Food review: King's Taste

King's Taste
1/F Jade Centre, 98 Wellington Street, Central
Tel: 2652 6600
Open: 11.30am-midnight
Cuisine: Beijing, Sichuan, Shanghai and Hangzhou
Price: about HK$330 without drinks or the service charge.

Ambience: there were few diners, and we were by far outnumbered by the staff. We've heard lunch is busier.

Pros: the staff were eager to please and recommended several dishes.

Cons: it can be hard to choose a cohesive meal from a menu that serves dishes from several areas of China. The meat in the fried spare ribs with black vinegar (HK$118) was chewy and hard to gnaw from the bone, so we gave up. Sautéed string beans with minced pork (HK$108) were overcooked and too soft.

Recommended dishes: mouth-watering chicken (HK$145) was prettily presented in a short drinking glass, with skewers poking the pieces of tender meat that had soaked up the spicy but balanced sauce. The signature chilli crab (HK$438) was a hands-on dish, and not the easiest thing to eat delicately. It was a large, meaty crab and the pieces were buried under a lot of chilli, but it wasn't as spicy as it looked. The best dish of the night was shredded turnip pastry (HK$38). It was textbook perfect, and so good we'll have to pay another visit to this restaurant to taste more of the dim sum. The puff pastry was tender and delicately crisp, with even layers, and the turnip filling was well-flavoured.

What else? The menu says they serve "modern Chinese". The flavours were quite traditional, but the presentation was contemporary.

susan.jung@scmp.com