Dinner @ Xia Fei Society Shanghainese Cuisine

Finally getting together for an over-due catch up with C, J and C’s sister Miss T, I was given the task of choosing where to dinner. Since the others did not seem to have any specific preferences I decided to go with Xia Fei, since it is located in quite a convenient location, the environment is comfortable, and having been a few times previously, the food has always maintained a good standard.

A welcome appetiser of pickled papaya was served while we were looking through the menu, and although the papaya used must have been extremely raw since it was quite hard and crunchy, the sweet and sour combination really helped open up the appetite.

First to arrive was our appetisers.

The drunken chicken came in quite a sizeable portion. The meat was tender, not overly fatty and thoroughly infused with the rice wine used as the marinade.

The smoked eggs with roasted honeyed walnuts was good as usual, with a faint smokey aroma evident in the egg whites, while the yolk was softly set with a slow ooze to it. I love honeyed walnuts and cheekily asked the manager if he could give us a more generous serving which he readily agreed to 🙂

Xiao Lung Bao. I did not end up having one, but by looks they were delicately pleated and the skin was translucent enough to see the filling of meat and soup inside.

Conpoy and mustard greens. When this was served, I have to admit it looked quite boring, just greens in broth, nothing special. But I was so wrong. The mustard greens were big and fleshy with a hint of bitterness and the broth it was immersed in was so sweet and flavourful from the absurd amount of conpoy used. Really good~

Tofu dumpling with vegetables. This was something new on their menu and it was also a chef recommended item so I thought it would be worth ordering. I have had this at other Shanghainese restaurants and it is generally much more neatly presented than the one served here. The tofu dumplings were triangular with a ‘skin’ of firm-textured tofu and a filling of mixed vegetables. I found it to be a little bland unfortunately.

Pan-fried dumplings (wor-tip). Arriving as a serving of four, these looked beautiful, uniform in size with a perfectly browned crispy bottom. The filling was juicy, with a good ratio of fatty and lean pork used, but although the bottom of the dumpling was crunchy, the skin did not have the slight stretchy texture that I tend to associate with good wor-tip.

With a group of four girls having dinner, dessert is automatically compulsory :p

Miss T had a bowl of miniature glutinous dumplings in sweet wine soup for herself, while the rest of us shared a pan-fried eight treasure rice and a plate of sesame dumplings rolled in peanut dust (loh sa tong yuen).

Normally if you eat eight treasure rice (steamed), it arrives looking like it was just tipped from a bowl with assorted Chinese dried fruits and nuts adorning the top with a filling of red bean pasted inside. Since we ordered it pan-fried, they flatten it so it ended up looking like a flat rice pancake. I have to admit this was my first time eating eight treasure rice, and I was a little skeptical about trying since it looked quite heavy after a filling meal, but I was so glad I did~ The glutinous rice on the outside was really crunchy, while the inside still retained soft and chewy. It was not overly sweet with the sweetness coming only from the red bean paste and dried fruits. Recommended!

Still thinking about how yummy the eight treasure rice was, I bit into my still warm sesame dumpling and was surprised by how good this dessert was too. The mochi skin was not too thick with a pleasant chewy texture while the liquid sesame paste filling was piping hot, filling the mouth with an intense and fragrant sesame aroma. Really good too~

People always say, good company is what makes a meal most enjoyable, while I agree to this, I always think food plays an important part to it too. Xia Fei really does serve some good quality Shanghainese food and that night, being able to gather together and chat over a good meal was definitely one of life’s simple pleasures. Here’s to many more to come 🙂

Dim Sum~@ Yu Lei

Part of the K.O. Dining Group, Yu Lei makes up one third of the restaurants they have established here in Hong Kong. With Messina covering Italian cuisine and Kazuo Okada showcasing traditional Japanese dishes featured in kaiseki, Yu Lei specialises in Chinese cuisine, namely Shanghainese where some dishes feature a twist of Japanese influence which is not surprising since Chef Miki Imagawa is Japanese himself. All three establishments are located on the 5th floor of the Harbourfront Landmark in Hung Hom and Yu Lei is off to the right once you exit the elevator. There is a long corridor which have several private rooms sectioned off and it opened up into a communal dining area which was amazingly bright with natural lighting flooding in from the full length windows. The main dining area is painted a subtle pale green with hints of light pink and combined with the serene views of the harbour, it offered a remarkably calming ambience to diners. 

