The restaurant’s interior is like a sandalwood museum, festooned with an exquisite and inviting array of specially crafted furniture. Besides the spacious main dining room, the restaurant boasts eight large and two small private rooms, equipped with individual serving kitchens and lounges, ideal for special functions with clients, family or friends. Of course, one cannot venture into a Canto restaurant without sampling the dim sum. The steamed mix mushroom dumplings (¥20), while not extraordinary, did the job and had us baying for more. Next up were steamed pumpkin rolls wrapped around asparagus and black mushrooms (¥50). This was a particularly tasty and unusual dish of thinly sliced, soft pumpkin, warm mushrooms and crispy asparagus with a buttery sauce. More substantially, the wok-fried shrimp in spicy and sour sauce (¥138) and honey glazed bbq pork (¥59) were both succulent, tender on the inside and crispy on the outside. For dessert we decided to walk on the wild side and try the intriguing double-boiled imperial swallow’s nest in rock sugar (¥410). I must admit I was hesitant to dine on bird’s saliva no matter how good for my skin it’s purported to be. The dish, as I soon discovered, is a milky, extremely sweet broth, with only thin translucent pieces of bird’s nest floating in it—perfectly edible. The restaurant naturally has a full selection of accompanying teas, with some 16 varieties (¥60-238 per pot) to choose from and savor. This restaurant is indeed an assault to the senses in terms of its simplicity, attention to detail and quality. For those less affluent, keep your eyes peeled for weekend dim sum specials in the future. - CR