Hakkasan's CNY Year of the Pig Menu - Reviewed

Name: Hakkasan Hanway

Where:  Hakkasan, 8 Hanway Place, London W1T 1HD, https://hakkasan.com/locations/hakkasan-hanway-place/

Cost: The Year of the Pig Chinese New Year menu is priced at £88 per person. 

About: To celebrate the Year of the Pig, Hakkasan Hanway Place is offering a Chinese New Year set banquet, available only until Sunday 24th February. 

What We Ate: The menu kicked off with a salad of Peking duck with crispy bean curd and mango - this had perfectly crisp duck skin, candied orange peel, mixed greens, shredded chilli strands and dragon fruit.  Fresh, with great acidity, and wonderfully sweet and fatty duck morsels, this was a great start to the meal.

A dim sum duo followed - a bravura display of culinary skill, with seafood jian dui coated in white sesame seeds, and a fab shacha chicken puff - an ingenious, feather-light pastry case which opens up in segments like a savoury chocolate orange, to reveal a core of chicken with a savoury Fujian shacha sauce made from soybean oil, garlic, shallots, chillies, brill and dried shrimp.

The superior soup with Chilean seabass, goji berries and rings of bamboo pith had a well flavoured broth perfumed with chrysanthemum petals and ginko nut, and dainty cubes of seabass and yam.

Wok-fried lobster with spinach, lily bulb and lotus seeds was fresh, succulent and generous.

The Rhug Estate lamb had tender nuggets of fillet, served with shiitake mushrooms and rice cakes, in a spicy sauce fragrant with ginger, spring onion and chilli peppers.

Crispy suckling pig, with skin as crisp as caramel, was served atop sticky glutinous brown rice with a delectable pomegranate foam.

The side dish of stir-fried pak choi with meaty eryngii (king mushroom) and the rare but revered pioppini (aka the highly prized matsutake mushroom) was nothing short of outstanding.

Dessert was a "wealth pot", signifying favourable financial auguries for the New Year.  The pot was of dark chocolate, filled with mandarin granita and a crunchy hazelnut and chocolate ice cream.

The patisserie at Hakkasan is justly renowned, and the Fortune Macaron did not disappoint - with a crisp crust and a light, slightly chewy interior and a floral cream centre, this was an understated gem to bring the meal to a fitting end.

What We Drank: We started with a Liao Liao cocktail - a refreshing blend of Ketel One vodka, with rosella, oloroso sherry, lemon, kumquat and plum bitters.

With our meal, we shared a bottle of Albariño Abadia De San Campio, Terras Gauda, 2017 (£47). From Rias Baixas, this has pineapple and tropical fruit flavours, refreshing citrus acidity and a long finish, expertly recommended by Deputy Head Sommelier, Asturian-born Noelia Calleja.

Likes: Highlights for me were the ingenious shacha chicken puff, the lobster, the Rhug Estate lamb fillet, and the magnificent matsutake and eryngii mushroom dish. 

Dislikes: None
  
Verdict: If you have not yet celebrated the 2019 Chinese New Year of the Pig, hurry along to Hakkasan Hanway Place for this CNY banquet, which ends on 24th February 2019.  For me, its their best CNY menu yet. Very highly recommended!

The 2019 Year of the Pig CNY Menu at Yautcha City

Name: Yauatcha City

Where: 1 Broadgate Circus, London EC2M 2QS, http://www.yauatcha.com/city/

Cost: The CNY menu is priced at £60 per person. 

About: Michelin-starred Yauatcha is one of my favourite Chinese restaurants in London, with the first branch in Soho, and this glamorous spot in the City opened in 2015. Building on the Chinese dim sum teahouse concept, Yauatcha City has two bars, two outside terraces and a large main dining area, and on the weekday evening we were there was as usual packed with an after-work crowd.

The Chinese kitchen is led by Chef Tong Chee Hwee, and offers authentic Cantonese dishes with a modern influence, while the drinks menu has a staggering 38 types of tea plus cocktails inspired by Chinese ingredients and a large wine and Champagne list.

I am a regular visitor to Yauatcha City, and was keen to try their Year of the Pig CNY menu, available only until 23rd February 2019. 

What We Ate: The Dim Sum course had steamed, fried and baked items, including my all-time favourite buttery venison puffs. Highlights though were the steamed selection, including the spicy scallop, wild mushroom dumplings, and the prawn and chicken siu mai - delicately made, with paper thin skins and bursting with freshness and flavour.

Fried dim sum items included crispy monkfish cheeks with enoki mushroom and salsify (delectably meaty morsels), with a sweet and spicy sauce, and homemade prawn tofu with seaweed and water chestnut.

