Ming Yuan

Hong Kong efficiency

There's no mistaking that Ming Yuan is a Hong Kong owned and managed restaurant. From the moment the manager welcomes diners and escorts them to a table, through to the waiters delivering the bill, Ming Yuan is a model of Hong Kong restaurant efficiency. The menu, short by Chinese standards, focuses mainly on Cantonese specialities and includes a small selection of dim sum along with several Fujian and Huaiyang dishes.

From the dim sum menu, the steamed prawn dumplings (30RMB) couldn't be more perfect - plump rounds of moist and crunchy chopped prawns cloaked in a sheer wrapper - but the prawns atop the sui mai (25RMB) were so overcooked that the dumpling's juicy pork filling failed to re-hydrate them.

A delicious Ming Yuan crispy chicken (120RMB per half bird) juxtaposes a salty, paper thin crispy skin with rich, succulent meat, while a soup-like casserole (80RMB) of tofu, prawns and scallops (described under chef's specialities as tofu, prawn paste and squid) lets the top quality ingredients shine to produce a simple dish as soothing as chicken soup.

Ming Yuan may be a small restaurant but the space is efficiently divided into an open dining area and private rooms, the largest of which boasts a shallow fishpond in the middle of the table. Small TV screens randomly imbedded in the walls and black floor get lost amongst Ming Yuan's crisp white interior and purple chairs. Brown-toned oil paintings of people and hutongs hanging on the walls don't fit the otherwise bright décor.

Ming Yuan's pretty, whitewashed courtyard-like exterior and location on Dongdaqiao Lu opposite Shangdu Soho adds a much needed, non-shopping mall dining destination to this part of town, while the efficiency of the service combined with the good food make Ming Yuan a suitable business lunch venue.