Man Wah has been around for years and didn’t get a star until recently. For the longest time they didn’t even change the usual suspects on the menu. Until there was a chef change recently. They are closed for renovations..probably taking advantage of the pandemic. Interior was very dated. When did you go? I am sure the inspectors were tickled by the trad shark fin soup served alongside French Bresse poultry and game with heads on. Their one star is very very new. Summer Palace lost a star, iirc. I just checked and it’s one now. Used to be two stars.
For Man Wah, me and my wife went there just before the renovation (interior was dated but a bit classy and very Hong Kong) and about 2 months ago (so after the renovation, it's more modern but kind of loses its charm). We went there for yam cha and ordered some of the typical staples that are good to compare Cantonese restaurants as well as their lunch set menu:
- The char siu was the worst we've had in a long time (it came both cold, dry from being overcooked and overly sweet),
- The har gao's folding technique and skin was good but shrimps were not fresh (incidentally Summer Palace had the same problem, but it's not an issue I've ever had with other fine dining Cantonese restaurants). There wasn't any of the slightly sweet taste that you expect of fresh shrimps in good har gaos
- The abalone puff was okay but not great, the abalone was a bit too soft and a bit too saucy
- The pork ribs on rice roll had an off taste and the rice roll themselves were too rubbery
- The single outstanding dish served as a cold appetizer that we really liked which was a morel mushroom and fish maw jelly. That was masterfully done and is what we'd expect of a michelin starred restaurant.
- The puerh served was low quality and had a strong moldy smell. The waiter also didn't properly rinse the tea which you would expect them to know how to do. (not all Cantonese restaurants serve great puerh due to how expensive it's become but this was really unacceptable)
- The Tie Guan Yin was also low quality and barely acceptable (usually Tie Guan Yin is a safe choice since it hasn't been affected by speculations and sky high prices like puerh teas and so it's much easier to source good quality tea by Cantonese fine dining restaurants).
We tend to first try a restaurant for lunch before eventually trying some of the more expensive dishes for dinner and in the case of the shark fin soup, we have decided not to ever eat shark fin soup due to the environmental impact.
For Summer Palace, we only ordered dim sums and all dim sums came out a bit cold like they had been sitting there for a while. The shrimps themselves also didn't taste fresh.
As point of comparison, we go for yam cha every week and we quite agree with Michelin's assessment of Yan Toh Heen (their loss of one michelin star coincided with the drop in quality we had noticed), Forum (well worth the 3 stars), Sun Tung Lok, Yat Tung Heen, Tin Lung Heen, Spring Moon and Tang Court. For Lung King Heen, they have great dim sum, but we've always been disappointed whenever we've ordered a dish outside of their dim sum menu.
Sorry if that sounds pretentious. We deeply love Cantonese food and so we have sampled a lot of restaurants around (both rated and non rated) and Man Wah was probably the most disappointing experience we've had in a long time (especially since it's more expensive than all the other restaurants mentioned). After the renovation when we heard that there was a new menu we decided to give it a second chance but that didn't work out :)
