Baskets of plenty

What’s the best value for money for a Hong Kong-style dim sum dinner in Bangkok that just shouts authenticity? Look no further than Hong Teh Chinese Restaurant at the Ambassador Hotel. Hong Kong chef Lau Chi Kwong, who has been manning the kitchen here for more years that he cares to remember, has created a large dim sum menu based on the original Hong Kong recipes he brought with him when he joined the hotel more than a decade ago.
Until the end of the year, the restaurant is offering an “All-You-Can-Eat Dim Sum” buffet for lunch and dinner and guests can tuck into a plethora of bite-sized creations. For just Bt425 net, not only can you dine like a hong teh (Thai for a Chinese huangdi or emperor) but you’ll probably find yourself with more dim sum baskets than you can chew.
And that’s exactly the kind of dining experience that Chef Lau guarantees – a feast served in small steamer bamboo baskets or on small plates in an ambience that’s just like an emperor’s private dining chamber.
You can start your epicurean journey with soup. There are four to choose from - Szechwan, fish maw, sweet corn, wonton and double boiled bamboo pith with black mushroom – and after the first bowl, you can return for more of the same or opt for another. The same rule applies to the congee, which comes in three choices: pork congee with Century Eggs, fish congee Hong Kong Style and chicken congee.
There are up to 30 varieties of dim sum to sample and Lau chooses the best ingredients to create these small steamed portions. Not to be missed, asserts the chef, are the traditional offerings like steamed shrimp, fish, crab and scallop dumplings and hargau. But the stars are steamed sticky rice in lotus leave, steamed duck's feet with Chinese brown sauce and steamed stuffed bean curd with fish mousse and steamed chicken feet in preserved black beans sauce.
There’s an amazing array of dipping sauces, from XO and Szechwan to garlic and sweet and sour sauce. All are made by the Hong Kong chef, and the XO, my favourite with its thick texture of dried shrimp, fish and chilli, is superb with steamed seafood.
There are no rules as to which baskets to pick first. I go from light to heavy, starting with the seafood, then supping the soup, before savouring the heavy baskets of the pork dumplings followed by deep-fried stuff mashed taro, spring rolls and custard cream buns. Fortunately, they all come in small portions.
There’s vegetarian dim sum too, like deep-fried bean curd, Chinese buns stuffed with coconut or red bean and fried turnip cake.
Even while your table loaded with these baskets, Lau comes round to convince you to try his special delicacies. You may order one item from the noodle and fried rice menu. There’s fried rice with salted fish and chicken, fried rice with black olive and pork, Hokkien fried noodles with seafood and crispy rice cake topped with seafood sauce. A must-try is the fried rice with salted fish and chicken.
A great dim sum dinner isn’t complete without a great Cantonese dessert. There are five choices on the dessert menu, among them warm sesame rice dumpling in hot ginger syrup, chilled sago and cantaloupe in coconut milk and warm lotus seed paste with gingko nut. I recommend the warm sesame rice dumpling in hot ginger syrup as a soothing finale that’s good on rainy days, with the aromas of ginger syrup whirling in the bowl.
 

DUMPLING DAZE
There’s a come-4-pay-3 promotion for the all-you-can-eat dim sum buffet (lunch and dinner) until the end of the year. Guests can also order from the