Eating in Hong Kong - Private Room dining

I wrote about a private room dining experience in Toronto a while back and it sparked some discussion among friends about this increasingly popular trend.  This spring, when I went to Hong Kong, I was shown what private room dining is really like in this foodie heaven.

Celebrity chef Jacky Yu runs a few private dining rooms in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. The one we visited, Xi Yan (囍宴), was somewhere on the road to the south side of the island in a sketchy industrial unit which was quite deserted and dark by the time we arrived.  This seemed to be typical of private dining rooms as they probably need to take advantage of cheaper rents in these areas.  We climbed a few stairs and the whole ambiance changed - we were in a warm contemporary dining room that I could see would be great for a private party.  It was almost like eating in one's own home.  In this instance, there was another larger private party but they were in another room and completely secluded.

Jacky showing us the dining room

The menu (translation in sequence below), custom ordered by our gracious hosts.

We started with three appetizers -

"Drunken" Jumbo Mantis prawns - the wine enhanced the shrimp flavour without overpowering it - nicely done!

Crispy "light-filtering" lotus root slices and fish roe over perfectly seared scallops - the lotus root was garnished with crab roes, Canadian uni and chopped black truffles - my mouth is still watering when I think back on the complex toppings

Bitter melon peel with pepper, sesame, among other things together with a pretty intense sauce. It's the first time I tried bitter melon peel - love it!

"Saliva" chicken - don't know why the name but the chicken is suitably crisp, the way it's supposed to be and the sauce went well with it.  Notice also all the other ingredients in the dish - what a refreshing combination of tastes and textures!  

Steamed crab with coconut egg white sauce which perfectly highlighted the tasty crab meat

Giant grouper belly (very tender) steamed with black garlic and ham.  The dried orange peel really gave the dish a distinct flavour.

What a delicious soup!  And look at the ingredients:  chicken, pork bones, arrowroot, peach, sweet dates, black fungus, polygonatum (玉竹),  almonds, ginger, and snow fungus!

Love this dish - okra and baby oysters with dried shrimp in a broth.  I didn't know that okra could taste so good (it's very fresh).  This is something I am going to try and do at home.

My thoughtful hostess knew I have a craving for almond sweet soup - this was a perfect ending to a perfect meal.

What I really enjoyed about this meal (other than the company) was the very unique dishes. It introduced me to new tastes and combinations of textures as it is not the usual fare you encounter in regular restaurants.  Add to this the creativity behind the design of the dishes and the care taken in their preparation down to the minutest detail, it made for a very special meal. Highly recommended!

Eating in Hong Kong 2 - Updated Sichuan and nostalgic food

We hardly ever ate Sichuan at home but the day after we arrived in Hong Kong, a friend took us to Yun Yan, reputedly the best Sichuan food place in Hong Kong.  The updated Sichuan style food was indeed very tasty and there were a couple of things that were new to us.

This is a famous traditional dish  燈影牛肉 "Light filtering beef" being a rough translation and self-explanatory.  The beef was so thin light filtered through.   It must have been baked and fried among other things but it was delicious - crisp, crunchy but still retaining the meat texture and flavour, a real treat and a great start to the excellent lunch. 

We've had pork dumplings before of course but never had them "injected" with soup at the table.  A fun novelty dish but also quite "sensational" - I guess the "injection" ensured the meat was swimming in soup and the first bite into the dumpling was an explosion of sensations.

It was a bonus too that the restaurant is in a glitzy mall in Times Square, Causeway Bay - us country bumpkins were gawking at the longest mall escalator ever and the curved escalator, another first for us.

This visit to Hong Kong was partly a nostalgia trip with the accompanying search for nostalgic food.  One of my childhood memories was weekend trips to the New Territories, Fanling in particular where one of my dad's friends owned a photo studio.  This is where we regularly took our family photos.  On the way to Fanling, we always stopped at Luen Wo market and ate at a food stall there that served supposedly the best fish balls.  The old Luen Wo Hui market was no longer open but we found this fish ball place which had a name close to the one in the old market - 水上人魚蛋粉 "Boat Dwellers Fish Balls"   The fish balls were very good,  fluffy but with texture, and the fried fish skin was so crunchy and tasty  we couldn't stop at one order - afterall, fish skin is healthy food, discounting the oil it's fried in...  It's also surprisingly not greasy!

After we finished the fish balls, we crossed the street to the famous 群記 Beef Balls and Pork Knuckles Shop.   It was jam packed with both locals and non and there was quite a lineup.  We were lucky to get a table.  I didn't find the pork knuckles particularly flavourful but it's possibly because we were already full with the fish balls and skin. 

Pork Knuckles

I believe I'm not the only one chasing nostalgia.  The restaurants must be catering to a whole generation of boomers who are at that stage of their lives.  Deep-fried shrimp toast, which used to be popular on restaurant menus when we were growing up but disappeared with the healthier food trend, reappeared on some restaurant menus.  Twice on this trip, we were invited to try this "unhealthy" but yummy dish. - the challenge was of course in deep-frying the toast without allowing it to get soggy with oil.  Dish below was served at the Securities Institute Club House, members only.  And like the rest of the food there, well-prepared and tasty.

This brought up another trend I noticed - "club" dining.  Different institutions run thriving clubhouse members only restaurants downtown, usually with excellent food and attentive service, which together with their exclusivity made them special for their regular customers. The two we were invited to were both packed on weekday evenings.  The other one was the Ning Po Residence Club restaurant, exclusive to members whose ancestors were from Ning Po, China.  

