Reports on Hong Kong dining

[hzrt8w]

hzrt8w: To be honest, not sure which area we'll be at. Central for sure as our hotel is there. Certainly willing to travel if it's not too difficult to get there. Abalone, shark's fin soup etc. all fine (although these days eating shark's fin soup is so politically incorrect....). It's not that I don't like the food, it's more like "hmm nothing special..what's the big deal...". Thanks for your suggestions!

P/S: No comments on the prices of wine? Is 200-300 HKD per glass the going rate in restaurants in HK?

DeliciouslyLekker:

How important is having wine with your dinners in Hong Kong? There certainly are places who sell wine but by and large Hong Kongers are not wine (grape versus rice) drinkers. Unless you dine in hotel restaurants I am afraid you will be disappointed in the wine offered (in variety and quality, perhaps prices too).

I am not a wine drinker. I don't look at wine menus. Especially because I am an Hong Kong expatriot it has not been my habit. But I think probably HKD 50 for glass of house wine would be about right. HKD 200-300 for one glass would be really overpriced. Considering you can order most Cantonese entrees for about HKD 100... putting things in perspectives.

Which of the following are more desirable/important to you?

- View from the restaurant?

- Taste of the food (regardless of location)?

- Price of the meal (regardless of location/service)?

One unique experience we had:

Hutong Restaurant

28/F, One Peking Road, Tsimshatsui

You can find many reviews and photos on the web.

Not Cantonese style, but Sichuan style.

One of the best view of the Victoria Harbour especially at night. Call ahead and make reservations. Book a table at 7:00 pm by the window (insist). The light show (Symphony of Lights) starts at 8pm for 15 minutes every night. Viewing from Hutong is really awesome. It was a memorable dinner for us but what I didn't like was our waitress hushing-rushing us to leave before our 2 hour allotment was up (7pm to 9pm - which I agreed upon)... that the waitress kept interrupting us "is there anything I could get for you" "anything else?" "anything else?" DURING THE LIGHT SHOW... my gosh... only 8:07 pm. The dining room was not even full and there was no waiting in the lobby.

Hutong is expensive in local standard. 2 persons... hard to spend less than HKD 500 per person (not including drinks) because every entree on the menu is about HKD200-300. Maybe well within your HKD1500 pp budget. They have a few speciality items. The boneless lamb was really excellent. But the rest were okay to "not that special".

The Felix Restaurant on top of the Peninsula Hotel also has close-up view of the Victoria Harbour's night scene... if you like Italian (or is it French?) food, Hong Kong version. It was on my list last time but didn't make it there.

Yung Kee Restaurant in Central is also a great place to dine. Just about everything is good there. Specialty is roast goose (sorry I said duck in my last post) and everything goose related. Goose liver sausages. Clay pot dishes (lamb stew). There are many reviews and pictures on this forum. Search for "Yung Kee" and "Ken Wang" (He had posted some pictures I remember...). Prices are expensive in local standard but the meal is great.

Edited July 20, 2010 by hzrt8w (log)

[hzrt8w]

We had many roast ducks during our trip. The best was still Yung Kee in Central. Half a duck was about HKD150. And their duck liver sausages are the best too. Went to Yue Kee in Sham Tseng. Roast duck was very good but still I thought was not as good as Yung Kee's.

.....

Sorry I said "roast ducks" in my last post. I meant to say "roast goose/geese".

[annachan]

We just came back from HK a few weeks ago. We had lunch at Lung King Heen and it did not disappoint. The food was really good and it really wasn't that expensive, especially for that many Michelin stars.

Hu Tong and Yung Kee were on my list, but we just didn't make it there. Didn't help that I had way more restaurants picked out than we had time for, especially when there were a few unexpected family/friends meals.

[rarerollingobject]

Just spent a couple days in Hong Kong. As I only had limited discretionary time, visited a few old favourites, so there's nothing really off the beaten track here (and we stuck mostly around Causeway Bay) but it was delicious nonetheless.

Day 1 - Dinner

Tired and cranky from the flight, wanted somewhere with good eats but not too far from our hotel. Luckily one of the better wonton noodle shops in HK (IMO) was just around the corner - Ho Hung Kee in Causeway Bay.

