Maxim’s Palace 美心皇宮 in HK
[Non-halal] During our recent HK trip, we wanted to check out a dim sum place for a proper yum cha experience.
Maxim’s Palace 美心皇宮 in Central Hall was recommended to us by a friend.
Maxim’s Palace in City Hall, HK
Established in 1980, Maxim’s Palace is a popular dim sum hall restaurant.
The restaurant is part of the DFI Retail Group that’s listed on the Singapore exchange.
This particular restaurant is located inside City Hall in Central, and features a large hall that’s decked out with huge chandeliers, velvet carpets and a glorious view of Victoria Harbour.
As expected, the restaurant is very popular for brunch on the weekends – so we were prepared to wait for a table.
It was also Father’s Day when we visited Maxim’s Palace, so the crowd was even larger, we believe.
A yum cha experience in Maxim’s Palace 美心皇宮
Despite that, we managed to get a table after 40 minutes.
The yum cha experience here is slightly different from the ones we are used to in KL (see our post on Marco Polo Restaurant – one of the remaining few push-cart dim sum restaurants in KL).
While there are plenty of aunties pushing the carts around, one would need to walk to the carts and place the order yourself.
You are given a card (not unlike the borrowing card you find inside a book from the library), and you’ll need to get it stamped after each order.
Aside from getting the goodies from the trolleys/push carts, you can also order dishes from the menu.
Siew Mai, Har Gao and more
In our opinion, most dim sum spots have dishes that stand out, and some – not too much.
Maxim’s Palace is no different. But we still enjoyed our experience here, and the standout dishes were delicious.
We tried two of the holy dim sum trinity dishes.
The Siew Mai has a prominent mushroom flavour that Max really enjoyed but Ming, not too much. The morsels were juicy and succulent.
We also liked the Har Gao as the prawns were really big and fresh, with skin that’s made to its thinnest potential without easily breaking apart.
The best dish here had to be the Spare Ribs with Glass Noodles. The ribs were really tender and packed with flavours. We liked the addition of salted black beans in this dish.
Polo bun with char siew
Polo bun (aka pineapple bun) is one of the must-eat dishes here in HK.
Maxim’s Palace offers a version with char siew filling – which worked well as the salty meat filling contrasted well with the sweet bun.
We thought the Porridge and Cheong Fun were just ordinary.
We ended our meal with the HK version of Tau Fu Fa – which incorporates a topping of yellow sugar on top.
The tofu was soft and smooth, and the yellow sugar gives a bit of textural contrast and sweet punch to the dessert.
Summary
If you ever come to HK, a visit to the dim sum hall for a proper yum cha experience is a requisite experience!
We think Maxim’s Palace delivered this and more.
Maxim’s Palace 美心皇宮
Address: Hong Kong City Hall, 2/F Low Block, Central, Hong KongHours: 11am-3pm, 5.30pm-11pm (Mon-Sat), 9am-3pm, 5.30pm-11pm (Sun)
Phone: +852 2521 1303
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