Restaurant review: when it comes to Canto classics, Fortune Kitchen in Causeway Bay is a wok star

Fortune Kitchen is a popular restaurant. Although we booked in advance, we were told we couldn’t eat at our requested time of 7.30pm, and instead could have the table only between 6pm and 8pm.

Its popularity seems justified. The small restaurant is attractively decorated, quiet (despite being busy), with polite servers and a small menu of reasonably priced, well-made classic Cantonese dishes.

Double-boiled pig’s lung soup with almonds and pork (HK$138 for four small bowls) was light and cooling, with small chunks of soft lung.

Salt and pepper squid with deep-fried tofu (HK$78) had a delicate coating on the squid rings and wobbly pieces of bean curd.

The signature dish of stewed conpoy chicken with bittern sauce (HK$138 for half) was excellent. The fresh chicken had firm, moist meat and in addition to the generous amount of dried scallops the bird had been cooked with, came with two sauces: spring onion and ginger, and one that was lightly spicy.

Oysters with ginger and shallot in premium soy sauce (HK$248) – a special dish for the month – was served in a sizzling clay pot. The fried lightly breaded oysters were succulent and tender.

Stir-fried beef tenderloin with garlic (HK$118) had soft, moist cubes of beef and plenty of garlic. It went well with our last two dishes,  comforting poached seasonal vegetables with goji berries and light fish broth (HK$78), and the signature fried rice (HK$108) which got its flavour from plenty of wok hei (breath of the wok) and shredded duck meat.

Steamed tiger grouper head and belly (HK$208) was well cooked, but there was too much of the aged, dried mandarin skin, so the flavour was bitter.

Fortune Kitchen, 5 Lan Fong Road, Causeway Bay, tel: 2697 7317. HK$270 without drinks or the service charge