LSA Reviews: Auor takes on Singaporean delights with private room pop-up, Laksa Club

In recent years, an abundance of Singaporean and Malaysian restaurants have sprouted across Hong Kong, offering a taste of Southeast Asian flavours. However, when it comes to authenticity, nothing can quite compare to the comfort and genuine flavours of home-cooked Singaporean and Malaysian dishes, which is what chef Edward Voon is hoping to share in his private rooms at Auor.

A Review of Laksa Club

You can take the boy out of Southeast Asia but you can’t take Southeast Asia out of the boy. Penang-born Singaporean Voon may have built his Hong Kong following with French cuisine at the now defunct Le Pan and, now, Auor, but the tastes and emotions of his home region have never been far from his menus.

Voon has always introduced subtle Asian influences to his Auor menu and the chef has finally succumbed to the call of home tastes with Laksa Club, a pop-up extension to the French fine dining restaurant. The Laksa Club menu is only available with two days’ notice in Auor’s two private rooms, which seats up to eight, and the chef’s table which can take 10 – with a four-person minimum.

At $888+ per head, the chef’s menu comprises three starters, five mains and a dessert, which is a good amount of food even for the most ravenous. The food is unapologetically Southeast Asian, particularly in its strong flavours and spice levels, and rates highly on this Malaysian’s scale of authenticity.

Voon eased us in with three snacks – the salted egg fried fish skin, the ngoh hiang roll and the har cheong chicken wings. Fans of the Singaporean Irvins salted egg fish skin snacks which were all the rage here a few years back will love Voon’s spicy version. The chef’s Malaysian/Singaporean heritage is evident in the ngoh hiang roll (also known as lor bak in the Penang version), a roll made of ground meat, spices and vegetables wrapped in beancurd sheets.

The har cheong (shrimp paste) chicken wings were absolutely finger licking good: the batter was crispy and crunchy while the meat was still extremely juicy but the real standout element was the shrimp paste marinate which added a robust and tangy note and lifted the tastes beyond just fried chicken wing.

The umami punch continued with the cuttlefish and morning glory. This dish has many guises, the most common being a salad with just spicy prawn paste sauce drenching the blanched cuttlefish and water spinach. Voon has opted to sauté it with sambal, giving it a richer and more even flavours. I would have been happy with a bigger portion of the greens.

The sambal pomfret is a delightful twist on the beloved Malaysian grilled stingray. Prepared in a similar fashion, this dish features a generous coating of flavourful sambal paste on the fish, which is then carefully wrapped in banana leaf before grilling. The banana leaf not only preserves the moistness but also captures the essence of the sambal.

The crabs, exceptionally fresh, are elevated to new heights by the bold and indulgent black pepper sauce. Every bite was a satisfying symphony of complex flavours that danced on the palate. It would have been perfect with rice or man tou but we wanted to make room for the rice and noodles to come.

I’ve always maintained that Hainan chicken rice is as much about the rice as it is about the chicken. Voon’s version of this dish hits all the right spots. The chicken was lean and tender while the rice is one of the best versions in Hong Kong.

Through the meal, one of the things I appreciated most was the chef’s insistence on pairing the right chilli sauces and sambal to each dish which is no mean feat as almost every dish required a different dipping sauce.

The version of “laksa” noodles we had was more of the Singaporean hokkien fried noodles than the soup noodles most people here know. The mix of oil noodles and rice vermicelli is stir-fried and simmered in an aromatic broth made from prawns and pork bones. Instead of the usual seafood mix, this elevated version was topped with large red prawns and a generous amount of the essential fried lard.

The coconut, pandan and gula melaka dessert brought our Southeast Asian night to a perfect conclusion although we might not have done as much justice to it as it deserved after a very filling meal.

Cuisine

Malaysian/Singaporean

We Recommend

Har cheong chicken wings

Malabar black pepper crabs

Sambal pomfret in banana leaf

Carabinero red prawn laksa noodles

The Vibe

The smaller private rooms at Aour can probably seat six most comfortably and, with only a four pax minimum, it’s an easy number to fill for the special menu and a high level of privacy. Two days’ advance booking is required for the Laksa Club chef’s menu, which will change with seasonal availability. Southeast Asian cuisine is very seafood and carbs-laden so it would be hard for the Laksa Club to cater to vegetarians/vegans and those on keto and carb-free diets. You can however talk to the restaurant to have the Auor menu instead. With the robust flavours, you can also look to sommelier Cherish Ho to pair up some suitable wines or spirits.

Quick Notes

Price for two:

$1,800 (excluding drinks and service charge)

Address: 

4F, 88 Gloucester Rd, Wan Chai

Tel. 28864888

Opening Hours:
Wednesday – Saturday: 12nn – 3pm

Tuesday – Saturday: 6.30pm – 11.30pm