LI FENG AT MANDARIN ORIENTAL JAKARTA

My good friends from Jogjakarta happened to be in town and it was their idea to have lunch here and I did the reservation. For those who don't know, Li Feng (which by the way means "beauty in abundance) is the new culinary venture from Mandarin Oriental Hotel replacing their previous Chinese restaurant, Xin Hwa. May you rest in peace Xin Hwa, you were awesome.

Li Feng had this more modern ambiance to it comparing to Xin Hwa while it's still being very extravagant, classy and expensive. The highlight of the design was the glass artwork called "Voyage of the South" which hang beautifully on the ceiling and specially designed by the Czech crystal sculptors, Lasvit together with Helen Pun from Hong Kong which translates Matteo Ricci's map of Asia, etched and gilded them as well. The crystal art represents the shape and movement of the "sea" with the beautiful gradient of blue color on each glass, respect to the details!

Li Feng accomodates three different living rooms with capacity for 8, 10 and 14 people.

Warm towel for refreshment

For the food here, Li Feng concentrates in serving authentic & modern Cantonese cuisine and the menus are developed, curated and cooked by the dynamic duo Chef Fei Huang (from Mandarin Oriental Guangzhou) and Chef See Loy (from Mandarin Oriental Singapore). I was a bit shocked when I scanned the menu and found that the range of the food here was pretty big and various, and price wise: very affordable for hotel standard, and you're talking about Mandarin Oriental here (which has been sitting pretty at the top 2 in TripAdvisor for a long time). Expect to find Chinese wok cuisine, Dim Sum, Stir-Fry dishes and many more.

PS: I came as a paying customer, so this review is totally unbiased - I came during lunch time and it was pretty packed with 70% of the table gradually occupied, so reservation is suggested.

Chinese Tea - IDR 50k/glass

Cucumber Pickles - complimentary from the chef

Fried Fish Skin with Salted Egg Sauce - IDR 68k

THE MUST ORDER appetizer, snack or whatever you call this, the fish skin was deep fried to perfection resulting this crunchy texture and the generous spicy salted egg sauce really elevated the flavor: you got that rich and interesting salted egg flavor with a hint of spicy (the spiciness was relative because one of my friend found this a little too spicy). This was just highly addictive damn it.

Eggplant Szechuan - IDR 68k
Unfortunately this dish came last and we were super full after the insane amount of food so I couldn't really remember whether I liked this or not, had barely one spoonful of this.

Appetizer Platter - complimentary from chef
This was a special complimentary from the chef (thank you so much chef appreciate it!!!) - the dish consists of three special creations of scallop, squid and fish. The platter came in a pretty presentation, in a way simple but the flavor and seasoning on each element on this dish was top notch and on point. Put this on your order list.

BBQ Pork Bun - IDR 30k
I did compare this to Tim Ho Wan without realizing I did, and I must say that Tim Ho Wan still did a better job, while I didn't have any issue with the tasty filling, I found the dough of the buns to be too soft and I wanted it to be more dense with that pretty golden brown on top of the pork bun.

As for the dim sum, I found them to be generally delicious, fresh (I have to emphasize on the freshness of it), loaded with fresh fillings and seasoned nicely! I honestly think I didn't have anything negative to say about the dim sum. Out of the plenty that we ordered, I found myself liking the classic  pork siu mai the most! It was packed with pork filling and juicy on each bite!

Rice Roll Shrimp - IDR 27k
One of my personal favorites from the lunch, and actually you can see how generous they are with the fresh shrimp filling, and they are not these tiny pieces, actually quite fulfilling if you eat this alone! The rice roll had this nice and firm texture that coated the filling very well, not too thin and not too thick.

Shrimp Har Gao - IDR 30k

Squid Ink Dumpling - IDR 32k

Pork Xiao Long Bao - IDR 37k
The pork filling was juicy and the pork broth was packed with flavors

Scallop Dumpling - IDR 32k

Pork Siu Mai - IDR 30k

Deep Fried Black Swan Dumpling with Blackpepper Duck - IDR 89k

Presentation wise, pretty! Just by how it looks, I feel like this is the kind of food that deserves to cost more than IDR 89k. I would be willing to pay more, but it's good that it's affordable LOL.

One serving portion consist of 6 deep fried dumplings with the black color extracted from charcoal. The head part was not something that I'd recommend you to consume as it was hard, but everything else was cooked to perfection, they were warm and crunchy without being oily, and the blackpepper duck filling was very tasty with a mild level of spiciness (relative). Overall they weren't only a feast to my eye but pretty satisfying to my palate as well :).

Dessert Platter - IDR 118k
This was the only thing that I found a bit too overpriced, the dessert platter consist of Chick-shaped fried glutinous rice, Blueberry Snow Skin Dumpling, and Mango Pomelo Sago. The fried glutinous rice was delicious and crunchy on the outside, I personally am not a huge fan of the blueberry snow skin dumpling (as I don't really fond of milky dessert and I found that a bit milky for my liking), while I feel like I've had better mango pomelo sago.

It was my first time going to Li Feng and I would say their existence lives up to the hype, food was amazing, service was top notch, price wise so freaking affordable. Li Feng is definitely a place that I would happily recommend you if you're looking for a place to have great Chinese food in Jakarta. Me and my friends left with such a happy tummy.

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Li Feng

Mandarin Oriental Hotel Jakarta 2nd fl.

Jl. M.H. Thamrin - Menteng

Jakarta Pusat 10310

021 - 2993 8888

Opening hours: 11:30 AM-2:30 PM, 6 PM-10 PM

Average spending for two: IDR 400k

Dresscode: smart casual

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Map for Mandarin Oriental