Ordered beef hor fun, wonton with noodle (dry), and a wonton soup between the two of us. Wontons are good here, but with a little crunchiness almost like the prawns aren't quite completely shelled? The stock was very full in flavour and the beef hor fun an oily delight.

To be continued..

Edited February 21, 2011 by rarerollingobject (log)

[nakji]

I love Causeway Bay! My husband and I always stay in that neighborhood when we're there. Looking forward to seeing some good eats in that area.

Any good char siu bao stalls, for example?

[rarerollingobject]

I love Causeway Bay! My husband and I always stay in that neighborhood when we're there. Looking forward to seeing some good eats in that area.

Any good char siu bao stalls, for example?

Surprisingly, I didn't find char siu bao anywhere! It was the one thing, I remarked sadly to my boyfriend on the flight home, that I missed entirely. Did have a couple of good examples of its goodly cousin, the polo char siu bao..char siu baked into a crispy-topped sweet bun. See following post for photos of this rare beast!

[rarerollingobject]

Day 2

Started the day with a brisk constitutional up Hennessy Rd, and found ourselves in a classic HK coffee shop (OK, apart from the football decor) having egg tarts and milk tea. Only discovered on the way out that this was actually the Honolulu Coffee Shop famous for its egg tarts. They were OK..of the flaky pastry variety, a little too sweet for my liking.

Tiring of that, wandered further up towards Wanchai to Fu Sing Shark Fin Seafood Restaurant for dim sum. The line up:

Table pickles and chilli oil:

Har gau:

Something gau (mushroom and seafood maybe):

XO cheung fun:

Wortip:

Char siu (sooooo beautifully fatty):

Siu mai (originally four, two nabbed before photo was taken):

Polo char siu bao and innards:

Xiaolongbao:

All very good, and pretty good value compared to Australian yum cha prices - around AUD$50 for 2.

A bit of wandering ensued and later on, we stopped for steamed milk puddings at Yee Shun Milk Company.

Hot steamed milk with ginger syrup for me:

Cold coffee milk for him:

And the view of the stacked puddings from the outside the shop:

For dinner, I wanted lobster, dammit. Headed to Treasure Lake Seafood Restaurant in Central, renowned for its well-priced seafood. I should have booked, but we took our chances - only to be told there were no tables. Started to slope away, crestfallen, when we were called back with a good deal of shouting and waving - a table had miraculously become available! Who knows what happened, but I wasn't about to ponder it.

Lobster braised in garlic and butter, on e-fu noodles (shortly after the plate was denuded a couple of pieces as the waitress served us):

Close-up of lobstery goodness:

Half suckling pig:

And the Vegetables of Decorum:

And with that, and a couple of Tsingtaos, I was a happy girl.

More tomorrow!

[nakji]

That dim sum makes me want to go out and...get some dim sum. Oh, the pork.

A bit of wandering ensued and later on, we stopped for steamed milk puddings at Yee Shun Milk Company.

The last time I was in Hong Kong, I actually passed by that place! I wanted to go in, but I was completely full from a pho place just up the road from it. I'm going to save myself, next time.

I'm not surprised that you didn't cross any char siu bao - I have found Causeway Bay a similar desert. I had a baked CSB in Singapore last week, but I haven't seen one like in your picture before - it looks like a Roti Boy.

And with that, and a couple of Tsingtaos, I was a happy girl.

Yeah, a couple of Tsingtaos always make me happy, too.

[rarerollingobject]

Day 3

A bit of a repeat day as far as breakfast - egg tarts.

These were from a non-descript little bakery next to Times Square but they were lovely..crumbly buttery short pastry, warm custard, just perfect. And a pork bun, not char siu bao but a spicy ground pork baked into a white bun topped with a squiggle of what tasted like cheese.

Dim sum for lunch at Victoria City Seafood in Wanchai(I realise that we ordered virtually the same dishes as the day before, doh)

Fried anchovies (complimentary):

Har gau:

XO Cheung fun:

Scallop, himeji mushroom and yellow chive steamed cheung fun:

More polo char siu bao:

Xiao long bao:

The fattiest of fatty char siu, so delicious:

Dinner was at Under the Bridge Spicy Crab in Causeway Bay, where we ordered a "medium" size crab and rubbed our hands together with glee at the approximate 2 kilos of crispy deep fried garlic it was buried under:

With a 'famous' fried rice to go with all the garlic. This was pretty good, lots of prawn and scallop chunks, and the perfect foil for the garlicky goodness:

After eating garlic for what seemed like forever, we had still had THIS much left!

