Putien

I’ve been wandering in Causeway Bay quite often but it took me a while to find Lee Theatre. :P I wanted to try this place because it’s listed as «Michelin Bib Gourmand». They open at 5:30 pm for dinner. I was seated at the back room by the windows, where the tables for one or two dinners are located. I had quite a lot of privacy and it was much more quiet as all the other dinners were seated in the front area. I really enjoyed my meal, it’s like I had the entire space for myself. :)
The tea served is clear and fragrant. There is an appetizer consisting of fried nori and fried peanuts.
Iced Bitter Gourd: shavings of bitter gourd served on a mountain of ice. It’s also served with honey as dipping sauce. It’s a cooling and refreshing dish. Because the bitter gourd are sliced very thin, it’s not very bitter.
Braised radishes: I choose this dish because radishes is a cooling food. The radishes are cut into huge pieces. They weren’t easy to eat with chopsticks even though they were soften by the cooking process. Most of the items on the menu are made with meat and seafood.
As for dessert, I couldn’t decided between these two:
Chilled Putian Loquat in Herbal Jelly: basil seeds, Chinese herbal jelly, loquat. I was pleasantly suprised by the loquat. It feels like an apricot but has a different flavor. I really liked the herbal jelly, a wonderful dessert during hot weather.
Glutinous rice: the glutinous rices are flat not stuffed. They are served in a light syrup with sprinkles of crushed peanut and sesame seeds. I would prefer if they were stuffed with black sesame paste but these came warm and I really like warm desserts.
I was happy after having a cool appetizer, a hot dish. Two desserts, a refreshing one and a warm one. How can a meal be better than this?

There are not that many Fujian restaurants in HK. So, I was quite looking forward to the place. Called to make reservation, but was told that there are two shifts: before or after 8pm. Somehow, I just never warm up to the concept of having shifts in restaurants. The waiters are also well «trained» to sell. Hard sell on the fixed menu; hard sell on the chilli sauce; hard sell on the pomelo, etc. The service is has significant room for improvement here.
Quality of food is pretty good. The fried jam was especially good. The quality of yam was good. It was fried to crispy perfection. The fried rice vermicelli 炒米粉was very good by HK standard. (In my personal opinion, the Fujianese are better in vermicelli than the Cantonese.) The noodle 滷麵 was also rich in flavour. The intestine was excellently done, chewy but not tough. The flavour was also good.

made a reservation in advance, still took 45 minutes to be able to be seated. Poor arrangements food is just okay.