牡丹庭粵菜食府 Mu Dan Ting Chinese Restaurant

Having dim sum at Mu Dan Ting made me think twice about the title for best dim sum place in all of Hong Kong, and whether this honor rightfully belongs to Mu Dan Ting instead of Crystal Harbour Restaurant. Let's let the food be the judge though...

蘿蔔絲酥餅 lohbaahksi soubeng (silky threads of turnip pastry)

This pastry has an outer shell made with paper-thin layers of delicious crispiness, and an inner goodness of piping hot silky strips of Chinese turnips that are crisp to bite into, but at the same time soft and chewy at its core. The perfect pinch of salt and seasoning on the inside makes for a tasty warm treat bundled in a simple yet aesthetic pastry.

黃金流沙飽 wohnggam lauhsa baau (golden egg custard bun)

This might very well be the best lauhsa baau in all of Hong Kong.

The egg custard is perfectly creamy on the inside, but smooth enough to flow out from its soft and moist bun to simply melt in your mouth. If there had to be one dish to symbolize dim sum perfection, this would be it.

家鄉咸薄撑 gaheung haahm bohkchaang

This country-style pancake made mostly using turnip, with scallions and pieces of meat spreckled within, is fried to a nice crispiness on the outside, but its core is left warm and chewy. It goes well with the spicy dip not just in good taste, but in colorful aesthetic too.

We also had a
灌湯餃 guhn tong gaau (dumpling in broth) that was pretty good, and some 香麻糖不甩 heungma tohng batlat (sesame-topped "sugar can't fall off"), a staple Hong Kong dessert of sweet mochi balls topped with sugar and sesame.

But this is the dish that crowns the Mu Dan Ting experience:

椰香燉鮮奶 yehheung duhn sinnaai. It's a dairy dessert cooked within a coconut. The milk, or duhn naai in Cantonese, is a special dessert that you're almost not sure whether to call solid or liquid, but it's the coconut that really gives this its unique flavor, an infusion of subtle coconut goodness. And what's more, after finishing your duhn naai, you're still left with a wonderful treat in the coconut meat, which is fun to scoop out, and is a mouthful of tropical sweetness.

In the end, Mu Dan Ting is a delightful dim sum experience that rivals Crystal Harbour's. But each restaurant has their own subtle uniqueness that we can definitely appreciate.

尖沙咀漢口道
28號亞太中心2字樓
2/F Hong Kong Pacific Center
28 Hankow Rd, Tsim Sha Tsui
MTR Station: Tsim Sha Tsui

天澄閣 Crystal Harbour Restaurant (Reprise #1)

Crystal Harbour Restaurant was literally a stone-throw away from where I lived in Hong Kong. After seeing the positive feedback from its first showing here on TungChoiSt., I decided that this superb dim sum place should get an encore! First, I will show some great standard fare Hong Kong dim sum dishes, including a dessert bun that is so simple yet so melty-satisfying to the tastebuds. Then I'll show a few tasty treats that, just like all of Crystal's other dim sum, rewards customers' patience with the most simple ingenuity and delicious elegance that Hong Kong dim sum could ever offer.

四寶滑雞扎 - seibou waaht gaijaat ("4 treasures" bundled Chicken)

脆皮燒肉 - cheuipei siuyuhk (roast pork with mustard)

Ordering a "4 treasures" bundled chicken at your dim sum experience will surely satiate the hungriest of your party. The hearty "4 treasures" usually includes Chicken and fish maw as the 2 essential standard treasures. For those unfamiliar with fish maw, it's the fish's air bladder that let's them float contentedly through the waters, and it's a common ingredient in Cantonese cooking mostly because its texture absorbs tasty (and fatty!) juices, giving your tastebuds a pleasant treat of flavorful bursts of juices released with every bite! The other two "treasures" of this gai jaat are a big meaty chunk of ham, and a big stalk of baby corn. Overall a filling dim sum, the "4 treasures" chicken bundled together in a thin chewy tofu wrapping is a perfect hearty foursome of delicious magnitude. The second dish pictured above is the ever familiar siu yuhk, or roast pork. With a crispy yet moist skin over a tender and juicy chunk of meat, why haven't American Chinatowns thought of pairing this already flavorful delight with some mustard? This is the standard sauce of choice for roast pork in Hong Kong (unless you're at a Chinese wedding banquet which will serve more traditional fare). Actually, no sauce is really necessary because the pork is so juicy and flavorful, but the mustard does give a zesty zing to spice things up a bit. Definitely recommended.

And what better standard dim sum dessert would one get in Hong Kong than the ever so wonderful egg custard bun.

流沙奶皇飽 - lauhsa laaiwohng baau (egg custard bun)

One bite into this yummy treat will send melt-in-your-mouth egg custard into your mouth. The Chinese translates literally as melting/flowing sand milk king bun. In other words, watch the melting creaminess ooze out from the soft and moist bun.


There's not much original that Crystal Harbour Restaurant can do with these three standard dishes above, but for the "4 treasures" chicken as well as the egg custard bun, Crystal prepares these in top-tier fashion. You usually wouldn't get such a full and meaty "4 treasures" at other places, and as for the egg custard bun, I personally rank this as the best one I've had in Hong Kong, but tied with the ones they've got over at 牡丹庭 Mu Dan Ting Chinese Restaurant, which I'll be blogging about here on TungChoiSt. sometime later this summer (for now you can find Mu Dan Ting at OpenRice).