The main event was a medley of dishes - steamed freshwater prawn with chilli, ginger and garlic was punchy and flavoursome.

Equally delicious was the Peking-style sliced pork belly, served with golden mantou bread.

Best of all was the Szechuan three style mushroom - enoki, shimeji and wood ear fungus with green beans and mouth-numbing Szechuanese peppercorns.

The sticky brown rice with Chinese sausage was a good foil for the main course dishes - substantial and gutsy, the rice tasted as though it had been fried in lard, but the flavour came primarily from the Chinese sausages it had been flavoured with.

For dessert, the Mandarin and matcha Choux with sesame, mandarin compote, orange Chantilly segments and white chocolate discs was light and well presented.

What We Drank: we started with the suggested cocktail for the CNY menu - Nagami Fortune (£13), made with gin, kumquat, raspberry and lime, this was strong, intensely flavoured with the blend of citrus and berry fruits, and very refreshing.

We shared a bottle of Pinot Blanc, Granite de la Vallée, from Cave de Turckheim, Alsace (£37). This was light and delicate, with subtle apricot flavours and refreshing acidity.

Likes: surprisingly for hardcore meat eaters like ourselves, we thoroughly enjoyed the vegetable dish of beans and mushrooms as well as the steamed pescatarian dim sum selection.

Dislikes: None.

Verdict: a magnificent CNY menu at Yauatcha City for the Year of the Pig, but hurry because the menu ends on Saturday 23 February 2019.

Yauatcha City's 2018 Chinese New Year Menu Reviewed - The Year of the Dog

Name: Yauatcha City

Where: 1 Broadgate Circus, London EC2M 2QS, http://www.yauatcha.com/city/

Cost: The special CNY menu is served a la carte, and includes special dim sum at £8-9, mains priced at £17-30, and desserts at £2-9. 

About: Michelin-starred Yauatcha is one of my favourite Chinese restaurants in town, with the first branch in Soho, and this glamorous spot in the City opened in 2015. Building on the Chinese dim sum teahouse concept, Yauatcha City has two bars, two outside terraces and a large main dining area, and on the weekday evening we were there was as usual packed with an after-work crowd.

The Chinese kitchen is led by Chef Tong Chee Hwee, and offers authentic Cantonese dishes with a modern influence, while the drinks menu has a staggering 38 types of tea plus cocktails inspired by Chinese ingredients and a large wine and Champagne list. The restaurant also has an Executive Pastry Chef (Graham Hornigold), who is responsible for the sumptuous array of macarons, petits gateaux and chocolates you will pass at the entrance to the dining room. 

I am a regular visitor to Yauatcha City, and was keen to try their Year of the Dog CNY menu, available only until 4 March 2018. 

What We Ate: The CNY menu is à la carte, with a choice of two dim sum, five main courses, one special CNY dessert or macarons.  They all looked incredibly tempted, so we opted to try the whole menu. 

The Chilean seabass rolls (£9) came with wood ear fungus and Chinese green vegetable, all wrapped up in rice pastry and delicately tied with a single Chinese chive. The combination of ingredients was well judged, and the fish was rich and creamy.

The serving of three salted egg yolk custard sesame balls (£8) was graceful, on a fine disc of raw carrot over a jade serving bowl in the shape of a lotus leaf. It was as much a feast for the palate as for the eyes, and the molten salted custard was transcendent.

From the CNY main course menu, first came the Golden fortune prawn in lime sauce (£17). Five huge, fresh and surprisingly tender prawns were served with salted egg yolk, crispy fried lotus root and a topping of tobiko eggs. I really enjoyed this, although the prawns were a tad sweet for my palate.

The steamed scallops (£30) were big, juicy, unctuous and richly flavoured, served in black bean sauce with glass noodles. They worked out at £5 a piece, which I thought was a touch on the high side. 

The braised pork shank with lotus seed, water chestnut, star anise and shiitake mushroom (£23) came in a clay pot, served with goji berries, water chestnuts and a sauce rich in star anise and five spice. The transformation of this humble cut of pork into a rich and unctuous delicacy reminded me of Pierre Koffman's fabled pigs trotter and morels.
  

Stir-fried duck breast with hazelnut in mala sauce (£21) came with shimeji mushrooms, sugar snaps, red peppers. The duck was again surprisingly soft, indeed almost spongy in texture. The mala sauce, a mouth-numbing spicy condiment made from Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cardamom, salt and sugar mixed with vegetable and sesame oil was a heady blend, and tasted like it had a generous slug of belachan. I thoroughly enjoyed it with the duck.

