Located in central Richmond, HML Seafood Restaurant has been here for quite some time now. I’m pretty sure I’ve ate here before in the past too, but my memory of dim sum restaurants are always faint since I’m not a big fan of it. We usually make turkey every year for Thanksgiving, but we were really lazy this year. I mean, it’s literally a whole day in the kitchen preparing for that big day. So lazy of us…but we decided to go out to eat instead. And since my mother is obsessed with Chinese food, of course she chose a Chinese restaurant.
My parents had recently gone to HML Seafood Restaurant with their friends for dinner. My mother told me that their dim sum is definitely no good, and they had only tried their dinner menu for the first time last time. She was surprised that it was actually pretty good, especially at the amazing value and price. They have a few promotions, and when they ate out last time, they had the lobster meal, which included 6lbs of lobster along with 3 dishes for only $98! What a deal! They said that the portions were large and the dishes weren’t too bad, so off we went.
The restaurant was pretty packed, and literally every table had lobster. I’m guessing everyone was taking advantage of this lobster promotion since it’s probably only available for a limited time. This deal is perfect for 4 if you want to be extremely full, or for 5, which is what we did, and we were still pretty full!
Specialty Chicken (half)
We started off with our first dish of Specialty Chicken. I have to say that the dishes seemed to be a little smaller than at other restaurants, but for this deal, it’s still a pretty good value. These dishes are normally $9.99 if you get them separately which is also a promotion they are having. The chicken wasn’t too tough and it was flavourful. Not bad.
Deep Fried Squab
And then we had Deep Fried Squab. This came in 4 pieces, basically the whole squab. It was hot and the skin was fried to perfection. It was crispy and the meat was flavourful.
6lbs of Lobster!
And of course our main dish – the lobster! You can choose to add noodles underneath for an additional price, but we chose not to. It was presented nicely, and each piece was filled with meat. The sauce was also flavourful, but not too strong. I thought it was just right. There’s actually so much lobster that you get pretty filled up. And the service was actually pretty good. They changed my plate at least 3 times, as opposed to some restaurants that only do it once, so I was pretty impressed.
Deep Fried Egg Tofu Topped with 3 Kinds of Mushroom
Last but not least, we had the Deep Fried Egg Tofu Topped with 3 Kinds of Mushroom. This was one of my favourite dishes. I loved the egg tofu, since it’s extra smooth compared to normal tofu. My mom also said that it’s a difficult dish to make at home because of the amount of oil you need to deep fry these tofu. So delicious though and it was great to have some vegetables after all that lobster meat. It was perfect to pair with a bowl of white rice. Yum!
Overall, HML is not bad for dinner. I read many reviews saying that it’s not that great, and I’m pretty sure dim sum isn’t great here, since my mother repeatedly told me that. But if you catch their promotions for the lobster, I think it’s worth it to give it a try. You can’t expect to have anything magnificent here, but you definitely get what you paid for!