Ah Yat Harbour View Restaurant 阿一海景飯店 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★☆☆☆

Yesterday afternoon's seafood dinner in Lamma Island was meant to be the prelude to mom's birthday celebration but the main event is today's lunch (she sleeps way too early for a celebration dinner unless we have it at 5pm). I had to think long and hard for a place as she didn't want to venture over to the island side and at the end, I decided to get out of my comfort zone for a restaurant I've never been before - Ah Yat Harbour View Restaurant (阿一海景飯店).

I routinely asked for a table by the window when I called and was rather surprised that they were able to offer me one considering how late I made this reservation.

The sky was very bright and sunny this afternoon. Even my mild-mannered mom complimented that it's a great day to be sitting around a place like this. Deep down, I was hoping they have the food to match the incredible view (too bad they did not).

They have 5-6 set lunch with different themes and all came with a huge discount. Since both of us were a bit lazy to order dim sum individually, I decided to let mom choose one of the set menus instead. 

Rainbow chicken (七彩小鳯仙) - This one started off with a slice of drunken chicken, thousand-year pickled egg,  Chinese-style jellyfish and ginger.

Steamed shrimp and bamboo shoot dumpling (筍尖鮮蝦餃) - I thought our small selection of dim sum was good. The shrimp dumpling was fairly nice.

Steamed minced pork dumpling with crab roes (蟹籽蒸燒賣) - Not bad.

Baked barbecued pork bun (雪山菠蘿包) - Less successful was the baked barbecued pork bun with the pineapple crust. 

Braised sea cucumber, seafood and bean curd with lobster broth (海參海皇龍蝦湯豆腐羮) - A classic example of throwing all the premium ingredients into one single dish (sea cucumber, seafood, lobster). The worst dish of the afternoon by a country mile.

Baked stuffed crab shell (釀焗鮮蟹蓋) - Mom said she ordered this set mainly because she wanted this baby.

I have to admit, it's one of the better dishes from the set we ordered, although a little too much onion (and not enough crab meat) for my liking.

Sautéed fish maw and Chinese kale with soy sauce (頭抽爆炒花膠伴玉蘭) - This was another above average dish. The fish maw was well cooked with soy sauce combining well with the crispy kale.

Onion and oil noodles with abalone and cucumber (鮮鮑魚小黃瓜蔥油麵) - This ranked right down there along with our soup as the worst dishes of the afternoon.

The noodles were badly overcooked and the scallion oil did nothing to enhance the flavors of the noodles. Perhaps, they should just serve us the abalone alone.

Baked sago pudding with lotus seed cream and black truffle (黑松露蓮蓉西米焗布甸) - I always have a soft spot for sago pudding with creamy lotus seed filling.

This turned out to be pretty tasty. The black truffle was a bit pretentious. The pudding would've been fine without it.

For a Michelin-starred restaurant, I certainly expected a whole lot more. And it's not just the quality of food, which one could easily tell that they've used lesser quality ingredients to compensate for the discounted price. What I thought was even more disappointing (than the flavors of those dishes) was the service, which was sadly below par. Other than the manager, none of the servers really deserve to be working at a Michelin caliber restaurant. For starters, when you serve up a dish, at least let the diners know what they were having (just memorize the damn name of the dish from the menu even if you don't know the ingredients).

This was flat-out embarrassing.

Food Rating: 5/10

Price: $$$

Address: 29/F, iSquare , 63 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui

Tel: +852 2328-0983

Opening Hours: 11:30am - 3:00pm, 6:00pm - 9:00pm daily