The seafood braised rice in lotus leaf (£22) had a generous serving of fresh prawns and a lovely “wok breath”, but was for me the weakest link in an otherwise solid CNY menu.

From the regular menu, we ordered a dish of spicy aubergine with sato bean, okra and French beans with peanut (£13). This is one of my favourite dishes at Yauatcha, and I order it every time I return. In my experience, it never disappoints. 

Returning to the CNY menu for dessert, the special Haoyun lantern (£9) combined soy caramel mousse with mandarin confit, topped with gold leaf, served over a sesame sable base. Served with sesame brittle and a mandarin sorbet, this was a complex and thought-provoking dessert, beautifully presented.

The selection of macarons including kumquat cashew and raspberry Szechuan pepper, priced at £2 each, were as soft and delicious as I could wish for.  

What We Drank: We started with cocktails, priced at £12.50.  The Hakka combines Belvedere vodka with Akashi-tai sake, lychee, lime, coconut and passion fruit, and was headily aromatic, strong and delicious.  The Kumquatcha had Germana cachaca, Campari, mandarin, lime and Prosecco, and I really enjoyed the astringency and complex fruit flavours of this long, refreshing drink.

With our main courses, we shared a bottle of Hatzidakis PDO, from the volcanic soil of Santorini 2016 (£44). The winery was founded in 1997 by pioneering Greek vintner Haridimos Hatzidakis, who sadly died in 2017 at the age of only 50. The first maker in Santorini to use indigenous yeasts, he also promoted indigenous grape varieties like Assyrtiko, Aidani and Mavrotragano.  This wine was made from 100% Assyrtiko, and was a wonderfully crisp yet powerful, with peach and apricot flavours and flinty minerality, making it a fitting swansong for poor Mr Hatzidakis.  

Likes: For me, the outstanding dishes were the Chilean seabass rolls, the wonderful braised pork shank and the “Haoyun lantern” dessert. The cocktails and wine list include some of the most interesting drinks to be found anywhere in town, and there is an outstanding selection of top quality teas. 

Dislikes: None

Verdict: For high quality Cantonese cooking, beautifully presented in a glamorous setting, there are few places to rival Yauatcha City. Their CNY menu is always worth looking out for, and the 2018 Year of the Dog menu is available only until 4 March 2018 so there is no time to waste!

Hakkasan’s Fabulous Year of the Dog Chinese New Year Menu

Where: 8 Hanway Place, Fitzrovia, London W1T 1HD

Cost: The Chinese New Year (CNY) menu costs £88 per person. The suggested Happy Daisy cocktail is £13.50. 

About: 2018 is the Year of the Dog in the Chinese calendar, and Michelin-starred Hakkasan is offering a special CNYs menu for a lucky £88 per head at its flagship and Mayfair branches. This special celebration meal is available for a limited period, between 29 January and 4 March, and as in previous years I was keen to give it a try. 

Hakksan Hanway Place is one of the very few Chinese restaurants in London to hold a Michelin star, and it always seems to be heaving, as indeed it was on the Saturday lunchtime when I sampled the CNY menu. In my experience it offers good customer service and almost flawless cooking, so it is perhaps no surprise that it is perennially popular.  

What We Ate: The 2018 CNY menu starts with a selection of small eats. The Szechuan oyster with lotus root with crispy rice in mantau bread had a magnificent flavour of the sea, complimented by a scattering of pine nuts and Chinese chives.

Wonderfully tender braised beef tongue rolls came next with crunchy caramelized walnuts, served on a bed of fine baby asparagus, with mustard and mint.

The final “small eat” was scallops, served with sweet plum sauce and mango in a "golden cup" of crisp rice pastry, on a bed of green pea shoots, goji berries and Chinese chives. The pastry shell gave a lovely crunch to the dish, contrasting with the unctuous scallops.

The main courses followed, served simultaneously. Wok-fried native lobster came gorgeously presented in light stock with edamame beans, red and black caviar and edible flowers. This was a sumptuous dish, as good to eat as it looked, and the lobster pieces were succulent, ultra fresh and tender.

For me, the weakest link in the meal was the Rhug estate organic lamb in seaweed soy with celery and enoki mushroom. The lamb was medium rare, tender and delicious, but it did not in my opinion live up to the quality of the other dishes in this part of the meal.

Best of all though was the baked Chilean sea bass with kumquat glaze. I have prepared and eaten a great deal of Chilean sea bass in my time. But Hakkasan’s version was sensational, with magnificently tender, creamy flesh in a well-judged, zingy kumquat reduction.
  

