Shroom, shroom...

Third review inside the Sheraton today, and I'm having dinner with a friend at Celestial Court (天寶閣).  Once again it's a restaurant I've never been to in all my years here, and in fact never even once contemplated coming - not that I had anything against the place.  I guess none of my friends ever eat here...

I'm supposed to be trying out some of the restaurant's signature dishes, but I was so stressed during the week trying to put out some fires at work that I didn't bother to read the menu beforehand.  It turns out that two of the dishes that I was dying to try needed to be pre-ordered 2 days in advance, which is a policy the restaurant seems to adhere to rather strictly.  Needless to say I was disappointed, but had no one else to blame but myself.

I had briefly read other people's postings about the Yunnan mushroom feast the restaurant is currently doing, so we decided to order a few of these dishes and check them out.

Double-boiled White Mountain snow goose with wild mushrooms and fresh bamboo thalli (鮮竹笙野生菌天山雪雁湯窩) - I'm no expert on birds but I don't remember seeing or hearing about any snow goose when I went to the Tianshan Mountains (天山) in Xinjiang (新疆).  But wait... according to official info, the snow goose actually comes from the Changbai Mountains (長白山) in the northeast...literally the opposite end of China from Xinjiang!  Whatever... The goose was not bad, but if you had served normal goose to me I doubt I would have tasted the difference...

The goose itself may have been double-boiled, but the shrooms were dunked into the claypot table side.  These were (from front to back) matsutake (松茸), termite mushrooms (雞瑽菌), black truffle (黑松露), catathelasma (老人頭), porcini (牛肝菌), wild wood ear (黑木耳), morel (羊肚菌), and of course the bamboo piths (竹笙) that were already in the soup.

The soup was awesome - a wonderful symphony of eight different types of mushrooms.  OK so the black truffles aren't from Périgord or Tasmania, but there is still enough fragrance that can be extracted.  After drinking the soup, the blended perfume from the shrooms lingered in my mouth... until I took a bite of the next dish.

Braised asparagus with matsutake in superior soup (松茸上湯鮮露筍) - FAIL.  This is supposed to be a signature dish, but it just didn't deliver.  The asparagus was a little bitter - maybe it's coming to the end of the season.  The matsutake is supposed to be very fragrant, but these were bland and flabby.

Egg white dumplings wrapped with ganbajun mushrooms and Yunnan ham (干巴菌石榴粿) - these were not bad.  I didn't manage to taste much ham, but the crunchy texture and the intense flavors of the ganbajun (干巴菌) were pretty nice.  The taste was very familiar to me... and then I remembered that they stuff the beggar's chicken at Tien Heung Lau (天香樓) with it.

Braised e-fu noodles with black truffle and morel mushrooms (黑松露羊肚菌炆伊麵) - this was pretty awesome.  Either the black truffle or morel on its own would have given off enough fragrance, but put the two together with some soy sauce and you have a very powerful combination.  This was so delicious I had to stop myself from eating a third (or was it fourth?) bowl...

Braised matsutake, shimeji and button mushrooms with sliced black chicken and frog (松茸野菌砂鍋鴛鴦雞) - the Chinese name implies that there are two kinds of chicken, but in reality one of them is actually frog's legs - or "farm chicken (田雞)".  This was OK, a little spicy and taste is on the heavy side.  I often prefer black chicken, and I'm had they used it in the dish.  The matsutake had been sliced into very thin shreds, and it took me a while to identify them in the big pile.

2008 Yering Station Pinot Noir - waiter's recommendation.  This came to me at a very warm temperature, and I had to ask for it to be chilled twice before it got to what I thought was the right serving temperature.  Obviously oxidized and cooked, as evidenced by the prominent nose of stewed prunes.  A little cherry with a little smoke.  I guess it's been a few days since the first glass was poured from this bottle...

Pan-fried egg custard buns (生煎流沙奶黃包) - soaked up too much oil and became greasy/soggy.  Not very enjoyable...

Overall this was a very enjoyable meal, what with all the shrooms lending their lovely perfume to the dishes.  However once again I have to sound like a broken record and gripe about the service.  Other than the chicken/frog's legs, which supposedly takes 30 minutes but arrived in less time, all the other dishes came within 15 minutes of each other.  How are we supposed to finish all that food before it got cold?  Sigh...

For the more concise review on AsiaTatler Dining, please visit here.