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!

A Custom Non-traditional Chinese banquet (私房菜)

Typically, banquets at Chinese restaurants have set courses that are pretty standard - two first courses with seafood, shark's fin or other seafood soup, chicken, lobster, fish, rice and noodles.  Some restaurants are willing to prepare custom dinners made up of non-traditional courses with special orders.  And you would order that if you want to try some specialty dishes that you wouldn't normally be able to try if you don't have enough people at the table.  So you organize a group (ten is the magic number) and place a special order for a 私房菜, literally translated as "private room/home dinner".  Historically, the "private home" would sometimes be the home of the cook and not necessarily in a restaurant.*  We did this at Delicious Restaurant, a very small restaurant with only 6 - 7 tables.  All ten courses were prepared by chef Patrick Chuang and they were all consistently excellent! 

We started with a tasty soup that was steamed in a ceramic pot.  There were goji berries, conch, chicken feet, mushrooms and other Chinese herbs in the soup.  Next came the appetizer, three different kinds of fish and taro deep-fried in a light batter.  My favourite was the taro.

This is nappa cooked with Chinese ham - the vegetables soaked up the taste from the ham

Deep-fried prawns and squash - almost like a tempura - cooked just right and so crispy you can eat the shell

Shanghai bokchoy with abalone mushrooms - lots of greens to balance off the fried foods

My all time favourite - the best Hainan chicken in town - even the breast meat is tender

HIghlight of the evening - steamed dragon eel - a really special dish done to perfection (more on this in the next post)

Braised pork trotters with dried vegetables served with Chinese steamed buns (see an earlier post on this melt-in-your-mouth specialty)

Fried dungeness crab - flavoured with lots of fried garlic and shallots

All these followed by home made red bean sweet soup (not the gooey kind standard in most restaurants) and the house special chrysanthemum gelatin.  The most amazing thing was there was hardly anything left over at the end of this - just some rice!

*A contact in Hong Kong indicated that this type of dinner was very trendy when there was an economic downturn in the late 1990's.  Some operate illegally in residential buildings but not much was done about them due to the economy.  They came in different grades, ranging from reasonable to pricey but it was not easy to keep up and many did not last very long.  

This was typical of the traditional 私房菜 which, according to the Chinese Wikipaedia originated from the late Ching Dynasty, again resulting from people falling on hard times and trying to make a living from their home.  Many of these were not chefs by profession (and in fact often came from formerly well off families with high positions in court) but were obviously good enough at it to make a name for themselves.