To accompany the main course, there was a generous serving of abalone fried rice in a fine bean curd wrap with Chinese sausage, shiitake mushroom and choi sum. I enjoyed the unusual presentation of the rice, concealed within a fine layer of tofu, and the rice was richly flavoured and more than a match for the meat, fish and seafood main courses.

Dessert was described as ‘Golden Fortune”. Hakkasan is famous for its desserts, and this more than lived up to the billing. Made with ginger caramel, roasted macadamia and wafer-thin chocolate, this was exquisite patisserie, a feast for the eyes and palate, skilfully partnered with an intensely flavoured lemongrass ice cream.

What We Drank: We started with the Happy Daisy cocktail (£13.50), which is suggested to kick off the CNY menu. With Tanqueray No.10 gin, Chartreuse Yellow, lemon, spiced mandarin jam, egg white and soda water, with a lemon thyme garnish. This had a good depth of flavour and bittersweet herbal astringency.

There is an extensive list of 'dry' alcohol-free drinks, including cold brewed teas, sparkling juices like quince and apple, or an alcohol-free Australian Shiraz. 

We opted to take a pot of high-mountain Taiwanese tea, which I thoroughly enjoyed (£8 per person). 

Likes: The lobster, Chilean seabass and ‘Golden Fortune’ dessert were, for me, the highlights of an excellent CNY meal.  

Dislikes: None 

Verdict: Hakkasan is one of the finest Chinese restaurants in London. If you are looking for a great food, cocktails, service and atmosphere to see in the CNY, then I cannot think of a venue I would recommend more highly. But hurry as this celebration meal is only available until 4 March 2018!

Hakkasan Mayfair’s Year of the Rooster CNY Menu – Big, Decadent and Outstanding Value!

Name: Hakkasan Mayfair's Chinese New Year (CNY)

Where: 17 Bruton Street, London W1J 6QB, 
http://hakkasan.com/locations/hakkasan-mayfair/

Cost: The Chinese New Year Signature menu costs £108 per person and includes 11 dishes, or £88 for 9 dishes. 

About: Opened in November 2010, Hakkasan Mayfair on Bruton street is just a few metres from swish Berkeley Square. 

With one of the most discreet entrances I have encountered in any London restaurant (you would probably miss it if you were not looking for it), we were surprised to see how large and manically buzzy the restaurant was once we were through its front door. On a cold, mid-week, January evening, the place was heaving!

Hakkasan Mayfair spans over two floors for up to 220 guests - the lower ground floor has the familiar and intimate Hakkasan setting as in the original Hanway Place, made up of a number of rooms partitioned by intricate wooden screens, whilst the ground floor features a relaxed dining space with high chairs and tables and a coveted bar area.

Both floors feature a DJ beat of funky music and low-level lighting, while along its walls is surely one of the longest, swankiest cocktail bars in London.

Executive Head Chef Tong Chee Hwee oversees the kitchen, where dishes unique to Hakkasan Mayfair have been created, such as steamed New Zealand mini lobster, Black truffle roast duck, and Sliced blue abalone in Hakka sauce. Chef Tong is based at HKK, Hakkasan’s sister restaurant located in the heart of the City which I visited earlier this week – see my 2017 HKK CNY review here).

What We Ate: Hakkasan Mayfair’s 2017 CNY Signature Menu, available only until the 11th February, is divided into 3 small eats, 3 mains, 1 vegetable and 1 rice accompaniments, and 3 desserts.

We started with the first small eat - the traditional CNY prosperity salad – this version, aptly named ‘Fortune Tale’ came with two separate dressings (sesame oil and plum sauce), and a fresh and healthy combination of various raw crunchy ingredients including julienned carrot, cucumber, mango and onion, pomelo and pickled ginger. Rather than the traditional raw salmon, the salad contained roast chicken, crispy chicken skin and deep-fried sweet potato. I could also taste deep fried crispy pastry, coriander, jellyfish, mooli and black fungus. Yep, we certainly got our 5-a-day with this salad!

Typically served to start a family New Year meal, all the guests stand and toss the salad high in the air with their chopsticks while saying auspicious things to bring good luck, health and prosperity in the New Year.

Next was the double boiled fish maw and chicken soup – this had a superbly flavoured broth and little morsels of tender chicken, spongy and gelatinous-textured fish, lotus seeds, slices of fresh coconut flesh and goji berry. Delicate, yet intensely flavoured, this was the finest soup I have tasted at the Hakkasan group.

The last of our small-eats was the braised Chilean abalone with wind-dried oyster and gold leaf over bok choi. This was another winning dish – the abalone had great texture paired with an intense, rich umami flavour from the dried seafood. The sauce was also delectable – rich and velvety.

