The Birthday Dinner @ Amber

We took advantage of the AE birthday offer and decided to dine at Amber to celebrate GeorG’s thirty-plus birthday :p

Amber is located on the 7th floor of Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 一出 lift, 個 receptionist 已笑面迎人咁 greet 我哋, 而我就比Amber 張card片吸引咗, 張card片係一張膠片, 而 D brown and gold colour 就正好reflect咗間 restaurant 的 characteristics. Amber is definitely an exclusive little restaurant, it is elegant, modern and offering a relaxed ambience as it is fairly informal. Not many tables inside but the interior decoration is “幾有特色”. Up above the ceiling of the dining hall, there are many many long and short copper tubes hanging from the ceiling (like 管風琴), creating an amazing shape which I think is quite unqiue! Unlike Spoon, there is no seaview here but that made me be more attentive to GeorG and guests around…hahaa…

The restaurant wasn’t full, throughout that night there was 6 or 7 table of guests only (including us), so we actually had a peaceful eating environment ^o^

There was quite a number of choices offered in the menu, while we were reading the menu, a big big basket of bread was served which contained 5 or 6 types of bread. The waiter asked if we want to have butter or olive oil for the bread, I told him I want olive oil with vinegar and GeorG told him he wants butter! The waiter then asked GeorG if he wants salted or plain butter….well…連食 bread 都咁講究 :p 果然係5星級!

As I have no idea what to eat and feel quite full (due to heavy lunch and afternoon tea…haahaa…), after spending 5 minutes flipping over the menu, I asked the waiter to give us some suggestions. He first asked if we feel very hungry or not and understand our particular preference. I told him I m not feeling hungry and doesn’t eat lamb and cheese, and also don't want steak as I took a big slump of steak in lunch. And GeorG told him he is ok on almost everything…hahaa…He then recommended me to consider seafood! He introduced a few dishes to us which all sounds attractive, after a short struggling (as they all sounds attractive), we have ordered these (i forget the exact dish name as they are all too long..haahaa...):

Entree :
Charcoal Salmon
King Crab

Main Course :
Wagyu Sirloin
King Prawns

While we were enjoying the bread and the wine (we picked white wine as we have more seafood for the dinner tonite and the waiter also told me the house red wine is not a fruity one), the waiter served us a complementary starter! Yes, it was COMPLEMENTARY!! The starter included a mushroom cappucino, a small spoon of potato cube with caviar on top and a foie gras ball socked in berry syrup in stick (don't know their proper names!). GeorG said the foie gras ball looks like a 珍寶珠! 至於我, 平時搽 La Praire 的 caviar essence 落個眼肚到就搽得多, haahaa…. 但食caviar, 我咁大個女都係第一次咋, 好豪呀!! 我想話呢個 complementary starter though portion is not big, but very impressive, both the taste and presentation!!

個 waiter was so smart that he knows we must want to share the entrees, so just before the dishes arrived, he tabled us with two small plates and 2 full sets of cutlery, very detail-oriented service indeed! Entree 來啦! The King Crab was very lovely, according to the menu, it said the dish offer “5 textures with 4 temperatures”!! The dish contains 3 components, a little cup of chilli crab soup (also made like cappuccino) which was v v tasty (I still remember the taste now ^o^), a bowl with 3 layers of crab stuff (bottom is yellowish crab jelly, middle is slices of crab meat, upper layer is crab mousse) and the 3rd cup is an ice-cream in crab flavor. Hahaa…never imagine one can turn the king crab to dishes in such a 出神入化 way!

While for the Charcoal Salmon, I must say it was surprisingly FANTASTIC. When it was served on our table, the salmon was covered by a glass with some smoke inside, the waiter then took away the glass and we could smell charcoal…so funny. The waiter then told us the tiny black stuff around the salmon was pretending to be charcoal while they were actually breadcrumbs, so we can 放心食用…haahaa…actually I am not particular fond of salmon, especially cooked one as I always think cooked salmon's 口感 is very “鞋”, but this one is very very 滑 and 好香 salmon 味 even though it is a cooked salmon!! You know I took more than half of it before willing to pass over to GeorG…hahaa…!!

