Mr Kong's and Year of the Goat

Happy year of the goat (or sheep).

We were lucky enough to dine at one of London’s best Cantonese restaurants to celebrate Chinese New Year!

We had the special starter invented by Mr Kong himself of steamed scallop in its own shell served with a small portion of glass noodles.  Over this was spooned a special mixture of soy sauce, minced roasted garlic, fresh slivers of chilli and fresh coriander.  This, as usual, melted in the mouth and the sauce was fine-tuned to compliment the sweet meatiness of the scallop beautifully.

 We also had a serving of prawn sesame toast, which was crisp and rich and lovely to enjoy with a cup of jasmine tea. (We also enjoyed a bottle of Tsing Tsao beer with our main meal).

Our main courses included garlicky king prawns, another chef speciality.  The prawns were so perfectly cooked and seasoned with a tender mixture of garlicky goodness and sweet diced onion on a hot metal dish that sizzled and announced its arrival to the entire restaurant.  We also enjoyed shredded roasted pork stir- fried with fresh garlic shoots which gave a beautiful savoury-sweet burst of flavour – the roasted pork gave a salty bacon satisfaction while the fresh greens tasted like a clump of wild garlic smells in spring.  In addition there was duck with fresh slivers of mango and asparagus plus Chinese mushrooms – each flavour so expertly preserved yet fused in the stir-fry. The duck was gorgeous and melting and totally complimented by the fresh flavours of the asparagus and mango. Cantonese cooking at its best!

There was also sweet and sour chicken – so fresh and crisp and zingy, not at all how it can be (soggy and cloying) in countless take aways!  And finally we sampled the Mongolian lamb – crisply shredded, served with an iceberg lettuce wrap certainly interesting to try.  We had all this served with a portion of fried noodles, seasoned with a little onion and bean shoot that was so delicious even on its own, and certainly helped us to appreciate the dishes served with it.

Finally of course we enjoyed slivers of perfectly sweet oranges to cleanse the palate.

We cannot recommend Mr Kongs highly enough.  We were informed the management may change soon so best to try it out at its current brilliant standards!