Finally, I make it to Hakkasan

I have been wanting to go to Hakkasan ever since I moved to London, and I'm not quite sure why I've never made it until now. Maybe I was a bit worried that it wouldn't live up to the hype, and there is of course the fact that I couldn't really afford to go until about 3 years ago. But finally, after all this time, I went jumped straight into the deep end and went for dinner last Sunday.

I could only get a 6:30-8:30 sitting, and the place was packed by about 7:30 (what credit crunch??). First impressions: having peeps at the door is a bit off-putting (thank goodness I had my best coat on), and inside, it is full of the 'nightclub chic' I'd expected. The tables are a bit too close together, and I could tell my parents would absolutely hate it if I took them here. Their target market is certainly not for those into traditional Cantonese family style cooking.

The other thing I worried about was how much we would've been able to order. There were only the two of us, and normally in a Cantonese meal, that means struggling through one or two big plates of food. None of those worries here though - their portions are pretty small, and at first glance a bit extortionate: starters from around £10-16, mains around £20-£35 (although you can also get the 24-hour-order-in-advance abalone for a mere £280 too). But when you think about it, you would pay similar prices for similar portions at high end Western style restaurants, which is what their competition really is.

But down to the food, which ranged from excellent to slightly mindblowing. We started with their duck with mango sauce:

The duck was simply beautiful. As I always say, I always find duck a bit disappointing in restaurants because it really isn't that hard to cook, but this was tremendous. They managed to get the skin really crisp, yet the fat underneath still slightly wobbling. The mango pieces in between also went very well. My only criticism is that the mango sauce was just a bit too sweet - people have said that there is a bit too much sweetness in their menu, I guess it is because of dishes like this.

Next up was the star of the show - abalone with corn fed chicken and jellyfish:

To be absolutely honest, if you're lucky enough to be chowing chicken in Hong Kong this won't wow you, but I've been deprived of decent chicken for such a long time in this country. And really, this dish is about the chicken rather than anything else - the abalone tastes a bit tinned, there isn't enough jellyfish. The poached chicken is just tender, succulent, I loved loved the skin, and I never eat the skin. The winey sauce was also delicious, we were lapping it up afterwards. A perfect dish to demonstrate why Chinese food is all about the texture.

We tried to order our mains to see what they do with different types of meat. My mum made me the most incredible belly pork stew the other day, but unfortunately the Hakkasan belly pork was a bit superior (sorry Mum!):

Again, this was quite sweet, but they managed to cook it like you were not eating a fatty bit of pork. Crunchy and juicy, very very unami with their superior soy. And best of all, they try to bulk it up with some dried tofu 豆腐皮, which I was only too glad to find at the bottom of the pot! The other main we had was crab claws, which comes with a choice of sauces - we opted for yellow bean and chilli:

For Dave, this was the star of the show, but then he loves loves loves crab and doesn't eat enough of it. I think this would be the dish my dad would see and immediately say 'I can cook that, at a quarter of the price!' - the technique isn't difficult, but the quality of the crab cannot be disputed. We looked awfully rude putting up the claws and stuffing them in our mouths, sucking the juices for all they're worth.

Finally dessert. First of all, I was MIGHTILY disappointed with the dessert menu - not a single thing on it is Chinese, and I was hoping to see what funky things they would do with red bean soup and lotus seed paste. However, I am also MIGHTILY disappointed not to have taken a picture of what we ended up with, a chocolate ganache with raspberry sorbet and salted caramel, because it was superb, much better than expected. It really should be done for trade descriptions though, because it was much more about the raspberry and the caramel than the tiny layer of chocolate, but a genius concoction, even more genius with the sparkling dessert wine recommended with it.

All in all, very expensive, but I would say worth it - according to Dave, one of the best meals he's had in years. I guess if you're very used to top class Western style food, being faced with equal quality Chinese food is extremely interesting, only to see the types of ingredients they use. But I have one note of reservation, and a pretty big one actually, and that is the wine list. Not only is it organised very randomly, under quite pretentious titles, it is all VERY expensive. You'd struggle to find anything under £30 on there, and most of it is £50 and up. One of the dessert wines they recommend (with their chocolate mud pie, which we guessed many will order) is at over £30 a glass.

Nevertheless, this place is very very special. Who volunteers to take me there again very soon?