A Wong (Victoria)

This visit was a social occasion and note taking opportunities during the meal were limited.  As a result, this review is shorter than the norm, however it goes without saying that this was excellence in Chinese cuisine experienced again at A Wong.  The dim sum selection and A Wong crackers are as good as any you are likely to have and the xiao long bao had wonderfully thin dumpling casing for the beautiful stock inside.

The honey mustard sauce for the pork was wonderful and the crab claw clevery designed.  Peking duck was customarily superb and with precision hoisin sauce that you can paint on with a brush and the honey roasted pork with grated foie gras was absolutely stunning – again.

Sweets were also a pleasure with a refreshing coconut water ice, blackberries, Xinjiang mulberries, yoghurt and mocha dessert and a very nicely done chocolate sphere.  Executive Andrew Wong was in the house leading at the open kitchen which was very good to see and the meal reaffirmed my belief that currently, this is the best Chinese food in the UK.

Right from the off, there was a casual feel to this restaurant but combined with the fact that those serving were professional and knew their products and format.  The large, obligatory prawn crackers were light and spiced well to nibble on over a couple of Tsing Tao beers to begin with, but I began to realise what my associate, Mr Bainbridge was talking about when the prawn dumplings with citrus foam arrived.

Steamed dumplings with a Shanghai soup vinaigrette and tapioca pearls were soft and very well executed, not to mention lovely parcels to literally drink the insides through little incisions of the casing.  The wontons with prawns with garlic and bean curd sauce to dip in were equally pleasant, but the stakes were raised by the wonderful quail eggs encased with extremely light, almost flakey to the touch croquette exterior served with a lovely ginger oil and crispy seaweed sauce.  The latter here is why aromatic and Asian dining is so wonderful as it is significantly lower in calories than thick, cream or egg-based sauces, but also packs a huge punch at the same time…which these did.  Frankly, I would go back for these alone.

I liked the way that the honey baked pork pasties had a tinge of caramelisation on the outside crust and the filling was good but it felt as if it was far too little for the quantity of pastry that encased it.  A sound flavour but perhaps more filling or less pastry would have raised this.  The deep-fried prawn balls with chilli were another very doable course as were the char sui buns with venison – again, perhaps a slightly bigger filling to up the moisture compared to the surrounding walls of dried

Aromatic duck with ginger oil and homemade plum sauce was very good.  Aromatic crispy duck is inherently more dry than Peking as the former is deep-fried as opposed to oven-roasted and I find aromatic can easily become too horrendously dry as a result.  Not so in this case, the duck was as succulent as they come and whilst the sauces were good but not to the level of HKK (now sadly closed down), it was still very good with unbelievably light pancakes.  This was followed by the signature rabbit in carrot dumplings which was obviously a novel and clever way to present them, with a refreshingly different form of dumpling (ironically, I had to forage for the rabbit inside a little bit).

I was however, eternally grateful for being shown the char sui pork with caramelised sausages and frozen foie gras shavings.  Probably not the sort of dish to have every day from a calorific point of view, but was superb in flavour – the sweet, sticky sauce, with succulent pork and wonderful compliment of ‘light’ foie gras shavings that melted to the touch was a lovely mesh and did not last long on the plate.

The track record with Asian / Chinese restaurants is that the forté is not with desserts and that’s even at 3 Michelin starred level had thus far.  However, these custard buns were frankly mesmerising and one of the nicest desserts had this year full stop.  The idea was creative, but when the light and fluffy bun exterior ‘bled’ with wonderfully sweet and warm custard made from duck eggs (not too sickly sweet), this really was gorgeous and worked on every level, no question.  The white and milk, crunchy petit fours were also pretty good and a drink in the terrace afterwards with something different from the sommelier finished a meal that was basically one of the stand out meals had this year.  The price was great and this is one of my new, favourite ‘pinned’ places in my mind for Chinese food and I am already plotting when to go back for the full Peking duck menu which you need to book 48hrs in advance.

I would recommend this restaurant for a Dim Sum lunch for a breezy drop in at the counter just as much as I would an entire feast within the evening as the products (on first experience) are first class, as is the hospitality and overall experience.  I’m going back as soon as I have got a window in place after visiting the newly promoted restaurants of 2018 in the next few weeks.  A great place.