Take one beautifully conserved historic Southern Chinese-style building that's been declared a national monument, pour in a feisty double-shot of Tung Lok Restaurant Group's experience and spirit of enterprise, add a large dose of Jean-Philippe Trieu's Parisian potion of cosmopolitan Orientalism, stir and shake vigorously with an award winning design style and voila! What's served up is ASIAN (pronounced ah-zee-ahn).

The immediate reaction when you enter ASIAN is that an interior designer has gone berserk in Wong Fei Hong's home. Dark, brooding and moody with a dominant black color scheme, the blend of contemporary tropical furniture in all shapes and sizes wrestle with the building's traditional Chinese architecture. These contradictions jar the senses. Yet the haunting splendor of the original architecture with its internal courtyards, tall soaring ceilings, heavy timber rafters, elaborately carved gilded doors and windows, and Cantonese terracotta floor tiles has remained perfectly intact (as decreed by the authorities) without consuming the newly imposed styling. And surprisingly, the smorgasbord decor becomes easier on the eye, less bizarre and more cohesive on longer exposure.