Hong Kong is a place of fine eateries, whether they are ones that are low costing and just pack a huge flavour punch, or are instead towards the higher end of the market where the decor and views are part of the overall experience. Despite this, the higher end venues often leave you feeling priced out of the market.

Tang Court at the Langham Hotel transcends both of these by offering fantastic food at a two Michelin star level while retaining a pricing structure that is not at all ridiculous. It probably also offers the best service I have ever received whilst dining out.

Having booked our reservation a long, long time ago (back in March I believe!), we had hoped that the promising reviews we had read ever since would be proved accurate. The added pressure was also on, as this evening we were also celebrating 10 years of my wife and I being a couple!

Enjoying our special occasion

Digressing if I may for a moment, I had chosen to mark the special occasion by getting myself a blazer for the evening from the fantastic Sam’s Tailors, who have supplied the likes of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in the past, and have even made an entire suit for HRH Prince Charles in less than two hours!

Suffice to say that when I picked the blazer up just two hours before our reservation, it was not only excellent value, but also made in less than two days and fitted like a glove. It really let me feel the part for the evening, especially when we popped up to Aqua Spirit for a “prink” (a pre dinner drink!) before we sat down for the main event.

Back at the Langham, getting out of the lift for Tang Court, you are immediately struck by the beautiful but understated decor and the elegance of the surroundings. We took a moment to take this in as we were taken to the upstairs dining area and our corner table.

The sommelier immediately offered us a helping hand in planning our wine journey and we started the evening in style with a toast with an excellent blanc de blanc glass of champagne (a favourite of ours from an evening at Mirabelle in Harrogate).

Choices for the evening were plentiful, but this was a bonus given that Cantonese cuisine calls not for one dish but for a selection to be shared. Bearing this in mind, we plumped for what turned out to be an inspired choice: Roasted suckling pig, sautéed fresh shrimps with chili sauce, stir-fried sliced beef with Chinese kale and T’ang Court’s famous XO sauce and finally fried rice noodles with fresh river shrimps, barbecued pork, bean sprouts, and red and yellow pepper.

Before all this could come to us we had the joy of munching away on an amuse bouche which we both had lathered in chilli sauce. As if to highlight the level of service on display at Tang Court, one of our dedicated waitresses realised that we like our food hot and immediately appeared with a bowl of possibly the spiciest chilli soy sauce I have ever tasted!

The noodles!

The precursor over, the main event now appeared, with the suckling pig arriving at our table. With a beautiful weighting of fat, crispy skin and succulent pork as well as a range of condiments to change the spice level, this was a truly divine dish.

The flavour sensations didn’t stop here as the prawns quickly appeared at the table and simply put they were sumptuous. A really well balanced chilli hit combined with letting the prawns themselves shine through in flavour meant that sadly they did not last that long on our table! The prawns were some of the meatiest I have ever eaten.

Our fantastic food!

Lastly, but no means as an irrelevance, our noodles and the beef turned up. Having picked the beef in XO sauce as a last minute decision we were both more than a little intrigued as to what it would be like, especially when Tang Court self proclaim that it is a ‘famous’ dish.

One bite into the tender, succulent and simply melt in your mouth beef and a hit of the beautifully balanced sauce and we could see why it is so famous. The noodles added a wonderful texture balance and were kept warm and served upon request by our waitress just to continue to reinforce the standards of service. Of course the wine kept flowing as well and the choices from the sommelier were fantastic, all suiting the dishes we were enjoying.

Sadly we were unable to push on and enjoy a dessert, but the food we enjoyed was truly spectacular – only the Test Kitchen in Cape Town comes close to the quality we experienced at Tang Court.

If you are in Hong Kong, looking for somewhere special to go, and fancy something Cantonese, then you simply need to go to Tang Court, especially since, even given our indulgence and several glasses of nice wine and champagne, the bill came to under £100 per person, which in my opinion offered real value for the quality we received.

A lovely way to end the dinner