TLDR: Abhorrent service, mediocre food, do not recommend
My family and I (party of 4) came to Ming Court to have a last meal to cap off our 2 week vacation on the recommendation of a friend and based on reviews which mentioned the char siu being particularly good. We had a reservation for 4 at 7:15 PM and were seated promptly. Ming Court offers two tasting menu options, the Degustation Menu for $988 HKD pp and the Black Pearl Tasting Menu for $1188 HKD pp. While ordering, I asked the server if it would be possible for my family to order the Degustation Menu and myself to order the Black Pearl Tasting Menu, and we were told that we needed to order a minimum of 2 of each (i.e. 2x Degustation 2x Black Pearl for the table), which was fine with us. My brother and I ended up ordering Black Pearl and my parents ordered the Degustation Menu (this will come up again later).
The service issues started almost immediately, my brother had requested two glasses of ice water upon ordering our meal, but we had to ask the waiter two separate times before they actually brought it to us. Additionally, when the teapot ran out, we also had to ask the waiter to refill it multiple times, and when he did refill the teapot, he only pour tea for my parents and then just...left without pouring tea for my brother and I. Normally not a big deal, but Ming Court purports to be a fine dining restaurant, and in my experience, if you can't get the small stuff right, there will definitely be issues with the bigger stuff. Continuing on, the Amuse-Bouche and Appetiser both came out fairly quickly and to be fair, the food was great, the Char Siu especially was a highlight (the only highlight). Then, there was a ridiculous 25 MINUTE gap between courses, so long that conversation had stalled for 5-10 with us just sitting there waiting for the next course. I asked for the manager, Eddie Lam, to complain, and to his credit, he did promise to crack the metaphorical whip and make sure service improved, which it did for the next 2 courses.
For the 5th, 6th, and 7th courses, they mixed up the food, giving my brother and I the food from the Degustation Menu and giving my parents the food from the Black Pearl menu. Again, normally not a big deal, but at a fine dining establishment, I should not have to play detective on which dishes belong to which people. Additionally, the food itself was very subpar, the lobster was extremely rubbery, and the amount of caviar in the caviar dishes was insultingly small, not enough to even really taste it. For the 8th dish the noodles were overcooked and they somehow managed to make lobster broth taste like water. At this point, we were 3 HOURS into the meal, I am still genuinely flabbergasted that the Ming Court staff somehow managed to drag out a 9 course meal this long, that is an average of 3 courses PER HOUR. In NYC, I have had 15 course tasting menus take less than 2 hours. Our reservation was nowhere near the last slot, and Ming Court closes at 10:30, so anyone who had a reservation after us would still be waiting for food to be served after the restaurant was already closed.
To cap everything off, when we pointed out all these issues to Eddie Lam and asked what he was going to do to make things right, the best he could offer was an additional 15% discount (on top of the 15% you get automatically for signing up for their rewards program). The food and level of service we received was genuinely shocking, and I would strongly advise anyone thinking of coming to this restaurant to find another establishment that is more deserving of your money read more