Peking Garden 北京樓 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

After 10 amazing days in Europe, it’s about time we return to the concrete city that we call home. Since it’s still officially the first month of Lunar Chinese Year, we decided to gather some close friends and meet up for the exchange of pleasantries (and red pockets). Jelloman was tasked with finding a place for dinner and she made an interesting pick - Peking Garden in Central, a touristy Chinese restaurant that used to have a Michelin star.



I have never dined here before but I knew all about their traditional Chinese decor, live demonstrations of noodle-making and of course, their signature duck carving at table side.



Braised pork (東坡肉) - No one will say no to these fatty pork belly especially around Chinese New Year since "fat" sounds like "rich" in Cantonese. I thought it was a very tasty dish to start the meal and the sauce had a real nice sweet-sour balance too.



Smoked vegetable roll (茶燻素鵝) - Another plus dish with smoky cabbage wrapping round the vegetable straws in the middle. That's two in a roll.



Scrambled egg white with minced fish and conpoy (芙蓉賽螃蟹) - And they made it three in a roll with this scrambled egg white dish. They did it the old fashioned way too by adding minced fish to the egg white.



Sautéed beef with scallion (蔥爆牛肉) - This dish was for all the meat lovers out there in our group. Thought the beef was pretty tender and the wok-fried scallion provided that lovely extra kick.



Steamed dumpling with pork and supreme soup (無錫灌湯小籠包) - Not bad.



Barbecued Peking duck (烤北京填鴨) - Here comes the main event, the duck carving at table side. I thought the kids would love it but they all went for the noodle making session instead.



We ended up with two full plates of these. 



As a purist, I normally just add a few drops of hoisin and a piece of cucumber to my wrap. That's it. No scallion and no heavy seasoning to run the duck please. This was a little tastier than I thought. Perhaps, I haven't had Peking duck for a while?



Crispy lettuce wrap with diced duck (鴨崧生菜包) - As the second part of our Peking duck feast, we ordered the crispy lettuce wrap.



This came with the usual suspect including diced duck (of course), pine nuts, celery etc. Pretty nice.



This meal didn't taste like any other ones we had at Peking Garden before. In fact, the food seemed much better here. Is it really the case that they put their best chef right here in Central or just that we miss Chinese food so much from our European trip?


Food Rating: 6/10
Price: $$$
Address: Shop B1, Basement 1, Alexandra House, 16-20 Chater Road, Central, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Central
Tel: +852 2526-6456