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Review | Restaurant review: Alvin Leung’s Forbidden Duck in Causeway Bay delights and disappoints

Too many dishes came at once and the signature slow-cooked duck was a huge letdown, but everything else – from the Peking duck meat to the seafood rice in aromatic duck soup – was quite superb

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Slow-roasted whole duck from Forbidden Duck in Times Square, the latest restaurant from Alvin Leung. Photo: Jonathan Wong

We were looking forward to our meal at Forbidden Duck. It’s the latest restaurant from “Demon Chef” Alvin Leung, who is most famous for his three-Michelin-star “X-treme Chinese cuisine” at Bo Innovation in Wan Chai.

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It started with the phone call: whoever took my booking was friendly and thoughtful, and she suggested that I pre-order the signature slow-cooked duck, which is available in limited quantities.

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But when I arrived for the booking, the hostess showed me to one table, while the friends I was meeting had been seated at another.

Interior of Forbidden Duck. Photo: Jonathan Wong
Interior of Forbidden Duck. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Then the manager who took our order said the duck would take a while to prepare, and asked if it was OK if the other dishes were served first. Less than 10 minutes later, almost all the dishes – including the duck – were served at once, meaning we couldn’t eat the hot dishes while they were still hot.

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Carving the slow-roasted whole duck. Photo: Jonathan Wong
Carving the slow-roasted whole duck. Photo: Jonathan Wong
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