Sun Tung Lok Hong Kong - 2 Michelin Stars

This is the thirty-fifth post in the Around the World Birthday Extravaganza Series. Please scroll to the bottom to see all the other posts in this series.

Luxury Chinese.

It's not something I'm really exposed to here in America. When most people think of Chinese food, they think of cheap take-out, tiny hole-in-the-wall joints, or dim sum. Chinese food is casual, inexpensive, and family-style. In fact, when people try to "fancify" and charge more for Chinese food, our natural inclination is to revolt, thinking that it's "over-priced" because we can get equally good versions of the dish at a cheap hole-in-the-wall.

Bryan and I knew very little about Chinese high-end food. Yes, we'd been to China a few times, but we were totally seeking the hole-in-wall best dumpling, best xiao long bao, best Peking duck, etc. We didn't seek out fancy food because that's not what we associated with China.

As a result, were both interested in seeing what high-end Chinese was all about. Honk Kong, which has multiple Chinese restaurants with Michelin stars, seemed like the perfect place to try it.

Sun Tung Lok is a Cantonese restaurant that specializes in dishes made with shark fin. 🙁 It boasts being one of only two restaurants in the world back in 2011 to earn three Michelin stars (Lung King Heen was the other one). It has since dropped to two Michelin stars in the most recent 2017 guide.

Interestingly, even before I went, I knew many people questioned why Sun Tung Lok ever received three stars. Neverthless, we decided to try for ourselves and find out.
Sun Tung Lok has been open since 1969 and focuses on traditional high-end Cantonese food. Traditional high end Cantonese cuisine values exotic ingredients, such as abalone, shark fin, and bird's nest.

At Sun Tung Lok, one can choose between a variety of set menus, whose prices vary by the cost and number of exotic ingredients included. Abalone was heavily featured on the menu, and the prices varied widely. You could spend under $100 USD up to almost $2000 USD per person depending on the quality of the abalone and the other ingredients. All of the set menus included shark fin, the restaurant's specialty. 🙁

We decided to go for something in the middle range, around $350 USD a person.

I was immediately surprised when we received our first dish. Unlike the refined, artful plating you might expect from a typical 3-Michelin starred restaurant, this presentation was quite simple and a bit crude.

The shrimp cake topped with crispy pork belly was quite good. The wheat gluten had really incredible flavor! It tasted like fatty meat, except that it was vegetarian (I think?).

Unfortunately, the roasted barbecue pork (charsiu) was disappointingly tough. It was such a letdown compared to the phenomenal barbecue pork we had enjoyed a few days earlier at Fu Sing Seafood Restaurant.

The next course was Stir Fried Shark's Fin with Supreme Soup. A woman walked over to our table and started stir-frying the shark's fin on a butane-burner powered portable stove table-side. The smell was intoxicating. The supreme soup was a ham-based, very flavorful consommé that we could use for dipping. A diluted version went in to flavor the stir-fried shark fin (which itself is flavorless).
I felt guilty eating the shark's fin (this was my first time eating so much of it - I've typically had a few slivers of it at certain wedding banquets). However, I have to admit it was phenomenal. The flavor of the broth used to stir-fry the dish was wonderfully fragrant and full of deep, rich umami.

It was seriously really, really good.

The next course was the prized Abalone.

This time a man came to the little burner next to our table and started cooking the abalone table-side.

It came served with stewed pomelo and some simple greens. The stewed pomelo (a cousin of the grapefruit) tasted like a cross between a daikon and a potato. The abalone was excellent - soft, tender, and very flavorful.

For our next course, we each got a salt and pepper Prawn. I *think* it was on purpose, but I (the female at the table) got a special prawn that had roe inside. They knew mine had roe, because they gave me a special roe fork when setting the table (and they didn't give one to Bryan!).

Refined congee topped with fresh crab meat was nice and elegant.

I *think* this is beef, but I honestly don't remember! I forgot to write it down, and I have no recollection. Needless to say, it was likely not very memorable but probably was enjoyable.

After all of the savory courses were finished, the server gave us a small cup of lime grape juice, which he said would be good for cutting fat from the bloodstream. He brought over some fruit for us to try: dragon fruit from Colombia was excellent, the best I've had in Hong Kong. The watermelon was relatively bland but the green melon was refreshing and sweet.

For our dessert, the server came over once more to cook one last dish table-side. This time it was a light coconut and almond cream with Bird's Nest. The texture of bird's nest is a gelatinous. After all, bird's nest is made from the hardened saliva of the swiftlet, a small bird found in Southeast Asia. The dish is a delicacy because the nests are rare amd hard to obtain.

The dessert was pleasant. Creamy, light, and the nest had an interesting, unique texture.

General Thoughts on Sun Tung Lok Hong Kong

My first impression upon leaving the restaurant was mixed. Yes, there were dishes that were phenomenal - most notably the "Supreme broth" used to stir fry the shark's fin was really, really good. That was definitely the highlight for both of us. But there were clear misses, most notably the mediocre tough barbecue pork at the beginning. The service was average, and the music (Forrest Gump on endless repeat), felt a bit dated.

I remember feeling like it was really, really expensive and not worth it (our final bill was just under $1000 USD, including a bottle of nice champagne). However, Bryan did remind me that a large part of the cost was based on the sheer exotic nature of the ingredients alone. In one meal, we tasted three of the most well-known exotic ingredients in Chinese cuisine: shark's fin, abalone, and bird's nest. These were things I had heard about ever since I was a kid, but had never tried.

It was interesting to try traditional high-end Cantonese food. However, I don't think I fully appreciate fancy abalone, shark's fin, or bird's nest. They taste fine, but to me, they aren't worth the high price.

Nevertheless, we have no regrets about visiting this restaurant. The food was very interesting and most of it was very enjoyable. Now that we've experienced "fancy" Cantonese food, next time we'll continue exploring the rest of what Hong Kong has to offer, which is pretty endless!

Sun Tung Lok Hong Kong {official website}
Shop D, 4/F, Miramar Shopping Centre
132 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

And that's it! After a WHOLE YEAR we have finally completed the Around the World Birthday Extravaganza trip. I can't believe it took 35 posts to write about all of the places I visited during that three and a half week trip.

I *may* write one more follow-up post to wrap up some of the other non-food related things I did in Hong Kong. Other than that, now it's time to move on! Up next! We will explore Barcelona, Chicago, Copenhagen, and cruising the Norway fjords, as well as finish up the ongoing series in Sonoma, Madrid, and Las Vegas!