More on the morrow.

[nakji]

Oh, the egg tarts, the egg tarts. My husband is such a fan that the last time we were in HK we did a pilgrimage to Lord Stowe's Bakery in Macao to try the originals. They were worth the trip, and we came back with a half dozen more to eat with friends.

I wish my husband ate seafood - I'd kill for an excuse to eat that crab!

As for ordering the same dishes...you can always say you were checking quality across the board and needed a har gau baseline.

[rarerollingobject]

Day 4

With just breakfast and lunch to be had before our plane, it was right onto the eating. Breakfast was wonton noodles at Mak's CWB branch. We shared:

A bowl of prawn wontons in broth each:

A 'chutney pork noodle', spicy shredded fatty pork on dry egg noodles:

And a dry noodle with prawn roe and oyster sauce:

Breakfast-dessert (yes, we are shameless) was at one of the Hui Lao Shan dessert places, that seemed to specialise mostly in mango.

Mango pancakes, filled with sweetened egg white and mango chunks:

And a mango 'milkshake', liquid mango pudding, mango slices and milk pudding curds at the bottom:

A little later, we wanted more roasties before leaving so tracked down Tai Hing Roasties on Jaffe Road for:

A milky tea, ingeniously served with the ice on the outside so as not to dilute the brew:

And a luscious combo of roast pork, roast goose and char siu. We had one of these plates each - the goose was amazing, but both porks were tiniest bit lean for my liking, to be honest, but still good.

And with that, it was off to the airport with our distended bellies and farewell to Hong Kong!

Edited February 26, 2011 by rarerollingobject (log)

[LindaK]

One of these days I'll visit Hong Kong. And when I do, I'm going wherever you've been--I want those meals! The egg tarts sound fabulous. Thanks for the great reporting.

[annachan]

This is making me miss the food! There were many places we didn't get to last time and can't wait to go back and try them.

[hzrt8w]

Hu Tong and Yung Kee were on my list, but we just didn't make it there. Didn't help that I had way more restaurants picked out than we had time for, especially when there were a few unexpected family/friends meals.

Here is my eval on Hu Tong that I shared with a friend from my last HK trip:

In summary - overrated. Only good for the view.

HuTong. 1 Peking Street. 28/F. The view was impeccable. Overseeing the Victoria Harbour and Tsim Sha Tsui. But that's the only thing good it offers. The food: a mix. We ordered 5 items. Only 2 can be considered extraordinary. The other 3 are forgetable. Good: deboned lamb and minced port with Sichuan string beans. Forgetable: dan dan noodle, sugarcane shrimp (outright bland), and the fifth item skipped my mind. Service was bad. It near-the-end ticked me off. We had a table reservation from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. They specifically said we could only have the table until 8:30 pm. I agreed to it. Then at 8:00 pm, the "Symphany of Lights" light show started. It lasts about 15 minutes. We could view the light show from the dinning table. I was enjoying the moment. We still had a little bit of food unfinished (we purposely slowed down the pace). Just when I was enjoying my 15-minute show, the waitress came and interrupted me THREE TIMES! 1) Here is your dessert menu Sir. (Before we even finished our main courses.) I put it on the side and continued to enjoy my light show. 2) 3 minutes later, the waitress came by and asked "Would you like to have any dessert, SIR???". I said no. She took away the dessert menu. 3) Another 3 minutes later, the same waitress came by and asked "Are you finished with you meal, SIR?????". I told her "NO. We are NOT DONE YET". She walked away. By then I was steaming mad. Why the hell the interruptions? I know the restaurant trained the staff to rush customers out the door so they can have higher turn-overs. But it wasn't even close to the end of my time allotment. The waitress started asking me for dessert at 8:05 pm! Besides, they are way over-priced (for the view, no doubt). Prices are about 3 times higher than regular restaurant prices. It's rare to see any items less than HKD200. We ordered a dan-dan noodle. HKD90. The noodle coil was about as big as a tennis ball. Total bill: HKD1100 (USD130). About the price of a banquet-style packaged Chinese meal to feed 12 in small town Sacramento. For two persons. I have prepared to pay five-star prices. But the food is lacking and the service is bad. That was enough for me. No more Hutong in my life. And at 8:30 pm when we left, the restaurant was not even full. There were a few other small tables (like the one we had) empty. They rushed their customers, made them mad, for no good reason. I will not go back.

