Lee Ho Fook - Excellent Chinese Food

Fook you.

No, fook you.

Ok, if you insist, I'll go to Lee Ho Fook.

If you're not on the floor rolling in laughter, clearly you don't fall for bad jokes based upon bad Chinglish. That's probably a good thing. Bad jokes aside, the dinner at Lee Ho Fook was excellent and I'd happily go back any day. Usually, I wouldn't choose to go out to eat Chinese food. Given I eat so much of it at home, and the majority of it is done so badly, it's not an obvious choice for me. However, the famous people at Luxbite , Bernard and Yen, kept raving about Lee Ho Fook so we all decided to go and try it out. The equally famous I-Hua helped organised the dinner and the infamous Agnes came along as well, with Mama Spork in tow. We studied the menu long and hard and decided that the banquet for $48 provided the best selection of food for value of money. As we're gluts, we also ordered a couple of extra dishes to try.

Lee Ho Fook's fitout is rather funky and I loved the use of the occy straps for the lighting setup. It seems like you can't go to any restaurant nowadays with half a hipster vibe that doesn't have some funky light or other. As with my usual complaint, whilst the lights look good, at most places, including Lee Ho Fook, the lighting is too dark for my liking. With that small quibble aside, the setup at Lee Ho Fook does feel really comfortable and is a good environment for casual dining. The wait staff were friendly, efficient and knowledgeable, which is great as I hate style before substance.

The banquet started off with a selection of entrees, a Pork Bun and Prawn Toast with Foie Gras Butter. The pork buns had a dried pork type filling which was really great. The prawn toast had good flavour but was far too salty for my liking.

Next up, we ate what I thought was the best dish of the night. The Yee Sang of Ocean Trout with Jellyfish Salad was just pure brilliance. The flavours and textures bounced off my tongue and I kept wanting more of it. This dish was followed by the two dishes we ordered a la carte. The Salt Duck was a marinated duck and served with some beautiful red cabbage. It was pretty good. The Pork Belly with Pickles and Chili Sauce was stunning, mainly due to the chili sauce. Oh man, that sauce had me more than Tom Cruise had Renee Zellweger at hello. It was pure spicy goodness and combined with the pork belly and pickles, was an awesome dish.

Back to the banquet dishes, there was Steamed Barramundi with Ginger and Spring Onions, Crispy Skin Shangdong Chicken and Crispy Eggplant with Red Vinegar. The barramundi surprised me as of all the dishes it was the most "normal" Chinese dish that other restaurants serve but it was different enough to make it really stand out. The crispy chicken was beautifully done with a crispy skin and tender meat. Lastly, the crispy eggplant was brilliant. I love the texture and flavour of that dish and it definitely makes me want to eat more eggplant.

Finally for dessert, there was an Almond Jelly and a Jasmine Tea Creme Brulee. The jelly was nice, but boy oh boy, that brulee was sensational. The jasmine tea worked a treat in it. Gimme another one now. We also got a free dessert from the kitchen of Coconut Textures with Sake. It was refreshing but I won't say I loved it as it felt a bit disjointed.

As I said at the beginning, this is a Chinese restaurant that I'd definitely come back to and recommend for others to try. Would I recommend it to my mum, unfortunately no. She would still dislike it as it wasn't Chinese enough and still too expensive haha. It also didn't get Mama Spork's approval. But for anyone else who's not hung up on Chinese food only having to be traditional and cheap, this is a must try place.