Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Chia Lin

Chia Lin Hong Kong Cuisine is located on the 16th floor of the Sogo Department store in Taichung City. The restaurant serves contemporary Cantonese Chinese cuisine with views overlooking the Taichung downtown. We came for lunch after visiting the flower farm in Taichung County. Since it was Chinese New Year and we do not know an alternate place for dim sum, we decided to eat here. We attempted to sample items of dim sum list to their standard menu.
Vibe; The decor itself is classy just upon you entered the restaurant not to mention the well decorated Chinese decorations. Inside the main dining area is typical Cantonese-Chinese style with lots of families and group of people eating together. When we were seated at our table, we were given a tea of your choice.
The staff comes around with trolley and pushing from table to table and you pick the ones that you want. But it seems everything was over steamed. I pick up my favorite barbecue pork bun and steamed chicken feet.
The steamed bbq pork bun is one of favorite dim sum dishes. I always couldn’t resist ordering cha shao bao from restaurants since their were always so good.
The barbecue pork bun filling was sweet, porky and let say delicious.
The flavors of steamed chicken feet are subtle and exquisite, well cooked and not overdone or overly seasoned.
Another classic to test the quality of steamed rice noodle rolls with shrimp arrived filled with large prawns was okay there is nothing too shout about.
We also ordered some pan-fried noodles to accompany the meal. It had lots of nice big juicy beef lean meat. Despite being an appetising golden brown colour, I am quite impressed with this because in most places, there are lots of bean sprouts and very little ingredients. These were exactly what I was expecting for fried noodles  being cooked in al dente.  They were terrific though it was the winner on the table.
Fried shrimp and pineapple coated with a mayonnaise-based sauce. It appears on the menu but it's supposed to be a Taiwanese favorite dish. This dish was okay we finished off those pineapple pieces.
The pan seared turnip cake was a decidedly average dish and nothing special to it.
We also got some spring roll with soy sauce loaded a chopped vegetables, meat, and other ingredients. Beneath the crusty wrapper was actually very moist but we found out it was a bit salty. Even more weak than Sen He Yuan.
We also tried the pan fried calamari pancake, they were absolutely steaming hot underneath the skin wrapper. They looked a little old and not freshly made, we don't finish them either.
Pan fried mock cod fish it looks so fragrant and tastes almost there.
***
Overall the service was promptly and efficient, the food quality was quite a disappointment. The food it was not too bad, but it’s the kind of quality that we would not interested to visit the restaurant again. Honestly....In my experience the food is just average, compared to any other Hong Kong or Cantonese restaurant we have eaten in.
***
Chia Lin 嘉麟樓
台中市中港路一段299號16樓
16/F, No. 299, Section 1, Chungkang Road,
West District,Taichung City
Contact No: Phone: 04-23283168
Website:

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