For mains, the menu started with stir-fried lobster in white pepper soup. Gorgeously presented on the lobster tail shell, with fried slivers of pastry, water chestnuts and edible flowers, the lobster had a delicious charred flavour while remaining soft and succulent. We also enjoyed the dish’s gentle heat from the smattering of red Sichuan peppercorns. 

But the highlight of our meal was the steamed turbot in supreme stock laced with saffron – this contained four greatly textured turbot fish fillets wrapped around enoki mushrooms and with heavenly accompaniments of sweet caramelised garlic and cloud ear mushroom.

Less successful though was the sautéed duck breast in spicy bean sauce - but then that turbot was a tough one to follow! For me, the duck had a rather unusual, soft and spongy texture I couldn’t put my finger on – I asked the waiter about this but could not get an explanation as the chef was too busy. I guess for that texture, the meat might have been coated in flour and lightly poached in water before being sautéed. The duck was served with julienned slices of red and green pepper, onion and lotus root. The sauce though nicely spiced was a tad too sweet for my palate.  Overall, I did not feel this dish was in keep with the rest of the CNY menu.

The stir-fry selection of mushrooms (enoki, oyster, shiitake and king) came on a bed of crunchy long stem broccoli, in a deliciously rich and creamy abalone sauce, topped with goji berries. 

To accompany, we had a bowl of salted-egg fried rice with spring onion. This was my first time trying salted-egg fried rice, and it was another revelation – full of flavour and so delicious, where had it been all my life?! Olivier, the assistant restaurant manager taking our order on the night, told me to go easy on the rice as the menu was rather substantial, but of course I totally failed.

Hakksan Mayfair CNY menu has 3 desserts. The first was the stunning "Golden Feather", a huge mock egg made up of white chocolate shell filled with white panna cotta for egg white, mandarin and ginger custard as yolk. The egg was served on an edible bed of dainty chocolate feathers and straw.

The deep-fried sesame balls came with deep fried seaweed and filled with golden yellow custard instead of the more usual black sesame paste.

Last but not least, dessert number 3 was a rice cake filled with steamed custard and red bean. Shaped like a gold fish, with edible gold at the head, this was a mochi-like dessert served warm and beautifully presented.

What We Drank: Hakkasan Mayfair offers an extensive list of Champagnes and wines, with the entry level white being a Verdejo "Dados" from Rueda, Spain at £34, while the red is a Rioja Graciano "Altos Ibericos" from Torres, Spain (£36). In keeping with its Mayfair location, it also offers an extensive range of top flight wines including a 1995 Petrus (£4,888). There is also a wide range of sakes, sherries and cocktails.   

The CNY menu cocktail (£13.50) was a long Waltzing Collins, with baijiu (Chinese spirit), sake, mandarin, lemon, grenadine, cucumber and sparkling wine. This was refreshingly tart with a great balance of sweetness and citrus acidity. 

With our meal, we shared a bottle of Santorini, Hatzidakis (£44) - a well-structured, intensely minerally wine, robust enough to stand up to all the dishes on the menu, including the duck. This was a great wine and surprisingly well priced.

As a special treat from Olivier, we were offered a couple of glasses of red wine he wanted us to try - a Laibach Claypot Merlot 2012 from Stellenbosch, South Africa (£62/bottle). Originally sourced by Alan Yau himself for the Hanway Place branch, it still only available at Hakkasan and not on the high street. This was a rich, concentrated, wine of black berry fruit, with gentle tannins and a long finish. 

I was also very pleased to hear from him that the Hakkasan Group send nearly all their staff on to the Wine & Spirit Education Trust courses to at least to level 2. This partially explains the good level of service and knowledge by the sommeliers and waiting staff at the group’s restaurants.

Likes: For me, the biggest highlight was the turbot, though the salted-egg rice, the chicken and fish maw soup, the abalone and dried oyster, and the lobster were also sensational. The £108 CNY menu is incredibly generous, and I had to be nearly rolled out of the restaurant by the end of our meal. If you are not a big eater, I suggest going for the £88 menu and having 9 dishes instead (as opposed to the full 11 dishes on the £108 menu). Oliver was right – I should have gone easy on that rice, but then it was too good to leave behind!

Dislikes: In my opinion the duck was not in keep with the refinement of the rest of the menu.

Verdict: Hakkasan Mayfair’s Year of the Rooster menu is available only until the 11th February, and I urge you to try it, that is, if you can still book a table! It is big, decadent and outstanding value. Very highly recommended.