Last updated on December 28th, 2022 at 09:25 am
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SHE restaurant is a contemporary Chinese restaurant located in Central, inside IFC mall.
It takes some time to find the place because the location is a bit unexpected.
The restaurant is in the corner of the makeup area at Lane Crawford, a department store.
When you walk in, you will notice the interior fits a modern fusion restaurant.
SHE restaurant might be smaller than what you expected (you might accidentally think it’s a cozy café but it’s a full-on restaurant).
Most tables are indoors but there is also outdoor dining if that’s what customers prefer.
(Since Hong Kong is known for its hot and humid weather, most people choose to dine inside.)
When we came for dinner, the restaurant was completely empty except for the staff.
It almost felt like we booked out the entire place. It remained that way until a couple came in halfway through our meal.
If I had known, I wouldn’t even bother booking a reservation.
It was probably empty for two reasons.
SHE restaurant is in the financial district. There are many good places to eat around there including Summer Palace, Agehan, and Fini’s. (Pica Pica is a little further but is still somewhat within the area.)
But the financial district tends to be empty during the weekends. During those days, locals prefer visiting shopping areas like Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui (there are plenty of restaurants nearby as well like Outdark and Angelini.
Also, we ate here on a public holiday. Hong Kongers are pretty big with eating dinner with family on Chinese holidays.
So I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised there weren’t many people there.
SHE Restaurant Dishes
Caviar Shrimp Toast
When I checked out Openrice, I noticed other reviews kept talking about the caviar shrimp toast. It’s a signature dish but it didn’t look that good based on the pictures alone.
I was down to try it anyway and that was the first dish that came to our table.
Before you can even take a bite, you can smell it and boy, does it make you hungry.
Adding a bit of caviar was interesting but the dish could have been done without it as well. The shrimp toast at SHE restaurant was hot, fresh, and fragrant. There’s even a nice little crunch instead of it being soggy.
However, the portion was a bit small for my liking. When I ordered shrimp toast at Summer Palace, they gave us 6 pieces whereas there were only still 3 here.
There’s always the option of ordering another dish.
It’s a bit embarrassing to admit this. I’ve heard about shrimp toast before but I didn’t know it’s a local HK dish.
I also didn’t realize how much I would like it. It’s one of the things I discovered about myself since I came back.
Stir-Fried Eggs with Char Siu
As you may know, char siu is an HK favourite here in this city.
Locals can go to an HK café and get BBQ pork with rice. That’s a casual, everyday dish.
Char siu is one of my go-to local comfort foods. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve eaten it since I’ve moved back.
At this point, I’m even a little sick of it. When I don’t know what to eat, I turn to Cantonese BBQ pork so I tend to skip it at nicer sit-down restaurants.
One of SHE restaurant’s signature dishes is their char siu. I’m not surprised since a lot of restaurants name their BBQ meats as one of their best dishes.
My mom wanted to try their char siu with egg. She didn’t care about what else we ordered but wanted this one dish so I agreed.
I’m glad I listened to her.
Their char siu here was super soft. It was easy to bite into. Some restaurants tend to make their meat a bit chewier but that’s a personal preference.
The egg was a bit runny but it mixed well with the pork.
The chives weren’t necessary but it does add a nice chewiness.
This would be a good dish to eat with rice if you can wait that long.
Garlic Stir-Fried Choi Sum
When our waitress brought out the vegetables, the first impression was that they were really green.
The garlic scent was strong in this one. If you’re a fan of Chinese cuisine, you’ll know that garlic is in a lot of dishes.
The choi sum was quite crunchy. It was definitely not overcooked. It would have been better if the vegetables were a tad softer though. Then it would have been the perfect balance between soft and hard.
You can taste the freshness of the veggies. I’m usually not eager to eat vegetables but this dish was good enough that I kept coming back for more.
If this was the way people cook vegetables, I bet more people would eat them!
The downside was that there was more stem than leaves. Maybe they trimmed it? I would have preferred it if they had more leaves but people often say the stem is the best part.
Signature Fried Rice
Since it’s a signature dish, we were looking forward to what’s so good about it.
I’m going to come right out and say it. The fried rice was disappointing to the point where I don’t know why it’s labelled a signature dish.
My mom even commented that it was a tad bit bitter, which was strange.
The portion size is great with this one. You can clearly tell there’s more food compared to the other dishes we ordered but too bad we didn’t like it.
I would not recommend this at all.
Signature Lobster Noodles
When you think of lobster noodles in Chinese cuisines, it’s commonly paired up with e-fu noodles.
At SHE restaurant, they use thinner noodles so I thought it was an interesting combination.
The menu stated that this dish was a little spicy but there was no spice?
I don’t know what part they were referring to.
It tasted like the typical Cantonese soy sauce fried noodles you can get at any local dim sum restaurant.
The only difference is that there were a few lobster pieces.
The restaurant may have used a whole lobster for the noodles but there was not a lot of meat. There certainly wasn’t any lobster claw meat, which was disappointing.
They did add a lobster head for decoration. It was nice to look at for a few seconds but I rather get more lobster meat.
Even my mom was like, ‘that’s it?’
This was the most expensive dish we got and I’m sad to report that it was merely alright.
It’s another dish you do not need to bother ordering. It’s a pass from me.
Pan-Fried Soy Sauce Jumbo Shrimp
If you like seafood, you’ll probably be happy about the size of the shrimp.
It’s HUGE.
A part of me expected only 1-2 shrimps but it turned out to have 4 in one dish.
It looked beyond appetizing. It tasted fresh and juicy too.
In my opinion, pan-fried soy sauce is one of the best ways of cooking shrimp.
However, you might be disappointed that there’s no sauce on the dish. The sauce was mainly in the shell. You could have squeezed some sauce from its shell but I would have preferred if there was sauce at the bottom of the dish.
It would have been nice to dip the shrimp in the extra sauce.
Restaurants usually do this because they know customers want more sauce but it wasn’t an option here.
Final Thoughts – SHE Restaurant
I have mixed feelings about SHE restaurant.
The first three dishes that arrived first were yummy. The last few were disappointing (I’m still not sure what their standards are for their signature dishes).
The dishes were also quite small in general except for the rice and noodles. That’s expected for fine dining.
Despite all of that, SHE restaurant is worth giving another chance.
There’s plenty to choose from on the menu although some dishes might not be available (they crossed out some items). You can check out their online menu on SHE’s website.
Next time, I would come to eat at this luxury dim sum restaurant in the afternoon. Their fusion dim sum looked and sounded good but they were only available to order during lunchtime.
Since SHE is in the financial district, I’m almost 100% sure that it would be way busier during lunch.
It was quite enjoyable to practically have the restaurant to ourselves. I don’t remember the last time that happened. It’s pretty rare, especially in a city like Hong Kong.
Now to You – SHE Restaurant
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Xoxo,
Nicole
P.S. SHE restaurant is a part of the GAIA group, which owns multiple restaurants all over HK. If you like one of the restaurants from this organization, feel free to check out the other ones to see if any of those interest you.
xoxo,
Nicole