A star in the city

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I had a pretty busy day, running around to catch up with a few people while I'm in town.  After failing to participate in a vertical tasting of Pontet-Canet, I caught up with Mr. and Mrs. Tigger over dinner at Yuè (粵), the newly-minted 1-macaron restaurant in the City Garden Hotel (城市花園酒店).  This is Tigger's new discovery, as he tries to wean himself from the Mandarin Oriental.

Barbecued pork (叉燒) - Tigger of course asked for the lean cuts, while I asked for the fattier cuts (半肥瘦).  What we got was pretty nice... and satisfied both of us.

Daily double-boiled soup (老火例湯) - I think this was a apple and pear soup with white fungus (蘋果雪梨木耳)... I enjoyed the sweet-ish finish of the soup, and the pork was reasonably tender.

Crispy fried prawns coated with pomelo sauce (柚子脆蝦球) - pretty nicely done.  The prawns were thinly coated in batter, and I actually enjoyed the sweet and sour sauce - more sweet than sour - for once.  The fragrance of the pomelo rind really came through, and stayed in my mouth for a while.

Leaf amaranth in superior broth (上湯浸莧菜) - a simply dish done nicely.  Young and tender amaranth.

Crispy pepper chicken (胡椒脆皮雞) - the skin of the chicken was certainly crispy, and I saw some peppercorns on the plate, but somehow the chicken didn't taste of pepper...  The meat was tender and juicy, although some of the pieces were over-seasoned.

Steamed rice with shrimps, conpoys and mushrooms wrapped with lotus leaf (籠仔荷葉飯) - pretty yummy, but unfortunately this wasn't what I ordered!  I had wanted the fried rice with prawns and barbecued pork in XO sauce (師傅炒飯), but the manager got the order wrong.  Oh well...

Sweet bean curd (山水豆腐花) - not bad I guess, but came to our table a little lukewarm.

So... was this Michelin-star quality?  Perhaps.  There were only 3 of us so the sample size of the dishes is too small.  What we had was of fairly good quality, even the slightly over-seasoned chicken.  Only problem is that the kitchen didn't have 2 of the dishes I wanted, and there was a mistake with the order.  I think the only right thing to do would be to return with a larger group of friends and order up a storm.  We shall see...