Maybe it was one bad apple waitress. But that's enough for me.

Edited February 26, 2011 by hzrt8w (log)

[hzrt8w]

Fried anchovies (complimentary):

Did you look at your bill closely? It is customary to charge "appetizers" in Hong Kong, about HKD5 a person.

Thanks for posting the pictures. Brought back some memories.

While we liked the Typhoon Shelter crab, the garlic (tons of it) was a bit too salty. We couldn't eat any more than 1/3 plateful. And the crab was a bit small. Rock crab. Hong Kong size. Well... I got spoiled eating California Dungeness crab (typically 1.5 to 2 lb) in the Bay Area.

[rarerollingobject]

Yeah, I knew we were charged for them..I think it was actually HKD$10 at Fu Sing and HK$9 at Victoria City or the other way around. Was trying to distinguish that they were a table dish and not something we actually ordered, but you're right, 'complimentary' was the wrong word for that.

The garlic WAS salty, but that happily that just called for more Tsingtao!

[Prawncrackers]

I miss the roast goose. The very end bit of the leg is best where all the juices have collected, the meat slides of the bone wrapped in a perfect layer of burnished skin. Thanks for sharing

[dcarch]

rarerollingobject,

It has been a few years since I was in HK last.

Thank you so much for the wonderful pictures and write ups. They bring back delicious memories.

dcarch

[rarerollingobject]

rarerollingobject,

It has been a few years since I was in HK last.

Thank you so much for the wonderful pictures and write ups. They bring back delicious memories.

dcarch

Thanks to all for reading, it was my pleasure!

HK is such a great place for eating - I was actually born there and spent most of my childhood there, but have only been back a few times as an adult. Every time I go, I'm re-amazed by the sheer scale and deliciousness of its food culture. Definitely in my Top 3 very favourite food cities, along with Tokyo and Paris.

[dcarch]

Born there? Crazy!

There is no possible way you can tell people the kind of changes that happened there.

An entire metropolis can materialize overnight.

I don’t suppose you had the time to visit Macao?

dcarch

[nakji]

I try to get to Hong Kong every year, and it truly is one of my favourite eating cities in Asia, up there with Tokyo and Singapore. Ironically, though, I love it largely for the availability of its non-Chinese options. I think the first meal I had off the plane the last time I was there was at a Lebanese place somewhere in SoHo. We were meeting another transplanted Nova Scotian, where Lebanese food is a bit of a thing, and so we were thrilled, that being a fairly under-represented cuisine in the rest of Asia.

Every time I go, I think, "Wow, I've really got to try some actual Cantonese food." And then I walk by a perfect pho joint and get completely distracted. And by the time I'm ready to leave three days later, the actual "Chinese" options I've eaten can be summed up by, "Mall egg tart. Milk tea. Bakery char siu bao." It's a scandal. Thanks for posting these restaurants; I'll put their names down on my To Do: Hong Kong list.

Fortunately, Shanghai is getting almost equally distracting with international options, so hopefully on my next HK trip I won't feel like I have to make the most of those.

[rarerollingobject]

Born there? Crazy!

There is no possible way you can tell people the kind of changes that happened there.

An entire metropolis can materialize overnight.

I don’t suppose you had the time to visit Macao?

dcarch

No time to visit Macao on this trip, sadly. It was one of my very favourite things as a kid, zipping across on the hydrofoil.

[rarerollingobject]

I try to get to Hong Kong every year, and it truly is one of my favourite eating cities in Asia, up there with Tokyo and Singapore. Ironically, though, I love it largely for the availability of its non-Chinese options. I think the first meal I had off the plane the last time I was there was at a Lebanese place somewhere in SoHo. We were meeting another transplanted Nova Scotian, where Lebanese food is a bit of a thing, and so we were thrilled, that being a fairly under-represented cuisine in the rest of Asia.

