Yu Lei (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★☆☆☆

Last year, we regretfully missed out on the Restaurant Week promotions due to our slow reaction to their campaign. Learning from our mistakes, we decided to act much faster this year. And we did. Immediately following their email notification (via AMEX), we logged onto their website but only to find that our first-choice restaurant, BCN was already all sold out. So instead we had to settle for our second choice, Yu Lei.

Yu Lei, along with Messina and Kazuo Okada, occupied the fifth floor of the Harbourfront Landmark in Whampoa. Although getting there could be frustrating at times, it does offer a very good harbour view.




The hostress led us through a long corridor that was dominantly red. I briefly called this "The Red Sea" having seen these red framed mirror, red cabinets, red carpets and red-colored wallpaper. And at the other end of this corridor was an elegantly designed dining area (picture above).



This is a restaurant that specializes in Shanghaiese cuisine with a Japanese twist but the first few dishes failed to show any Japanese influence at all.

After a small "amuse bouche" of bean curd and pickled radish, here comes our first dish - chef's signature combination appetizer plate consisting of a bean curd roll and shredded chicken in a peanut butter and sesame sauce.

These were two highly popular traditional Shanghainese appetizers that I thought were nicely presented but I didn't find them to be much different than the ones we had at a typical Shanghaiese restaurant (4/10).



Next up was "Two kinds of signature dim sum" which on this date were a pork dumpling with crab roe and a steamed vegetable dumpling. Both dumplings were fine but once again I didn't find them particularly tasty (4/10).



The wok fried wagyu beef fillet with black bean sauce was a fine dish. The wagyu beef was very tender but looking at the amount of oil there....super oily (4/10)!



The steamed cabbage and dried shrimp soup was average at best with the dried shrimp providing most of the flavor (3/10).



Finally a dish with a little bit of Japanese influence! It came from a bowl of fried rice with Japanese sardines and garlic. 

I really liked the wonderful bite of the fried rice. It used Japanese rice which was most famous for its short grain and the somewhat sticky texture. The intense flavor of the small dried sardines also provided extra seasoning effects (7/10).



Our dessert was an almond tofu pudding that we found quite refreshing (5/10).



The presentation was definitely 1-star material but unfortunately the food and service were not. To me, this is really a work in progress.


Food Rating: 4/10

Price: $$$

Address: 5/F Harbourfront Landmark, 11 Wan Hoi Street, Hunghom, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: None
Website: www.KOdining.com