食完個 entree, 又忍不住咬兩口 bread bread :p By the time main course arrived, I already feel v v v full lu. The king prawn I ordered was cooked in foil paper, the waiter asked if I like to take the prawn heads? I said no, he then opened the foil paper at the side table, cut away the heads and all the shells and legs, and then served me the 4 king prawns, my dish also included 2 side dishes which i have picked mushroom paste and carrots cubes (I forget their exact name lu). Don't know if it was because I feel full, the main course wasn’t as fabulous as the entrees :p and the prawns were a bit too salty. But GeorG's wagyu was quite nice, it was medium-cooked as requested, and it offered crispy grilled surface and juicy meat inside which was quite satisfying!

The highlight of the dinner came, the chocolate mousse birthday cake! When it was served, the waiter was so kind to offer us to take a picture with our camera and then asked if we are happy to take one more with his camera! We have no oppositionwith it ^o^ He then suggested that we could each have a small slice of cake and he would pack the remaining for us to take home. I wouldn't dream of doing that as the complimentary birthday cake was quite small and it was far too much trouble to take away the leftover. But GeorG was then very 老實不客氣地 ask the waiter to serve us 1/3 of the cake…. I said he is so weird by asking the waiter to serve 1/3 of the cake as it’s not easy to cut 1/3 out precisely ~.~” The restaurant also served us a complementary petit fours even though we were too full to order any more tea or coffee to finish off the dinner! The petit fours offered 5 different kinds of petit desserts, so nice!! When we were enjoying the sweety desserts, the photo we took with the waiter’s camera is already put inside a very nice Amber photo frame and presented to us! And within a minute, GeorG already find that the softcopy has been sent to his office mailbox (the waiter asked for his namecard after he took the picture), so efficient!! This is the picture took by Amber:

Overall, it really gave us a pleasant evening. I think it is value-for-money (don’t know if GeorG also feel the same as he is the one who pay…finally…hahaa…)

The service was unbeatable, waiters and waitresses are mostly Chinese and they are very young, polite, and yet professional. Everything was well prepared (change of cutlery after each dish, refill of wine, birthday cake, offering to take picture for us), they would tell us the details of each dish when it is served which I enjoy a lot. And during the dinner, I notice 2 other tables coincidently ordered an entree which looks like a volcano (as it is a bit far away so I cannot figure out what it is), I asked the waiter when he walk-by, he is so kind and smiley to tell me the details and told me 蘇絲黃 also 介紹 and recommend this dish on her show @ Cable TV! When we leave the restaurant, the receptionist even remember our name and greeted us by saying "Goodbye Mr Yuen, Thank you"! Really impressive service!

Amber has got everything that one would expect for a restaurant in a 5-star hotel – exhilarating ambiance, excellent service, fabulous food presentation and remarkable taste, the only tiny remark was the salty king prawn I took :p When we backed home and put the photo out, I then aware that there is a poem printed on the frame. The poem 描 述 了 傳 說 中 美 輪 美 奐 的 豪 華 琥 珀 餐 廳 房, 每 一 個 房 間 都 佈 滿 各 式 各 樣 的 寶 石 . This explains why the restaurant is named as “Amber”. See, we are so lucky to體會那種傳說中的豪華氣派….呵呵呵. Amber 的水準確實是5星級之作, absolutely worth to give a try!

Remark : The house white wine is Porta Chardonnay from Chile (we later found that it charges $300 on the bill if it was not waived :p) and it tastes good, even though I don't drink a lot, I took 2 glasses for the nite…wow!! For the complimentary cake, apart from our chosen Chocolate Mousse Cake, u can actually pick New York Cheesecake which Mandarin is famous for, since I don't like cheesecake at all, so…heehe…chocolate cake la, and we found that it costs $200 if paid…haaha…after such a long writings, you must want to ask for the bill!! Well, after discount and tips, it was $1400, value for money ma?