But what one really comes to Crystal Harbour Restaurant for is the creative dim sum delicacies they create. Here are a few neat and tasty ones:

千絲蘿蔔絲酥 - chinsi lohbaahksi sou

紫米香芒卷 - jimai heungmong gyun

I can't seem to provide meaningful translations for these dishes. I take it as a good sign that these creative concoctions are unique beyond meaning! A character-by-character translation of the first dish is: thousand silk/threads radish silk/threads crispy. Basically, one bite into the core of this tightly packed crispy pastry will break open a "thousand" threads of piping hot baked Chinese radish that are themselves soft on the outside and subtly crunchy on the inside. The second dish pictured uses "purple rice" (the same used in this dessert I previously blogged about) for a mochi outer wrapping, a fresh mango inner core, and a dusting of shredded coconut to top it. Aesthetically pleasant, it's a nice, but not stellar, dessert.

Finally, I end with one of the most traditional desserts of Cantonese cuisine, 豆腐花 - dauh fu fa, literally tofu flower. Usually anytime you order this you'll get it in a personal bowl. But Crystal Harbour being Crystal Harbour, this wouldn't do of course! No, they prefer to give you the entire wooden vat that is traditionally used in making this dessert, a mini one of course. This basically transfers the responsibility of scooping the tofu out of the vat and into your bowl from the restaurant over to you, and this may seem like a sour deal to some, but personally I like it this way. It brings the food-appreciator in on one more bit of the food process, and the "tofu flower" itself is really good - bland by Western standards, but the soft tofu is smooth down the throat, and you get a combination of two subtle flavors, tofu, and ginger. A pleasant and simple way to end a meal.

Here are some other recommended dishes:
蘋果叉燒酥 - pingguo chasiu sou (apple charsiu crisps)
葡式木糖布甸 - pouhsik muhktohng bouhdin (Portuguese Pudding...similar to the one I blogged about from O Porto Interior, but not as good, although this one at Crystal uses vanilla ice cream rather than cream)

九龍 紅磡灣 紅樂道 12號
海韻軒酒店 3樓
3/F, Harbourview Horizon All-suite Hotel,
12 Hung Lok Road, Hunghom Bay, Kowloon
East Rail Line: Hung Hom Station

天澄閣 Crystal Harbour Restaurant

九龍 紅磡灣 紅樂道 12號
海韻軒酒店 3樓
3/F, Harbourview Horizon All-suite Hotel,
12 Hung Lok Road, Hunghom Bay, Kowloon
East Rail Line: Hung Hom Station

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Aside from the fact that Crystal Harbour Restaurant is a misnomer in more ways than one, (there's no view of the harbor, which isn't very crystal-like anyway!) this place redeems itself by being the best place I've been for yam cha (pronounced "yum cha") in Hong Kong, in terms of having the most aesthetically pleasant dim sum, and the most perfect balance of great taste and subtle detail, making for awesome dim sum plain and simple. There is a price to pay for this, however, and that's the wait. Each little container of Dim Sum takes excruciatingly long to come out from the kitchen, so be prepared to have no food on your table for intervals of several minutes. But I'm not hesitating to say that it's worth the wait! Slow and relaxed is how yam cha was intended to be anyways.

(note: English names of dishes are my own approximate translations)


龍太子御飯 "Imperial Dragon Prince Rice" (Lobster Congee)
Boasting a lot more texture than your typical porridge-y Hong Kong Congee, the bits of Lobster add flavor and colorful aesthetic to an otherwise un-aesthetic dish.


灌湯餃 (Dumpling in broth)
This is a common dish in Hong Kong - a huge dumpling basking in broth. When you proceed to take bites from the dumpling, the flavorful stuffing swims out into the broth making for a tasty mixture. Yum =)


蝦交 ha gaau shrimp dumplings
This is your classic shrimp dumpling, or ha gaau for those in the know. But check out how pristinely crystal clear the skin of this shrimp dumpling is! Beautiful. And tastes good too!


大蝦沙律卷 Shrimp Salad Roles
This is an innovation, and interestingly labeled sai sik. The outside is super-thin and crispy, holding in the subtly sweet, and subtly salty inside. Hard to describe, but tastefully interesting in a good way.


綠茶奶皇卷 Green Tea Milk Custard Roles
Wrapped in a green tea mochi is a creamy custard. The taste, unfortunately, was a bit bland, but aesthetically it's pleasing to the eyes, no?


紫米露 Sweet Purple Rice Dessert
A common traditional Chinese dessert, which for some reason I've never seen in Boston Chinatown, it's difficult to describe - sweet and warm, while the purple rice adds a soft yet strong texture.

New glossary terms:
yam cha: ('yam' pronounced 'yum') lit. "drink tea"; a morning/lunch time social event revolving around dim sum and tea; this is an event in itself more than just the great food, which is to be slowly and appreciatively savored in between sips of Chinese tea. Sometimes it may include seeing relatives you don't often get to see, but always involves pondering what role you are to play in the ensuing fight over the check, and how underhanded you're willing to get for it. With all these distractions, how's a food appreciator to whip out the DSLR and snap pictures of all the artistic and savory Dim Sums?

Recurring glossary terms:
sai sik: Western style