蓮香樓 (Hong Kong)

There is a dim sum place near the Central area which has been opened for over 100 years. This is one of the few “ancient” restaurants in Hong Kong. This dim sum place is very old style, with buckets and hot water pots everywhere. You have to find your own seats and everyone has to share tables. Since we arrived at around noon time, it was impossible for us to get more than two seats together and we were forced to seat apart. It is an extremely noisy environment with not much service, and the utensils are not the cleanest.





Besides refilling hot water for your tea, there is not much service otherwise. You will have to get your own food. For popular items like 馬拉糕 and 千層糕, they get sold right after they come out, so you have to be on the lookout and get them yourself. After eating the food, I can understand why so many people flock to this place. The dim sum items are all hot and fresh. The first dim sum items that we got are the classic 蝦餃 (shrimp dumping) and 燒賣 (Siu Mai). The shrimp dumpling is bite-size and it has a thin rice wrap on the outside. The Siu Mai is made from a wonderful mix of minced pork and shrimp. Again, it is the perfect bite-size. Then, we ordered the 燸米雞 (sticky rice). This is basically a big portion of sticky rice with various meats inside which is then wrapped inside a green leaf and steamed. The sticky rice is very flavorful due to the aroma from the meats inside.



We continued to order more dim sum items. The next one is 鳳爪 (chicken feet). The way you eat it is to take off each joint and peel the skin off the chicken feet. It sounds gross but it is delicious. The sauce does the trick for this dish.

Even after eating a few dim sum items, we were not that full and so we ordered the popular 陳皮鴨腿湯飯 (duck drumstick in a soup with rice). The duck meat is not as tender as roast duck meat. It helps to fill the stomach though.

Next comes the dessert items. The first dessert that we got is 年糕 (New Year cake). This is the only dim sum item that we did not like. The New Year cake is simply too hard to chew on. I ate one piece but at the end there are about 3-4 pieces left untouched.

The first dessert item that we got is 馬拉糕 (Malaysian style steamed cake) which is my mom’s and my sister’s favorite. The steamed cake is so incredibly soft and spongy but not too sweet. The outside layer is the best part of the cake.

My favorite item from 蓮香樓 is the 千層糕 (thousand layered cake). It is so delicious that I felt like I can keep on eating it. You can see the crossing of white stripes and yellow stripes in the cake. The thousand layered cake is so soft and moist. There is a lot of 奶黃 (custard made from eggs and milk and solidified) in the middle of the cake. In addition to the custard, there are also bits of 鹹蛋黃 (salted egg yolk). I love the sweet taste of the custard mixed with the slightly salty taste of salted egg yolk.



Towards the end of our meal, the steamed buns came out. We got an order of the chicken buns. The buns are gigantic with big pieces of chicken inside. The portions here are very generous. The buns are soft and the pieces of chicken are tender.



We ordered about 15 dim sum items to share among the 5 of us, but the bill only came out to about $40 USD, what a bargain! Even though the place is extremely crowded and not very clean, the excellent food by itself is enough to make me want to go back.

HOKAT Rating:
89/100

Address:
中環蘭桂坊威靈頓街160-164號
2544-4556