Sunday 14 September 2014
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!
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.
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.
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!
Next post: Eating in Hong Kong 2
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!
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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... |
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| Be prepared to share a table, no questions asked |
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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... |
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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.
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| The steamed turnip pudding, one of maybe ten items on the menu, was very "turnipy" and tasty |
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| 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. |
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And here's the chef! |
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| Each roll individually steamed, rolled and stuffed. |
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| Pastries at the Café Robuchon |
Next post: Eating in Hong Kong 2
Wednesday 17 September 2014
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.
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| 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. |
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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. |
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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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
Friday 17 August 2012
In-flight Meals
Until recently we would expect free food, if only peanuts, when taking a commercial flight. In-flight meals came a long way when in the beginning, with unpressurized cabins and the planes flying low hitting turbulence was a given. The main concern with passenger flights was deciding how many air sickness bags to carry and not what food to serve. My parents fled to Hong Kong in 1949 where I was born upon arrival. Life was difficult and it took a few years before my father found a job with Hong Kong Airways. In 1956 the airline introduced a new Viscount V.700 series plane and arranged a test flight over Hong Kong for publicity. My father brought me along, and was able to sneak me on board and signaled me to sit in back. Some time into the flight a very pretty lady came by, smiled at me and gave me some water in a wine glass and a finger sandwich, probably left over from the service up front. It was a plain butter sandwich and it tasted really good. I don’t know whether it was the sandwich or the pretty lady, but from that moment on I became fascinated with airplane food… I have a photo of that flight. Please note the large oval window. You won't find that in modern planes.
Friday 19 September 2014
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.
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!
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.
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| Jacky showing us the dining room |
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| The menu (translation in sequence below), custom ordered by our gracious hosts. We started with three appetizers - |
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| "Drunken" Jumbo Mantis prawns - the wine enhanced the shrimp flavour without overpowering it - nicely done! |
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| 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! |
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| "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! |
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| Steamed crab with coconut egg white sauce which perfectly highlighted the tasty crab meat |
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| Giant grouper belly (very tender) steamed with black garlic and ham. The dried orange peel really gave the dish a distinct flavour. |
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| 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! |
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| 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. |
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| My thoughtful hostess knew I have a craving for almond sweet soup - this was a perfect ending to a perfect meal. |
Wednesday 17 June 2020
BBQ Pork (义焼)
I haven't made BBQ Pork at home for 40 years because of the easy access to good quality BBQ stores in the city. I used to make it in the 70's with my mom's recipe before the immigration wave from Hong Kong in the 80's brought along with it Hong Kong quality barbeque meats. Now with COVID19, it seems the right time to revive an old recipe with the addition of some ready made sauces. The ready made sauces are optional, especially for those of you not living in areas with easy access to Chinese grocery stores. It can taste just as good without them - the key is the type of pork you purchase.
I use "lean" pork butt. The pork butt cut is in itself marbled so just pick the leanest piece you can find. Some people like their BBQ pork with a bit more fat, in which case, pick a fattier piece. But even the leanest piece of pork butt would have sufficient fat in it to give it just the right texture.
Cut the butt piece lengthwise into strips no more than 2 inches in diameter. Rub the pieces with minced garlic. Create a marinade using 1 tbsp of soy sauce and 2 tbsp dark soy sauce, 3 tbsp rose cooking wine, 1 tbsp mustard and 1 tbsp corn starch (this is for about 2 pounds of meat). The corn starch is to make the sauce thicker so it will stick to the meat. Now if you have access to a Chinese grocery, you can add a couple of tablespoons of BBQ Pork sauce and Hoisin suace to enhance the flavour. You will notice that these sauces have been thickened also so that they can stick to the meat. I prefer less sugar in my meats but if you like your meat sweeter, the original recipe called for 3 tbsp sugar, adjust the amount according to your taste; use brown sugar if possible. Marinade overnight in the fridge.
When ready to cook, brush with honey. Put on a rack in the baking tray and bake at 300 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes depending on the size of your pieces. Brush with sesame oil when done. Cut into slices for serving. I cooked mine in a steamer oven using the Bake Steam option, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. The steaming kept the meat moist and the baking browned it nicely. This can also be cooked on the barbeque grill on moderate heat. If you've added sugar, watch out in case it burns.
The cooked bbq pork (unsliced) freezes well. Leftovers are great for lunch!
Friday 15 December 2017
A delicious double!
We had the good fortune of enjoying lunch and dinner at the same restaurant on the same day while we were in Hong Kong. It was great that it is Shanghai style food which we only eat very occasionally at home so we were not in danger of having too much of a good thing. The food at this restaurant, Shanghai Lu Yang Cun (上海綠楊邨酒家) is very good so it was double the treat!
The tough thing at a Shanghai style restaurant has always been knowing what to order. If there is expertise, one can end up with a delicious and exceptional meal. If we just go by the popular offerings which is usually what we ultimately fall back on when we order on our own, there is nothing special. In this case, our lunch host had specially consulted Shanghainese friends about the menu and we got to try some really different dishes.
Dinner was more regular fare but we were again lucky to have someone at the table familiar with the regional cuisine so the right dishes were ordered. The food was well-prepared and flavourful. And the soup was just as good the second time around!
Starters:
The tough thing at a Shanghai style restaurant has always been knowing what to order. If there is expertise, one can end up with a delicious and exceptional meal. If we just go by the popular offerings which is usually what we ultimately fall back on when we order on our own, there is nothing special. In this case, our lunch host had specially consulted Shanghainese friends about the menu and we got to try some really different dishes.
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| 馬蘭頭百葉卷 Soy rolls with Indian aster - nice contrast in textures between the soy and the greens. (Indian aster is a wild herb from the sunflower family, fairly common in household meals in China although not so common in North America) |
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| An unusual presentation of the Compoy broad bean cake 瑤柱豆瓣酥 - but it's tasty |
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| My all time favourite - braised bamboo shoots - still have fond childhood memories of these |
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| Briased soy "goose" |
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| Love this fried rice with salted meat and pine nuts even though I'm not usually a rice eater |
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| This fish head soup, with mushrooms and yam noodles among other things, was the most delicious concoction I've tasted in a long time. I love how the cartilage from the fish head is both soft and chewy at the same time. It was so good I must have had at least three bowls and then in the evening, suggested to our host at dinner to order it again! |
Dinner was more regular fare but we were again lucky to have someone at the table familiar with the regional cuisine so the right dishes were ordered. The food was well-prepared and flavourful. And the soup was just as good the second time around!
Starters:
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| Jellyfish, drunken chicken and smoked eel - all very nicely done |
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| The shrimp went very well with the sauce |
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| This is one dish I've never tried before - cured ham, lotus seed and a piece of fried potato (?) put together in steamed buns - all succeeded in providing a delicious combination of textures and tastes - soft, salty, crunchy in a hot steamed bun |
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| "Squirrel fish" (deep fried with sweet and sour sauce) - always a favourite - not as crunchy I would have liked but still good |
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| And the crowning glory - meringue puffs stuffed with red bean paste 高力豆沙 ! I like how the icing sugar was served on the side. |
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| Bonus: Nightview from restaurant |
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