As with the season, and year end festivities, a lot of (over) indulging is involved. You go out for celebratory meal after meal after meal. Personally, I feel that sometimes it gets too much with the same fare time after time.
Hence, it was a delight to be invited to Luk Yu Tea House for a taste of their dim sum offerings. If you know dim sum, most of the items on the menu are steamed. Sure, there are also the fried items but what makes dim sum, dim sum, is the steamed variety.
Luk Yu Tea House is situated on the lower ground of The Starhill Dining. Since its massive revamp and reopening years ago, The Starhill Dining has always felt more refined and sophisticated to me. It also feels like an oasis, amidst the hustle and bustle of Bukit Bintang.
Onto the food
As it was only the teen and myself (on hindsight, I should’ve brought a friend along as the teen favours Western cuisine – or maybe it’s cos I was there to eat the steamed offerings and he thinks as such, they’re healthy and so, they’re for ‘old’ people!), we didn’t order many items as I didn’t want the food to go to waste. What we did order, the usual dim sum fare, were really good.
We had the Steamed Scallop and Prawn Dumplings, Steamed Shanghainese Chicken Dumplings and Steamed Chicken and Prawn Dumplings. These were steamed to perfection. For an outlet that does not serve pork, the steamed items which would usually have been filled with pork, were really good. You couldn’t tell the difference from traditional Chinese restaurants.
We also had the Chicken Porridge with Century Egg. Admittedly, this fell below expectations. Though I will put it out there that the teen requested this and ate more than half the bowl. Perhaps he too, thought that he had overindulged, and should have something to cleanse out his system of all the meats he’s been having throughout the season.
The only fried item we ordered was Crispy Prawn Dumplings with Mayonnaise, which was only alright. The skin was a bit too hard for my liking.
No meal is complete without desserts
From the dim sum section, we had the Baked Egg Tarts for sweet endings. And oh my, these were truly great. The pastry was crispy and flaky, whilst the egg custard was smooth and just sweet enough. I’ve noticed that over time, good egg tarts are hard to come by, even at renowned Chinese restaurants. So, the Baked Egg Tarts at Luk Yu Tea House were indeed a treat!
To cap off our meal, we ordered two desserts from the dessert section – Luscious Chilled Cream of Fresh Mango with Sago and Pomelo, and Chilled Durian Pancake. The Cream of Fresh Mango was refreshing, not too sweet, and had a nice tart to it from the pomelo.
The Durian Pancake on the other hand, was definitely the star. If you can smell your dessert from two tables away as it’s being brought out to you, you know you’re in for something great – well, that is if you like durian. The teen meanwhile, made a face and pinched his nose – ha! This dessert was simple; durian + cream but it was SO good! I’m known to eschew durian in all other forms except for the real thing, but this I couldn’t say no to. It took me by surprise how much I liked it.
Clearly, the stars at Luk Yu Tea House are the steamed baskets and desserts, which they have a good selection of. And as they’re running a ‘Dim Sum One-For-One’ now until 18 January 2025, it’s a good time to try it out if you have not already or to have a change of fare for the season!
We were invited by Luk Yu Tea House. As always, our opinions are honest and our own.
