Victoria
This was the surprise of our Thanksgiving trip, because it is located
in the lobby of a downtown office building right next to our hotel. Not
only that, but they started serving lunch early, so we could get a
great, late breakfast. There is nothing like having freshly steamed har
gow and sui mai for breakfast. There was none of that steam table lag,
so the steam was still in the dumpling skins, and the flavors of the
fillings stood out brilliantly.Other stand out dishes were the pork hock and jellyfish, a fantastic mixing of flavors and textures, the fried shrimp salad rolls with tartar sauce, a surprisingly successful fusion dish, and the fried bean curd stuffed with pork, served in a soup with cabbage. Each ingredient was called out and amplified, and then complemented. Even the old favorites like sticky rice and pork in a lotus leaf and the minced Peking duck in hoisin sauce seemed brighter and more sparkly here.
We were so inspired by the cooking we tried the shark fin soup with vegetable wontons and were greatly impressed. Done poorly, this can be a rather boring dish, and most disappointing.
We kept on ordering and we kept on eating. We even came back for more.
A lot of people may be turned off by the modern office cafeteria look of the place in a basement mall, but we came for the food, not the ambience. Victoria delivered.
