What a difference a new kid in the kitchen makes, even in an institution like Man Ho, aka "Treasure".
A wet mid-week lunch session is buzzing, and the multinational diners aren't only ordering the dim sum feeding frenzy. At least three Peking Ducks -- real Beijing style -- announce themselves as the skin is crisped in a table-side baptism of fire.
Meet Executive Chef Peter Li, the bubbly, kindly, irrepressibly creative but heritage-savvy mastermind of all-new signature dishes, and radically revised a la carte and dim sum menus.
Come to his pan-global cabaret of live chef shows featuring literally Stone Age cooking techniques.
Born in Beijing, Li's 30 years' experience in five-star hotels and resorts around the world under his toque. The multinational flags trimming the mandarin collar of his black chefs' two-piece bear witness.
Such distinctions as heading the culinary team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and being the first Chinese executive chef to Saudi royals (odd paradox: while Mah Ho's host hotel, JW Marriott Bangkok, is popular among Middle Eastern medical tourists hitting neighbouring Bumrungrad, they seem to skip Man Ho), underscore Li's mastery of all aspects of Chinese, not only cliché Cantonese, cuisine.
Paying homage to the past while anticipating the future, Li's oeuvre is a modern remix of traditional in-season ingredients and age-old recipes, impeccably prepared and presented with a flourish.
Today's amuse bouche is a plump prawn doused in mild green wasabi sauce on a crunchy cucumber ring. Perfection.
We delve into the dim-sum menu with Marco Polo (resonating "Touch Your Heart" cuisine's Silk Road origins) Black Har Gao (180++), glutinous rice flour dumpling infused with squid ink and wrapped around subtly-seasoned shrimp. OMG!
Teapot Seafood Soup with Ginseng is inspired by the new green tea season that "marries well with seafood for a healthy balance of ying and yang". At 1,100++, it's pricey but with prawn (plucked live from tanks along the corridor), Hokkaido scallop, abalone, squid, and ginseng, and the soup double boiled/steamed, thus stripped of starch, it's value. A fresh goji berry leads in.
Whole Fired Peking Duck (1,490++) is how Li grew up understanding the classic dish. The five-hour preparation begins with roasting the smoked duck, so the dry skin will crisp and meat is tender and succulent. The whole duck is consumed in one with cucumber, leek and sweet bean sauce inside sticky pancakes.
Sauna King Prawns (750++) entails heating cobblestones to 700° C by naked flame in a smooth stone pot from pre-wok times. The freshly plucked prawns are placed inside, doused in Chaoxing wine, releasing billowing steam, before the lid seals it. Two minutes later, perfect pink prawns emerge to be devoured with Chaoxing sauce.
Zhong Qing Style Bamboo Fish (400++/100g) features snow fish fillet Sichuan-seasoned, deep-fried, then roasted and served with XO sauce. Crispy outside, fleshy inside, the fish is exquisite.
Complementing salty savouriness with oceanic freshness, pan-fried Japanese scallop wrapped in bacon with XO seafood sauce (950++) is surf + turf legend.
Salt-baked TaiJi Chicken (550++), lotus leaf-wrapped chicken cooked inside a snowdrift of seasoned sea salt, is a dish Li's grandmother did. The chicken emerges tender, moist, and flavourful, to be dipped in garlic, ginger, sesame and chili oil.
Ice Cream Hot Pot (260++), another hot stone production, offers a killer combination of fresh vanilla ice cream and buttery chocolate sauce.
Chinese art and antique cabinets furnish the elegant part carpeted, part wood-floor, light and airy dining room. Wait staff sport red-trimmed golden tunics and a Blade-Runneresque Bangkok scene looms large through widescreen windows.
Open: 11:30-14:30, 18:00-22:30.
Tel. 02-656-7700
