Crystal Lotus 晶荷軒 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

It's been nearly a decade since we last came to see our good friends Minnie and Mickey so I thought it's high time that we come for a visit during the holiday season. We wanted to get a quick lunch before the start of our afternoon activities and what better way to kick off this magical journey to Disneyland than going to one of the theme park's restaurants.



This is my first visit to Crystal Lotus (晶荷軒), their Chinese restaurant at one of the Disneyland hotels.



The place looked pretty elegant and classy at first glance but a much closer look revealed that it's rather dated and boring. Perhaps they should plan for a facelift soon.



Crabmeat and vegetable dumpling (賽螃蟹肉翠苗餃) ($78) - Everyone seems to anticipate a pretty busy week (busy for our stomach!) ahead with Christmas and new year in the horizon. Perhaps that helps to explain why we're ordering all these vegetarian dishes and no meat dishes at all!

We kicked things off with this crab meat and vegetable dumpling that was pretty nice with the thin wrapper but for whatever reason, I couldn't find much crab meat in it.



Vegetables and fungus dumpling (彩雲榆耳素餃) ($68) - Next up was mom's favorite, vegetables and fungus dumpling. I like the texture of the diced vegetable and fungus. Very tasty.



"Swan" vegetarian taro puff (荔蓉天鵝酥) ($68) - One of the restaurant's signature dishes.



This was very good although I couldn't understand why they decided to make this a vegetarian dish. Coz a little bit of diced goose meat (matching the theme of swan) would certainly bring it to another level.



Little Green Men Pork and Vegetable Bun (綠色小人菜肉包) ($88) - This is one of the dim sums that needs to be pre-ordered 48 hours in advance. My nugget seemed to love it for its cute presentation and I thought it tasted pretty darn good too.



Mickey’s Double-layer Turnip, and Taro Pudding (米奇鴛鴦糕) ($78) - Another pre-order item. This is really just Mickey mouse-shaped turnip and taro cake which was pan fried and served with some homemade chili sauce. One that I could definitely do without.



E-fu noodles with seafood and dried flatfish (甫魚海皇乾燒伊麵) ($218) - The e-fu noodles were really nice and flavorful, possibly the best dish of the afternoon. There are enough scallops and shrimps there to keep us all happy.



Homemade XO sauce wok-fried rice noodles with scallops, shrimp and squid (XO醬乾炒三鮮河) ($198) - We were left a little confused coz this dish tasted exactly the same as the previous one with the virtually the same seasoning and ingredients (except for squid). The only difference was the rice noodle instead of the e-fu noodle. I thought this was a little less appealing than the e-fu noodles.



Obviously, we didn't come for the food here so we were not surprised nor disappointed with the average food quality and lack of choices in the menu at all. 

Food Rating: 5/10
Price: $$$$
Address: G/F, Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, Lantau Island, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Disneyland Resort
Tel: +852 3510-6000
Website: Link