This restaurant is always full. You need to have at least a few weeks' advance booking, or come here by chance after 9:30pm for a table. I took the latter one and in fact I had (Chinese saying for "unlucky to get a table") "the closing-door soup" quite several times already.
1. the table. I really like the Chinese name of this restaurant - very bright poetic and vibrant lively. In direct translation it should mean "Deer singing for the Spring coming".
2. I haven't tried this but the Chef is very skillful in finishing the cutting in less than 30 seconds. Yes, 30 seconds and that's the essential part that Beijing duck should be sliced quickly so as to keep the warmth of the meat and juicy.
3. Cold platter HK$50. Very nice and chilled. Please click the photo and see how average of the thinly sliced. That really amazed me and made us humble to the basement floor.
4. Beef with Beijing scallions HK$58. Again, the cutting is perfect. Beef and the scallions cut in average same size.
5. Mixed Casserole HK$60. The food here isn't in much complicated seasoning. It's pretty raw style cooking but that's the difficult part. Heavy sauce and seasoning would cover up something most people may not find out.
6. Spring Deer serves only one fried rice HK$50. You may find it too simple but after you taste it, you know why it needs to be simple. If the eggs are fresh, just sprinkle some salt in the final step. That's the magic spark in this simple fried rice. Somehow I don't know why most Shanghai and Beijing cuisine restaurant use those frozen shrimp. Quite discouraging to me.
7. Ok, one more time to show the proper Siu Long Bao (HK$50) even thought this is a Beijing cuisine restaurant. Also, this is the classic portion and style of Siu Long Bao - 10 pieces.
8. Walnut sweet HK$48. At first, I doubt if it's walnut. Yes, it is and it's a fresh one. Why it looks white is because the thin brown peel 核桃衣 was taken out. I guess I haven't seen this over 30 years. What a long lost friend! Taking out that thin brown peel wouldn't make the sweet a bit bitter. However, the sugar they used is not that refined. So that made it a bit "dry" (旱). If they use the white crystal sugar (白冰糖), this could be 100 marks! Now it's 99 marks. *remarks: photo 9 - not because of its good business, Spring Deer would make all the tables so packed to each other, like most other popular restaurants do. Also, they don't expand to more branches. That's good to keep in quality. Check the last 2 photos and see how they put their names on the outside.
7 comments:
Finally I can see there are 10 Siu Long Bao here.
The dishes all look good with reasonable prices.
HK has so many good and very good Shanghaiese restaurants and Northern CN cuisine, don't understand why Din Tai Fung so dare to open a branch in HK .. ? oops maybe due to HK is an international city, Din's target r tourists and expats, not those Chinese who understand bun
Din's dumpling-texture rubber-taste xiao-long-bao and almost all tasteless food with ultra salty sauce, only Michelin agrees that Din shall be awarded one star, as they all love rubber, and rubbish!
The peking duck here is very nice. I try many times but too busy to get table. it sell almost every minute.
Ding Tai Fung here is not salty; in fact the taste is bland.
The skin of the Siu Long Bao is very thin.
The only problem of this restaurant is too expensive and small portion, also like a no sodium meal.
Again some people, especially tourists like arts and crafts stuff in Din Tai Feng. We also like arts and crafts but not Din Tai Feng in any way. Michelin is making money; so they take their guide book as a tourist book. So to attract more readers, they need to be touristic.
Stella, Din Tai Feng of course charges an expensive price, because they rinse the food so much and make the original flavour disappear. Then they add the seasoning to it. This is double processing. They should at least charge over HK$100 for 10 buns. Now it's a big discournt for this process. At this point, why the Environmentalists don't cry out outside Din Tai Feng.
good point Sea, environmentalists shall cry out outside Din Tai Fung
also bun lovers shall protest outside Din Tai Fung too, as Din destroy and alter xiao long bao to dumpling texture
After all, Din Tai Feng often advertises its Times magazine review in the 70's. We should name it as a museum now. Din Tai Feng museum of Times magazine. :)
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