Last month, Jelloman asked me where I wanted to have my pre-birthday dinner. It took me a while to figure this one out but I eventually came up with Chef Vicky Cheng’s VEA. VEA Restaurant & Lounge has always been very high on my list and I have been one of the biggest fan of Chef Vicky since his days at Liberty Private Kitchen. The only sticking point is the fact that it normally takes four hours to enjoy a meal at VEA, which is four hours we don’t have when there's a four-year old kid sitting home waiting for us. But I think we can make an exception tonight since it's for daddy's birthday celebration.
As soon as we were seated and I got the chance to play with my phone again, a photo from my Facebook "Memories" suddenly popped up. It was a photo taken back in 2016 when we were celebrating my birthday. And surprise surprise, it was taken when we were at then-recently-opened VEA Restaurant & Lounge. What a coincidence!
Our night started off brilliantly thanks to a parade of nibbles led off by a wonderful cup of dried bok choy tea (菜乾茶). Our server went on to explain that the inspiration of the dish came from the song Chef Vicky sang to his wife when he proposed! It's a song by George Lam (林子祥) called "I need you every minute" (分分鐘需要你) that I'm sure a lot of Hongkongers know by heart. The dried bok choy tea was of course a reference to the line that went "咸魚白菜也好好味" (with you around, even dried fish and bok choy tasted very good!).
The tea came with bursts of sweet flavor, not unlikely those from our traditional dried bok choy soup (菜乾湯). It was rich, intense and very sweet.
The soup was paired with a deep-fried glutinous rice ball which was stuffed with dried fish and bok choy (咸魚白菜煎堆). And there we have it, a hidden note with the lyrics. I'm wondering if it was handwritten by Chef Vicky himself.
Our next nibble was a cream cheese filled steamed bun topped with caviar and perilla flowers.
Another round of amuse bouche soon followed. We were told to first start with the small tartlet made with local cherry tomatoes and berries.
Followed by the foie gras roll with pistachio. The foie gras pate came with both fruity flavors and sharp acidity which I thought was plum.
Last but not least, some drunken sea snails before we moved onto our first starter.
Our first dish from the tasting menu was Ebisu oyster, beautifully layered with tofu, green pea, green pea juice and Okinawan sea grapes (海葡萄). A perfect spring dish with refreshing and clean flavors.
It was immediately followed by our second dish, charcoal grilled Japanese mackerel. The artful presentation was capped off with slices of pear, celtuce and salmon roes on top. What I love most about this was the juicy pear sauce bringing out the best of the savory mackerel.
Our server came over again to give us a sneak preview of our next dish, Chef Vicky's signature sea cucumber dish including the two key ingredients - sea cucumber from Hokkaido and 22-year old Hua Diao wine from local wine producer, Wing Lee Wai.
This was an absolutely stunning dish featuring Chef Vicky's signature roasted sea cucumber on top of an Alaskan king crab leg.
We had a different version of this four years ago when Chef Vicky's roasted sea cucumber was stuffed with a slab of scallop mousse but this was way way better with the crispy sea cucumber placed atop the meaty Alaskan crab leg.
The dish was finished off remarkably with a few drops of aged Hua Diao wine from Wing Lee Wai.
The super intense sauce made with crab roes and coral really elevated the flavors of the sea cucumber and king crab to a whole new level (albeit a bit heavy).
Our fish course tonight was pan-fried local pomfret cooked with fermented vegetables, an inspiration from Sichuan-style Chinese sauerkraut fish (酸菜魚), finished off with in-season sancho peppers on top. The sauce made with fermented cabbage, fish bones and chili oil was obviously the key here and it was indeed rich and flavorful. However, the timing could've been better as we just finished enjoying the sea cucumber dish which also came with an incredibly intense sauce.
Moving forward, we were presented with a taiyouran egg sitting on top of a piece of daikon which has been slow-braised with mustard.
Not surprisingly, the daikon was full of flavors, posting a stark contrast with the taiyouran egg. The hint of black truffle provided a sublime finish to the dish.
At this point, we enjoyed a break in action with a palate cleanser, a homemade sorbet flavored with salted sour plum (話梅). A very nice touch resetting my palate almost instantly.
Our final savory dish was Racan pigeon cooked two-ways. The breast was first smoked with sugarcane.
I love the minimalist presentation but the expected smoky flavor was missing in action. There was also no sign of the sugarcane.
The roasted pigeon leg peppered with herbs and spices was stuffed with stir-fried glutinous rice (生炒糯米飯) and pigeon liver sausage. Very interesting Chinese twist but like the smoked pigeon breast, it didn't blow any of us away. In fact, both Jelloman and I agreed that it was the most disappointing dish of the night.
But things quickly got back on the right track albeit some hiccups. Obviously, there was some miscommunication between the service team and kitchen resulting in us not getting our first dessert at all. After a 30-minute delay, the restaurant manager finally noticed us sitting around rather impatiently (while playing with our phone). So, the dessert team quickly got to work and delivered this within a couple of minutes.
Sat in front of us was a beautiful dessert highlighted by various textures of aloe vera (蘆薈). Fresh aloe vera (which I haven't had before), aloe vera panna cotta and aloe vera flavored liquid nitrogen ice-cream were complemented superbly by the freshest strawberries from Kumamoto. A nice, refreshing start to kick off our parade of sweet treats.
Our second dessert was tea infused chocolate paired with yogurt sorbet, nuts and shiitake mushroom crumble.
More Chinese twist on the way, this one took me on a trip down memory lane. I vaguely recalled having these traditional coconut wrap when I was a little kid.
I didn't think anyone knows how to make these anymore!
These came with two different flavors. I ended up taking the vanilla flavor while Jelloman had the durian.
Finally, some mignardises and a couple of them were inspired by our traditional local sweets.
The mini pineapple buns were really cute.
The condensed milk mochi was pretty nice. I didn't remember what the other one was.
By the time we finished things up, it was almost 11pm! I'm probably already in bed by this hour on most nights. So without further delay, Jelloman asked for the bill and we called it the night.
It was quite an amazing journey tonight. Having personally witnessed the development of the talented Chef Vicky and to see all his lofty accomplishments over the past few years, I was really really happy for him. There were clearly some hits (dried bok choy tea 菜乾茶, roasted sea cucumber and king crab with Hua Diao wine) and misses (pan-fried local pomfret cooked with fermented vegetables 酸菜魚, smoked pigeon with sugarcane) in tonight's dinner but the way he has set out to combine Chinese recipes with French finesse; it's really exciting to watch (and taste of course!). Obviously, his innovative cuisine is very unique. Many of us probably expected the demon chef Alvin Leung to run away with this many years ago but he didn't. Now, Chef Vicky has successfully pulled off what many others failed to perfect; sky is likely the limit for him.
Food Rating: 8/10
Price: $$$$
Address: 29 & 30/F, 198 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Sheung Wan
Tel: +852 2711-8639
S. Pellegrino Asia's 50 Best Restaurants: 12th (2020)
S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants: 113th (2019)
Opening Hours: 6:45pm - Late (Mon - Sat)
