Wah Lok @ Carlton Hotel

wah lok

Think Cantonese restaurants and the few that come to mind include Wah Lok, Xin Cuisine and Shang Palace. Slowly ticking off the places to try from the list of Chinese restaurants can be liberating somehow. The gf arranged for first seating brunch at 11am – I love such timings! Not here not there but by the time it ends, there’s still most part of the day left, as opposed to high tea.

wow

The place is grand – high ceilings and massive sprawl of space. My only thought is – how do they deal with dinner which is presumably less crowded than brunch or lunch as I would term it.

table

Yum cha!

push cart

Upon spying a push cart from afar, I was really excited – most would know my penchant with the olden days way of dimsum – push carts, pudgy ladies with the fiercest of demeanours – TVB dramas probably set the stage for the dimsum experience.

tea

Tea, always a must to wash down the grease. 

appetizers

Appetizer of mock char siew and long beans to kickstart the meal - delicious much!

siew mai

Steamed Crab Roe with Shrimp Dumplings ($6.80)

har gao

Steamed Prawn Dumpings ($6.80)

Both were pedestrian, disappointingly so. Nary the fine handiwork I would expect from a Cantonese restaurant, if anything, they were packed with prawns.

char siew polo

Baked Barbeque Pork Buns ($4) 

polo bun

To replace the usual char siew pau, this polo version was a tad sweet and pineapple crumble was too dry.


lotus leaf packages

Steamed Glutinous Rice wrapped in Lotus Leaf ($5.40)

glutinous rice chicken

Rice was a tad soft and lacking in flavour.

rice rolls with dough sticks

Steamed Cheong Fun with Dough Stick ($6.50)

I like the presentation – comes studded with shrimp and chives. Sauce was a tad too salty and doughstick overfried. I would very much prefer if it were slightly doughy, at least the sharp ends would not get caught in the teeth!

fried beancurd roll

Fried Beancurd skin with Prawns

Loved the vinegar pairing with this crispy one.

roast prok

Roast Pork

Unlike most other siew yokes, this lean one was alright, skin was crispy albeit a tad thin. Decent I say.

congee

Century Egg Congee

The chef threw in fish filets in this pork century egg porridge, consistency was thin but was a pleasing one for the ravenous.

egg tarts

Baked Egg Tarts ($4)

No surprises with this flaky hongkong tea time special.

custard buns

Coconut Custard Buns

Bent on having something to the effect of molten custard anything, we gamely went for the recommended custard buns off the push cart.

custard

Deemed “very popular”, these icing sugar dusted buns had a hardened crust with custard that had an odd texture – neither silken smooth nor particularly stiff. A bun is a bun is a bun, none too special. I would have gone for fried lychee pastry with custard had it not been for this.

fried durian icecream

Fried Durian Icecream ($6)

Carlton Hotel has been hot on the heels of Goodwood Park when it comes to the latter’s famous annual Durian Fiesta. Crisp fried durian dessert with custard and a wedge of durian icecream.

fried durian innards

As much as I am not a huge durian fan, this seemed a little shortchanged with the proportion of custard and durian icecream – Majestic nailed it quite well, however.

osmanthus pudding

Osmanthus Cake ($6.40)

This should be renamed mango pudding – 30% osmanthus pudding, 70% mango pudding, the taste was skewed towards mango. Osmanthus pudding was a tad too heavy with the osmanthus flowers. Less, is certainly more.

Wah Lok did not surprise the way I would have expected. Maybe dinner could be better, their suckling pig and duck look good!

Wah Lok 
Carlton Hotel

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