I just got back from a long weekend in Hong Kong! I must admit, I didn't eat quite as many things as I'd thought I would, but everything I did get to try was absolutely fantastic. There are some things that I'm going to talk about that aren't unique to the restaurants that I went to (like dim sum and seafood), because they are just very common Cantonese things that I'm sure many, many other restaurants do just as well. This also turned out to be a much longer post than I'd anticipated, so I'm splitting it into two parts. So, in chronological order:
文輝墨魚丸大王 Wen Huei Cuttlefish Balls
Obviously this place is most famous for its cuttlefish balls, which are served with fun (rice noodles) and a fish broth. The cuttlefish balls are really nice--they're perfectly firm and a little bit sweet, and don't have any trace of fishiness. The broth is so good; they add salted, pickled cabbage (冬菜), which functions to season the broth, and the little bit of tartness makes the soup taste really light and fresh and really appetizing. I recommend eating this with red vinegar and fish sauce, too.
We also got a plate of blanched "Chinese broccoli" (芥藍菜) with oyster sauce. It seems to be the ultimate poor man's vegetable, because no high-end restaurant has it, but it's really delicious. Hong Kong has the most beautiful vegetables.
全記海鮮 Chuen Kee Seafood Restaurant
There's a little town on the east coast of Kowloon called Sai Kung (西貢), which has a ton of seafood restaurants lining a pier-like street. Some are definitely better than others, and it's really a matter of preference (or trial and error), but our favorite is Chuen Kee. The walk past all the restaurants is really interesting, and you can see all the different sea animals that, apparently, you can eat.
Are these not the most terrifying Pokemon you've ever seen? I have no idea what they are, but the fact that they exist makes me very, very scared.
The way dinner works is, you tell the lao ban ("boss," or really whomever offers you a table) how many people you have, what kinds of seafood you want, and how you want it cooked--although their recommendations are always great. If you don't know what to get, ask them--they really know what they're doing.
Our first dish was fried giant prawns (賴尿蝦) with salt and pepper. To be honest, this was not the highlight of the meal, because there was hardly any meat! However, it tastes so nice and juicy and tender, and the spice on the shells tastes amazing.
Our second dish was boiled clams. This was by far the best dish; they used pickled cabbage (the kind I described in the previous section) in the broth, which really enhances the incredible sweetness of really fresh seafood.
Our last dish was sliced geoduck stir fried with celery. If you've never tried geoduck, you really should; it's a giant clam (Google it), and it's actually kind of crunchy when you slice it thin. Stir frying it with celery and minimal seasoning made it a really fresh-tasting, light ending to a heavy meal.
東湖海鮮酒家 East Lake Seafood Restaurant
By day, this place serves dim sum. You can get really great dim sum in America, but the atmosphere of getting the real thing is pretty unbeatable.
One of my favorite dim sum dishes is turnip, fish balls, and pig skin (蘿蔔魚蛋豬皮), all of which are cooked in a broth and served as kind of an overpiled soup. Pig skin is actually really good, guys. It's translucent and chewy and a little bit crunchy, and it holds so much broth that when you bite into it, that delicious, savory broth pours into your mouth. It doesn't have any pig flavor (or hairs) which I think may be most off-putting for most people.
Pan-fried chung fun (basically rice noodles, but in large, rolled sheets) are so nice; if you like pho, you will love this. It's pan-fried with some dried shrimp and scallions, and then you dip it into soy sauce.
You can also get steamed chung fun, and that would come with different kinds of fillings. My favorite is shrimp, and you get a light, sweet soy sauce to pour on top. If you've never had it, it's really hard to describe, but again, it's kind of like one giant sheet of pho--so good.
I love shrimp dumplings; it's just lightly seasoned shrimp wrapped in a translucent rice-based skin, but I think the simplicity of it makes it a really refreshing, light item in the midst of all the other heavily flavored foods.
My absolute favorite is steamed pork buns. It's lean pork in a rich, sticky sauce (that's a little bit sweet, but not gross) wrapped in a fluffy flour bun.
We got water chestnut cakes (top) and turnip cakes (bottom). The water chestnut cakes, I think, are meant as a dessert, because it's sweet and has the texture of a firm gel. The turnip cakes were really the highlight of the meal for me, because it just beats out every other turnip cake I've ever eaten. It's really simple--just shreds of turnip mixed with a flour-based batter, then steamed to solidify it--but it seems like it's really hard to do it well. You need to pan-fry it for that added flavor and crispy texture, and you need to add pork for flavor--because honestly, turnip is pretty bland on its own.
I find that shumai (dumplings that are half-wrapped) are never particularly thrilling, but they can be nice additions if you really want to stuff yourself. Like all other dumplings, they can really be filled with anything, but ours was just pork.
*****
This isn't even half of what I ate this past weekend, so come back tomorrow for even more goodies!
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