We were here for lunch as a party of three, Mr. C, Mr. E and myself, and were seated at one of the more comfortable tables with cushioned sofa seats. Menus were presented to us shortly after along with their welcome appetisers of braised gluten and marinated daikon sticks. Tea was charged individually per selection so we ended up having three different types, Mr. E had pu’er, I picked Tie Guan Ying while Mr. C chose something unusual like he always does, but unfortunately I can not recall what it was. The selection of dim sum was quite large, so it was good that Mr. E joined us that day as we were able to try more items~

What we had:

Steamed prawn and spinach dumpling and steamed prawn and sai yeung choi dumpling. Both were delicately pleated and while the skin may look a little thick, it tasted anything but. Soft and slightly chewy, they encased a filling of fresh prawns and vegetables. The spinach was tender, but the sai yeung choi was quite stringy. 

We ordered a plate of char siu, but the waitress came back to inform us that they only had half a portion left and suggested that we order another selection from the roast meats to pair it with. We ended up pairing it with roast pork. The look of the char siu was quite unappetising, but Mr. C and I have learnt that the uglier the appearance the better it ends up tasting. This was no different, as the char siu was softly tender and marinated well from the sweet honey sauce while the roast pork had even layers of fat and lean meat with a wonderfully crunchy layer of crackling.

Chinese liver sausage bun. It is rare that you see this prepared with liver sausage as most places tend to use the normal pink lap cheong as the filling. I think we all enjoyed this as the sausage was savoury sweet with generous chunks of lard inside. The bun was fluffy and helped cut through the heaviness of the sausage.

 

Tomato and scallop dumpling. This sounded quite interesting and visually it was very pretty~ The skin was tinted a rose pink and the filling contained fresh scallops with a tiny sprinkling of sun-dried tomatoes on top. Although it was visually pleasant, we all thought it did not taste particularly special.

Xiao Long Bao. Since Shanghai cuisine is their specialty we decided to try this and see how it fared. The skin of the dumpling was unfortunately a little too thick, but it did retain a lot of the sweet meat juice inside the dumpling, so be careful when biting into this as it was piping hot!

We also ordered a soup course. I had the double boiled chicken drumstick and mushroom soup, while Mr. C and Mr. E had their hot and sour soup with sea cucumber. My soup was wonderfully sweet and had a depth of flavour which only comes from long hours of boiling, while the spoonful of hot and sour soup I tried was palate awakening spicy and was balanced nicely with the sour vinegary aspect of the soup. 

Siu Mai. These were very meaty and I was surprised that instead of minced pork meat used as the filling, individual chunks of pork was used together with fresh prawns creating a different sensation in the mouth altogether. 

Pork balls with sakura glutinous rice. Dense balls of minced pork coated with sakura flavoured glutinous rice.  This creation was evidently a hint to the chef’s Japanese origin, but I was not really enamoured by this as the sakura flavour did not really agree with me, but it was interesting to try.

Bean curd sheet wrapped rolls. This was prepared exactly the way I like it, where the bean curd sheets were soft with a slight chew and flavourful after soaking up the thick sauce.

Phoenix claws. I did not try this as I was already quite full from the previous savoury dishes, but Mr. C and Mr. E seemed to enjoy this, especially Mr. E since he is quite partial to this dish.

And finally to desserts~

The requisite mango pudding for Mr. C. As it came from a mould, the texture was quite firm meaning quite a lot of gelatin was used in the making. I found the mango flavour to be quite subtle and it was also a little too sour for my liking. (top left)

Mini egg tarts. These were fresh from the oven, warm, with a crumbly butter pastry and the egg custard filling was smooth and not too sweet. Good~ (top right)

Sesame paste dumplings. I have had these before in a different restaurant and my experience with these are a soft and gooey dumpling rolled in peanut dust with a mouth-burningly hot liquid sesame filling. The ones at Yu Lei were quite unlike that, big in size with a sesame filling that was paste-like rather than liquid. I found the skin to be too thick, but the sesame paste was wonderfully fragrant which can only be achieved by roasting the sesame prior to crushing. (bottom left)

Almond bun. This is their signature dessert and had to be ordered at least 15mins in advance as they made it fresh. They arrived piping hot from the oven and were about the size of your fist. These were absolutely stunning~ a crispy sweet topping draped over a toasty bun with a creamy filling of almond custard… No matter how full you are these are a must order! Highly recommended~ (bottom right)

I must say the quality of food at Yu Lei is definitely high and they really deserve their one Michelin star. Something also worth commenting on was their service which was attentive and polite to the very end even though we were the last table to leave. I very much enjoyed my experience here and look forward to returning~