洞庭樓, Hunan Garden, Citiplaza phase 3, Taikooshing, HK

I used to visit several Hunan restaurants in the early to mid. 90's in Guang Zhou.  The unique spicy flavour of Hunan cuisine has still been in my mind - such a fresh chill aroma with some tomato sweet.  Another characteristics of Hunan cuisine is the slightly brown all the ingredients, resulting in a nice aromatic caramelised  flavour.  The most notable dish is the signature Hunan dish called 左宗棠鷄 (Zhor Zhong Tang chicken).  

Unfortunately Hunan cuisine isn't that popular in HK.  Since I seldom visited Guang Zhou, I almost forgot this cuisine.  Glad that Maxim's Hunan Garden has been relocated to Taikooshing.  A few days right after its opening, we got to come here for a try.  Apparently Hunan Garden and most other Maxim's Chinese restaurants have been on a constant improvement.  This one is much better than that of when it was in Central.  No wonder it is quite full even during weekdays.  Highly recommended their chilled beef slice, stir fried veggie with egg in wrap, stir fried pepper chicken (I'm impressed that they used fresh chicken for this hot and spicy dish, as most restaurants use frozen chicken because they think the hot and spicy flavour  will cover up the frozen meat texture and flavour).  Their pear with red bean paste (dessert) is also a must-try.

Hunan Garden 洞庭樓, The Forum, Exchange Square, Central, HK

The first time I tried this restaurant was 20 years ago and it was pretty impressive to me. I tried it last night but it wasn't the same.

1. the table setting is pretty Chinese. 2. a Michelin recommended menu. I sampled no. 3/4 and the last one as shown below.

3. the snack, at average, but charged at HK$28@. 4. it's about 1/10th full last night.

5. very Chinese style carpet, but smells a bit. 6. More than 3/4th of the guests are caucasians and foreign visitors. What attracts them are the Chinese Gu Tsang and Er Wu, but it's also what irritated me the most. They played some irrelevant music regardless of the rhythm and the original spirit of the songs, e.g. Olive Tree by Chi Yu 橄欖樹 (齊豫). It really disgraced this master piece written by Li Tai Shang! In fact, Er Wu is a music instrument which is good to play some sad music. On the other hand, it would just upset the customers from a good mood for food.

7/8. ok. the soup on above no. 3 but it's not served in a bamboo stem. HK$48 for one. What's the point? Supposed it should have the fragrance of the bamboo stem. I don't really like it as it batter the ground chicken meat with a large amount of water to make it fluffy. Actually this is what the dirt (protein/blood of the meat) I usually took it out from the hot pot soup.

9. Stir fried Lettuce slices HK$78, at average. It's pretty good to go with something hot and spicy. 10. Pan fried chicken in black bean, chilli in clay pot HK$98. First, it's not a clay pot. Supposed this one is a big blast of chilli, scallion and black beans. It failed. Like I told earlier about 5 stars keeping the scallions fresh to make it aromatic. They made the common mistake by preparing those fragrant ingredients a long time ago without sealing them well. Hunan hot is to have fresh chilli to make it like you are eating something fresh hot and spicy. It's not subtle like Sichuan Hot.

11. the above no. 4 dish - baked crushed bean paste on fish fillet HK$48@. This one is a signature dish of Hunan cuisine but again failed. It doesn't have the baked bean aroma. That's the essence of this dish. They should go to Kiki restaurant in Taipei to check out what "baked bean paste" 豆酥 means. 12. Stir fried hand made noodle with yellow scallion and shred pork 韮黃肉絲炒拉麵 HK$78. When it was served on the table, I wondered where those yellow scallion and pork are. In general, there may be 8-10 yellow scallion slices and 4-5 shred pork. Again, the yellow scallion is no more fragrant. Shred pork has been marinated for over a week. Hand made noodle is not freshly made to the order. Hand made noodle does have the fresh flour flavour. One good thing is not salty at all. Good for me to treat it as a plain carbo.

13/14. the dessert. This is the only one which surprised me, and finally. Very nice and fresh water chestnut to go with crushed lotus seed. These 2 are very good combination as it won't overwhelm each other. The only flaw is again not matched to the photo as it should be served in a nice clay bowl.

15/16. Not surprising. The sticky rice batter should have been done better. Well, I would simply describe it as the last dessert served in a Chinese celebration dinner set (美點雙輝).