍋肉) HK$88. The five belly pork wasn't pan fried enough to get a bit burnt on the sides. The chef used the Beijing black bean paste instead of the red chilli bean paste 豆辦醬. The taste is also a bit too sweet. The original cooking of this dish is to ahve the red chilli bean paste and some rice vinegar (but remember it's now sweet and sour sauce as this one is supposed to be salty sour and hot with a very slight touch of sweet). Then there is no bamboo shoot which is the symbolic ingredients of this dish, though I am allergic to bamboo shoot. I tried this dish quite many times at the old old time, and hope to make it one time soon in order to keep my memory up. 10. mini-dumpling HK$35. At average.

11. Lion Head (big pork ball) casserole HK$98 - the soup is nice but the dish was prepared for almost an hour and it's like a dessert after all the dishes. 12. the table.

13. see how Shanghai style it is. 14. the entrance.

7 comments:

Thailand Club said...

the color of the lion head soup doesn't look right! never should be creamy color

in the sea said...

Correct. You also noticed that. It should be in the darker soy sauce. So if we don't take it as the original Shanghai Lion head, that's still a bit fine. You can also see the Hot/spicy five belly pork isn't right either. I prefer the old Shanghai restaurant in North Point.

Stella said...

Yes you guys are right. The lion head soup shall look darker with some dark soy sauce. The white color Shanghai soup shall be for "E Duke Sinn" or "Fish Head with Tofu" type of soup.
The Chinese oriented decoration is very nice and attractive. This restaurant has the "pie tau" look must be expensive. I think its target market shall be Western people or some younger generation yuppy.

in the sea said...

yes, it's targeted for those as this mall is just next to the City Polytechnic College and I could hear those college students spoke half Cantonese and half English, especially for those speaking Cantonese with "t" "s" "r" accent making them speaking Cantonese like they get used to speaking in English. Even some English/Chinese I heard, like 今晚have咗dinner未? :)

Anonymous said...

This place is quite expensive but the food look not so good. just like you say the lion head.

Stella said...

Yes Anonymous 12:49 PM,
This place may not look good for the real gourmets like SEA and TC, but I am sure it is good for those yuppy or Western people due to its nice presentation and decoration. We have lots of this kind of restaurant in LA and they are packed.

in the sea said...

Anyway, some people don't care about the food for value. OK, next time I won't 去 visit this 類 of 食店 la.