Every time I go, I think, "Wow, I've really got to try some actual Cantonese food." And then I walk by a perfect pho joint and get completely distracted. And by the time I'm ready to leave three days later, the actual "Chinese" options I've eaten can be summed up by, "Mall egg tart. Milk tea. Bakery char siu bao." It's a scandal. Thanks for posting these restaurants; I'll put their names down on my To Do: Hong Kong list.

Fortunately, Shanghai is getting almost equally distracting with international options, so hopefully on my next HK trip I won't feel like I have to make the most of those.

It's funny you raise this point - nearly had a fight with my boyfriend when we first landed, as with tiredness etc, he seriously suggested going to the Japanese (!) restaurant that was in our hotel (!). I pompously railed and ranted about how I wasn't about to having anything other than Cantonese for our very first meal in HK, and that we have Japanese about three times a week in Sydney, and I certainly wasn't going to have a meal of ANY sort in the hotel for the love of god, and how that's the difference between he and I as travellers and eaters, and how I was outraged he ever thought I'd go for that, and so on and so forth... Unbearable, I am.

But coming at it from an angle of a cuisine you couldn't readily get at home and had been craving, it sounds eminently more reasonable.. There are a couple of foods I love but can't get easily in Australia that I will go totally wild for, no matter where I am or whether they're native to the cuisine I've travelled there to explore (e.g. fresh foie gras, macarons - am about to post pics from my recent Japan trip over in the Japan forum where I ate ALOT of these)

Edited February 27, 2011 by rarerollingobject (log)

[DeliciouslyLekker]

It's been quite a while since we came back from HK. Our HK friends brought us to Fook Lam Moon, a 1-star Michelin place, because I mentioned wanting to go to some dim sum place with 1 Michelin star (I meant Tim Ho Wan but couldn't remember the name!). Food was pretty tasty but I suppose it was a slightly different experience as there were so many papparazzi in front of Fook Lam Moon. There were quite a few politicians, models and other figures in there. I have no idea who they were but HK friends later mentioned that the other patrons may have been worried about the photos I was taking (really, I was only photographing the dim sum:-P ). Breakfast was pretty cheap; I think we paid something like 60 euro for Chinese tea and about 8-10 plates of dim sum (har kou, siew mai, steamed cake, don't remember what else).

We also had Mango Lo, egg tarts, roast goose and a whole bunch of ridiculously cheap food at a Char Chan Teng. What impressed me is also the sheer liveliness of Lan Kwai Fong at night. We went to some place on the 69th floor and I don't think I saw that much craziness by people in the 30s/40s. It was like they worked hard all week and come Friday, they just went mad. Drinks were relatively expensive.. think a beer was about 10 euro?

[nakji]

It's funny you raise this point - nearly had a fight with my boyfriend when we first landed, as with tiredness etc, he seriously suggested going to the Japanese (!) restaurant that was in our hotel (!). I pompously railed and ranted about how I wasn't about to having anything other than Cantonese for our very first meal in HK, and that we have Japanese about three times a week in Sydney, and I certainly wasn't going to have a meal of ANY sort in the hotel for the love of god, and how that's the difference between he and I as travellers and eaters, and how I was outraged he ever thought I'd go for that, and so on and so forth... Unbearable, I am.

But coming at it from an angle of a cuisine you couldn't readily get at home and had been craving, it sounds eminently more reasonable.. There are a couple of foods I love but can't get easily in Australia that I will go totally wild for, no matter where I am or whether they're native to the cuisine I've travelled there to explore (e.g. fresh foie gras, macarons - am about to post pics from my recent Japan trip over in the Japan forum where I ate ALOT of these)

Actually, it's often me having that same argument with my husband! But Hong Kong I treat as basically a trip to the cuisines of the world. The main thing working against eating local for me in HK is that Guangdong/Cantonese food makes a lot of use of good fresh seafood, which I adore, but my husband refuses to eat. No. Seafood. At. All. So I just give up and go for things I can't find in Suzhou/Shanghai.

...What impressed me is also the sheer liveliness of Lan Kwai Fong at night. We went to some place on the 69th floor and I don't think I saw that much craziness by people in the 30s/40s. It was like they worked hard all week and come Friday, they just went mad. Drinks were relatively expensive.. think a beer was about 10 euro?

Oh, yeah. It's like uni for old people, Lan Kwai Fong. (And I count myself in that group) It's fun for people watching, but so is sitting out in SoHo.