Address: 1-2/F, Restaurant Block, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong.

I love Hong Kong. What’s there not to love about it? So it does get a little bit – ok, make that claustrophobically crowded on the MTR during peak hours, and there are just too many people, er, everywhere? But you gotta love the sheer variety of food and shopping man. And the long opening hours of the shops and eateries. And the last train’s around midnight.

But I digress. Back to more important matters.

So yes, a trip to Hong Kong would not be complete without a visit to a dim sum restaurant. My husband brought me to the Serenade Chinese Restaurant – he said it was around even when he was last in Hong Kong several years ago. Hmm, good sign already.

We had not made any reservation so we were put on the waiting list. But no problem man, when the restaurant’s just beside the Victoria Harbour. Here are some lovely views of the harbour:

This was the carrot cake. It was crispy on the outside, but soft on the inside. You could taste juliennes of the carrots and it was extremely fragrant too. Yummy.

The perennial favourites – har gao and siew mai. They were very generous with the prawns, which were extremely succulent. And the skin of the har gao is so thin and slight oily! Shiok! As for the har gao, there was just the right amount of roe to compliment it, not overwhelm it.

The chee cheong fun’s plate very stylo hor? The chee cheong fun was very soft and feathery. You could taste the nutty flavour of the sauce, which went really well with the chee cheong fun. Prawns were also very fresh.
I don’t take chicken feet, so it was all for the husband to consume. He polished it off like a pro, leaving the tiny bits of bones really clean, so I guess we can all assume it was delicious. But it did smell good, especially the salted black beans.

I think we ordered this to alleviate our guilt about our gluttony; to make sure we ate our greens. This dish was really easy to prepare. A lady behind a pushcart simply dunked the vegetables in boiling water before drizzling the sauce over it. I don’t know what this vegetable is called, but it has a slightly bitter aftertaste. I felt like a rabbit. It was a huge portion. For two people.

Special mention must be made of this spectacular dish, the nuo mi fan. I think it is called lotus leaf (glutinous) rice in English. Don’t let its atypical appearance fool you; this was definitely the highlight of our meal. How do I even describe it? The rice was so soft and moist and chewy, and the little dices of chicken were so well-marinated and tender. I know I sound very ridiculous if I say this but I must: it was truly one of life’s defining moments. The moment I ate it, I knew that from thenceforth, it would be my yardstick for all future nuo mi fans, which would definitely pale in comparison. It was that good.

Of course, after all the overeating, must drink some tea to wash down the taste of the food while soaking in the view of the Victoria Harbour.

Ok. I was bored.

Without a doubt, this is the best dim sum I have ever eaten. It all came up to about S$50+ (including two other dishes I did not include in this review. I think we ordered wrongly, and had no idea what they were). That’s really reasonable I think; comparable to local dim sum restaurant prices. Have I mentioned that I love Hong Kong?