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 

Eating in Saigon

Our first morning in Saigon started with a trip to the market with our last cooking class on the tour (Saigon Cooking School).  The huge Cho Binh Tay market in Saigon was a bigger version of all those other Vietnamese markets we saw in Hanoi, Hue and Hoi An, and obviously with more selection. The instructors pointed out basically similar things so I will not repeat myself.   Please check the Travels with rarecat blog post on Saigon Streetscape for photos from this market.  We were at the tail end of our tour and by then, the cooking class seemed more like a practice session on spring roll rolling - nothing new.

What was new was the Lotus leaf fried rice.  The new ingredient I noticed was the lotus seed.  I have never seen that in a fried rice dish and it's something to keep in mind.  I've never used a fresh lotus leaf either although this dish is also Chinese.

Fried rice ingredients:  chicken, shrimp, lotus seed, carrots, peas

Giant paddle for stir-frying and look at the neat way it was served.  The rice was put on the lotus leaf which was used to line a bowl.  The sides of the leaf were then folded over the rice and then inverted onto a dish.

The lotus leaf was given a cross-shaped cut across the top and voilà - fried rice in fragrant lotus leaf flower!    

That was our lunch.  For dinner, we tried three different styles.  The first night we arrived in Saigon, we were too tired to go further than a block from our hotel.  This restaurant, possibly a chain, looked like it was visited by locals and the food was quite good, the prices reasonable.  We were seated beside the window and noticed customers who had finished their dinners were waiting outside for the jockey to bring in their scooters from the parking lot. There was valet parking for scooters!

One of our dishes - an excellent mushroom hotpot

Our second night, we ate at a restaurant recommended by our guide:  Nha Hang Ngon. This was a little like the Market Restaurant in Hoi An with one arcade lined with street food style stalls.  Customers ate in an open courtyard inside a two-storied yellow colonial building.   Of course it's not street food - it just created a street food ambiance which was really nothing like the real thing, but tourists loved it and the place was packed.  You can check out the rave reviews on Tripadvisor if you are planning a trip.  I thought our meal was good and I liked the open air courtyard.  But it was not my idea of authentic Vietnamese street food.

Excellent steamed Vietnamese crab

The colonial courtyard

Our last night in Saigon, we ventured out in a cab to an area where we were told we could find Vietnamese street food.   We were not even sure if this was the real thing even though the entire kitchen was on a street near the market, and all the tables were out on the street. It just looked too organized and on too large a scale - nothing like the street food stalls we visited in Hanoi.

The outdoor kitchen

Communal tables on the street

Our neighbours were cooking strips of meat on a piece of brick over a coal fire in a bucket - looked like too much work for too little return!

We opted for something easier, seafood wrapped in foil and a hotpot of morning glory and pho.

It was good - we were hungry!  
That marked the end of our Vietnamese culinary experience.  Looking forward to more food in Hong Kong.   

Chinese New Year dish 蠔士髮菜 or 好事發財

The signature Chinese New Year dish is named after two of its ingredients: oysters and dried seaweed,  in Chinese 蠔士髮菜 (pronounced "ho see fat choi") and in fact, it's just the sound of the dish that made it "lucky" for Chinese New Year, where a good name is everything.  The oyster and sea weed sounds like "good things and prosperity" 好事發財 ("ho see fat choi") making it the key dish in any Chinese New Year dinner (for the Cantonese speaking at least).

Traditionally at my home, my mom would make this dish for Chinese New Year's eve, serve half of it and have the other half for the second day of the new year, when we have the first real dinner to mark the beginning of the year.  While the two key ingredients gave the dish its name, it is in fact made with quite a few more things, all of which have their own significance.  I emphasized "at my home" because every family has its own interpretation of tradition and I'm sure if we were to ask 10 Chinese families what they put in their Chinese New Year dish, you'll get 10 different answers.

Dried oysters (as opposed to fresh) are the best for this dish.  These need to be soaked for a few hours or overnight in just enough water to cover.  The seaweed is not just any seaweed.   It has to be "fat choi".   See picture below - and for origin, check out this wikipedia article, it may come up in Chinese, just click translate.  It is black and looks like human hair, hence its name translates as "hair veggie".  It is quite expensive and there are fakes around.  I've never bought it in Toronto.  The supply I had was given to me more than 10 years ago.  It's dried, it will last forever in the fridge but it won't last long on the table.  Alas, this is the last of my supply - I will have to start looking for it, maybe in Hong Kong...

Dried seaweed or "fat choi"

dried oysters

Other ingredients:  quail's eggs (birth, new life), dried mushrooms, bamboo shoots (spring, new life), lotus root (for meeting the right companion), dried scallops, enoki, dried bean curd can all be included.
Sometimes pig's tongue is also added for more luck (tongue in Chinese is "lei", sounds like luck).

Quail's eggs

dried mushrooms

Lotus root, bamboo shoot

Enoki mushrooms

All ingredients are stir fried in a bit of oil and ginger, garlic, starting with the oysters and mushrooms. Add some stock and simmer for a few minutes before adding the other ingredients, leaving the seaweed last because they soak up the sauce.  I usually leave them in one lump as they tend to split up otherwise and would be hard to find.  The boiled and peeled quail's eggs are best browned in a separate pan so they don't break up as easily.   Add these after everything else is cooked.

發財好事