Tucked behind a labyrinth of florists and Chinese herbal shops lies New Century Restaurant. Walking through the pre-millennium constructed mall, I’m reminded of the restaurants I’ve visited as a child. There are shops to see and smells to discover before reaching the enormous colourful restaurant.

New Century will feed a large group. Their lobster, Dungeness crab, and sea bass combo for eight ($798) would satisfy ten or twelve. The individual New Century slow boiled soup is hardest to share but secure some empty bowls and you can divide the hefty portion. In the winter, there’s a silkiness to the piping hot consommé that sooths a dry throat and has an umami essence infused with abalone, ginseng, and pork.

There’s plenty to choose from in the house signature combo platter including roasted duck, soy sauce chicken, BBQ pork, pork slices, and seaweed salad. Saving my stomach for the later dishes, I had a taste of the duck (a good start with crispy skin) and BBQ pork (satisfactory and well flavoured).

With the generous portion of chicken in the combo platter, the slow cooked chicken with abalone broth seemed like overkill. I’ve never been a huge fan of this dish that’s served cold since I prefer chicken hot. Still, I understand it’s the jelly layer between the skin and meat that people enjoy. And to be fair, the chicken was tender, and New Century certainly didn’t skimp on the ginger and scallion oil.

For those who tend to fill-up before the “main dishes”, the stars of the combo arrive mid-meal. The stir-fried Vancouver crabs with silver fish in HK style spicy sauce needs to be eaten at arrival as the crunchy coating is best straight from the fryer. And despite not looking spicy, the dish has a light heat that permeates in the background. Additionally, the crab was fresh and meaty, cooked well so it remained delicately flakey.

The amount of sweet and sticky sauce used in the stir-fried lobsters with scallion in Maggie sauce was well balanced, lightly covering the crustaceans. Both lobsters were substantial; even after eating many pieces, we still had plenty of leftovers.

Although the steamed green basses with green onion and ginger arrived dishevelled looking. Being fileted off the bone before serving helped the hot scallion soy soak into the fish and made it easy to serve. New Century knows how to cook seafood well, the fish were flakey and moist.

The restaurant’s choice of using large serving platters does makes eating difficult. Dishes were comically oversized so three can easily fill up on medium-sized table. Soon it became a game of Tetris piling things onto smaller plates to make space for a new item. Even the snow pea leaves in soup arrived in a gigantic platter that’s normally used for soup. I guess the large dishes does mean New Century has to fill them as we were treated to a huge mound of the greens.

I preferred the snow pea leaves to the stir-fried cauliflower with cured meat. It’s a strange combination that wasn’t for me. But if you like Chinese sausage, the dish did contain a lot of lap cheung and at least the cauliflower wasn’t too soft.

You won’t find much tomalley in the lobster heads as it’s reserved for the finisher - braised thick egg noodles with mushroom and lobster tomalley. The lobster paste adds a pungent aroma and texture to the noodles. While not my cup-of-tea, it was a popular dish for the table.

Despite it being Lunar New Year, I was surprised there wasn’t any special desserts. Still, we were treated to flavourful mango pudding squares and delicate almond cookies. Given both were sweet, so they made the lukewarm red bean soup seem tasteless. Oh well, by that time I was stuffed to the gills and could pass on it anyways.

What a feast! We packed up leftovers that could feed the family again the following evening. One thing’s for sure; you will not leave New Century Restaurant hungry or empty handed.