The pork aspic and the "drunken" chicken were two of my favourite dishes.  The pork aspic, in particular, was reminiscent of the ones my mom used to make for Chinese New Year.

The search for the past continued with a trip to Lamma Island, where I used to hike with my dad always finishing up with a good seafood meal on one side of the island or the other.  The memory of  poached fresh shrimp remained vivid all these years, including what fresh shrimp should look like (see below).  It was also an interesting process, the search for the right restaurant to eat at.  They all posted their prices on the tanks of seafood but when you started talking to them, they would offer special deals depending on how busy they were.  We had crab, shrimp, abalone and squid - all fresh-tasting as we were eating beside the fishing boats.

Fresh shrimp, with the head shell removed should have the skin over the "neck" in tact.  It was quite a sensation biting into this almost slightly bitter part of the shrimp when it's fresh.

We also headed to the south side of Hong Kong island to check out old haunt Stanley and was pleasantly surprised to see the beautiful Blake Pier moved here from old Central.  Even more of a surprise was the King Ludwig Beerhall in Murray House where we had lunch.  The pork trotters here tasted even better than the ones in Berlin - and they were huge.  

One trotter was more than enough for two and tasted great with German Bier.  

Next post:  Eating in Hong Kong 3 - Private Room Dining, this time, it's the real thing!

Eating in Hong Kong 1 - Stumbling into Michelin

I am a little leery of talking about eating in Hong Kong because it is almost impossible to do justice to the topic in a few lines or even a few posts.  But I would just approach it from my own limited experience in the two weeks we were there.  There were restaurants at every corner and they could go from very cheap to very expensive within that block, with not necessarily corresponding quality.  In general though, the food was good but not cheap. This was particularly noticeable after we've spent the previous two weeks eating in Vietnam, one of the most incredibly inexpensive travel destinations we've ever been to apart from Cambodia.

According to Open Rice, the 2014 Michelin Guide to Hong Kong restaurants listed 62 starred restaurants, including five 3 stars and thirteen 2 starred restaurants.  In addition, there are 69 "Bib Gourmand" restaurants listed and explained as "good value" restaurants.  We were quite surprised when without looking for any, we stumbled into three of these on our last weekend in Hong Kong when we stayed in Sheung Wan, just west of the Central district.  Since we only had three meals that weekend, we could say we dined Michelin at every meal.  What a scoop!

The Sun Yuen BBQ Restaurant (新園燒臘店) - hardly a restaurant, rather a takeout place with a few tables.  I had scouted out the place in a walkabout earlier in the afternoon and tempted by the BBQ goose in the window had thought we'd come back for dinner.   Unfortunately by the time we showed up for dinner, they were sold out of both geese and ducks.  It seemed that you have to book ahead if you really wanted one - that's how busy they were.  We had to settle instead for soy sauce chicken (done just right) and booked half a goose for the following evening.  

It would have been interesting to compare it to the one we tried at Yung Kee Restaurant which we visited the day we arrived.  The Yung Kee goose did not disappoint - it was very juicy and tasty with crispy skin (you can see the evidence below).  But the price was exorbitant and that may be one reason why the restaurant had been dropped from the Michelin list - no longer a "good value".  It had also reportedly fallen out of favour with the locals.  

Yung Kee goose (half) served on a white plate...

Brunch the following day was at nearby Lin Heung Tea House (蓮香居). I remembered this restaurant from my childhood and thought I'd just visit to see what is was like.  I was surprised to see it on the Michelin list.  While it was a bit of a novelty for me to see how they have maintained the old style restaurant with communal tables, a separate big bowl at the table for customers to rinse their cups in hot water, waiters walking around with a large kettle of hot water - the food was not particularly good.

Be prepared to share a table, no questions asked

Interesting table with shelf underneath for the cup rinsing bowl and newspapers.  The man we shared the table with was a regular who came for brunch every day.  It was an interesting cultural lesson to hear his social commentary, but I wouldn't do that every day...

A short block from Sun Yuen, we came across Chan Kan Kee Chiu Chow Restaurant (陳勤記) famous for its brine-cooked goose and yet another Michelin recommendation.  Since it was slightly more comfortable than Sun Yuen, we cancelled our BBQ goose reservation at Sun Yuen and ate here instead.  The goose was very good as was the fried oyster pancake, the latter a little on the greasy side.  It was a good enough meal for our last day in Hong Kong.

Earlier on our trip, we were wandering around Mong Kok district in Kowloon at lunch time and found ourselves looking into the window of this one specialty restaurant, likely a gentrified former street food stall - Superior Rice Roll Pro Shop (第一腸粉專賣店) - another Michelin recommendation although that was in 2012.  

The steamed turnip pudding, one of maybe ten items on the menu, was very "turnipy" and tasty

The rice rolls, their specialty, were perfect - just the right thickness and texture.  They came with different kinds of stuffings, some of them quite unusual.  Their house specialty, preserved vegetables and pork stuffing was a little too salty.  But the greens and mushroom stuffing was very good. 

And here's the chef!   

Each roll individually steamed, rolled and stuffed.

We didn't try the Three Stars L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon but checked out their café.  The almond croissant was marginally better than the one at the Mandarin café but still not as good as the one at the Patisserie la Cigogne in Toronto.  The Patisserie has the distinct advantage of being only a 20 minute drive from my house and I could time my arrival with the almond croissant's emergence from the oven - you've guessed it, I made a special trip this morning to get mine, and was it ever the best!

Pastries at the Café Robuchon

Next post:  Eating in Hong Kong 2