Lung King Heen, Four Seasons, Hong Kong

Lung King Heen’s Executive Chef Chan Yan Tak has the honour of being the first Chinese chef to be awarded three Michelin stars, the highest honour.  And after chatting to Chef Tak I can see why.

While not a tall man, physically, he’s still a larger than life character with a voice and presence to match.  You can see in his piercing eyes that he’s a quick thinker and precise attention to detail.  He strikes me as someone who is focused on delivering the best without compromise.

Chef Tak says he works with his purchasing department to source the best ingredients in the world.  And we see that in the menu he served up for noodlies:

One of Chef Tak’s signature dishes baked whole abalone puff with diced chicken.  Chef has selected abalone from South Africa for it’s size, taste and texture. And it is amazing, the meat is strong but not at all tough is balanced with the hard, yet crumbly light pastry.  The light sauce binding both together.  Also interesting is the Asian mixing of different meats, here it’s abalone and chicken.

The king prawn is the star attraction of this dish: simmered king prawn in crystal sauce. It was was sourced from Malaysia because of the unique huge size of the prawns produced; this one was almost the size of the plate.  The presentation was stunning, for me it was an expression of reaching for heaven, the soft vegetables as the ocean, golden noodle as land and the king prawn helping us to reach the golden heavens.

Steam star garoupa fillet with ginger and spring onions is a dish you can find at many restaurants, it’s quite a popular way to steam fish.  But at Lung King Heen, the fish is superior quality, bright white, firm flesh, tight skin, fresh flavour.

It’s clear that Chef Tak is relentless is delivering the best quality food for his customers and he doesn’t compromise, no wonder he’s maintained the three Michelin stars for four years in a row.

Oh, and he doesn’t compromise for Western customers either, Chef Tak says one of his goals is to give non-Chinese a taste of fine, authentic Cantonese food.

I asked Chef Tak, should customers eat his fine food with wine or tea? And while he believes customers should go with their preference, ideally, he says Cantonese food should be consumed with a good Chinese tea.

Lung King Heen, it’s located in the very, very plush Four Seasons Hotel in Central district of Hong Kong.  The hotel was purpose built around five years ago and it connects with the Ifc towers, shrines to capitalism and finance.

Right on the harbour, Lung King Heen commands sweeping water views and benefits from wonderful natural light that light up the crisp white linen and earthy wood tones used throughout the restaurant.

Chef Chan Yan Tak and noodlies

With the new year and the coming Chinese New Year, Chef Tak is close to finalising a new menu (he generally changes his menu each quarter).  noodlies will keep you posted on the new menu which will be out in the next week or two.

Oh, and a few noodlies readers wanted to know what Chef Tak cooks at home:

• soup with any seasonal vegetables, Chef thinks soup is such an important part of a Chinese meal
• steamed fish
• simple meat and seasonal vegetable stir-fry

noodlies Sydney food blog dined as a as a guest of Lung King Heen and Four Seasons Hotel, with thanks to Chef Tak and Angela.

Lung King Heen (View of the Dragon)
Four Seasons Hotel
8 Finance St, Central
Hong Kong