Tag Archives: Hong Kong

Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 3

June 5, 2017 8:12 am , Leave a Comment , Winnie N

Another way to find out good places to eat is ask the locals. In our case, the local made a suggestion to us without our solicitation. My mother and I were actually getting our laundry done at the nearby laundromat. I love it. We drop our dirty clothes off and they wash, dry and fold our clothes for us! Within walking distances of our hotel, we walked by at least three different laundromats. The price is very reasonable and it’s great when travelling to Hong Kong for long periods of time. You don’t need to pack so much clothes.

Where was I…yes back to food recommendation. The laundromat lady overheard us talking about a place we would like to eat congee. She thought the place we wanted to go wasn’t that great so she gave us her suggestion—Good Hope Noodle (好旺角粥麵專家). We thought why not give this place a try since we’d be here for awhile anyway. In this case, we didn’t think her recommendation was good for our taste. The congee was so so and it was pricey for the mediocre food. Nonetheless, it was “fresh boiled congee” (生滾粥) which means they cook all the ingredients as you order them. Plus I love Chinese breakfast foods so it was ok. We also ordered the wonton and beef brisket soup noodles too. The noodles were great but both the noodles and congee portion were small even in Hong Kong standard.

Wonton & Beef Brisket Noodles, Minced Beef Congee, Pork Liver Congee

One Sunday, we finally ended up going to the congee place that we meant to go, Sang Kee Congee & Noodle (生記粥麵). Guess what? It was closed! Hong Kong restaurants never close! Even during the typhoon, when they recommend everyone to go home, local restaurant owners just continue to soldier on. The sign says it’s opened on all the public holidays except for Sundays and various Chinese holidays. My mom said they must make a lot of money so they can afford to close on Sundays. Nevertheless, we left that day and came back another day. My mom had been here before and knew there might be lineups. This place was made famous by one of Hong Kong’s famous food writer and eater. Sometimes you never know if these recommended places are good or just a big hype. (We had to line up a bit because we got here a little later than intended. But the line was super quick because people just eat and go.) This time, lining up was worth it. It’s not just a hype. The congee there was amazing. They’re famous for their fish congee and pork liver congee. So we ordered that. Plus they’re also famous for their clear broth beef brisket. It was so tender and delicious that I devoured it and forgot to take a photo. Not the first time I had forgotten to take a picture but it always involved the kids distracting me. This time, there was no one to blame but myself 😛 .)

Pork Liver Congee at Sang Kee Congee & Noodle

When you get to Hong Kong make sure you find a “fresh boiled congee” place to eat. If you like congee, you won’t be disappointed!

Read in the series:

Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 1
Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 2

Posted in: Places Visited, Special Meals , Tagged: beef brisket noodles, fish congee, Hong Kong, pork liver congee, wonton noodles

Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 2

March 27, 2017 7:51 am , Leave a Comment , Winnie N

One of the best things when travelling with people who know the place is their recommendation on where to eat. Since my mom goes to Hong Kong every year, she has either tried or heard of somewhere good to eat. She doesn’t use computers or any fancy restaurant apps. She just knows from being there and talking to her friends to find out where to go.

I, on the other hand, rely on technology to find places to eat. I actually discovered the Openrice website and app while searching for restaurants in Hong Kong. This app might be better than Yelp because it’s what locals use to search for restaurant recommendations. It’s actually great because it’s in both English and Chinese. So you can match up the Chinese characters from your app to the restaurant if the sign is in Chinese only and you don’t read Chinese 🙂 .

Aberdeen Fishball & Noodles Restaurant (香港仔魚蛋粉) is one of the places that we stumbled upon when travelling around in Mong Kok. There are many locations around and it seems like some locations are better than others. The reason we went in was because my mom knows that it’s one of the popular chain places. This place is famous for their fish ball soup noodles.

Fish Ball Noodles – Don’t remember being spectacular but the fish broth was pretty tasty. The broth is made with water chestnuts and dry bean curd sticks hence the milky white broth. The homemade chili oil goes great with this dish.

Fish Ball Noodles

Sei Kee Congee (西記粥店) is one of the places we go back to every time we visit Hong Kong. There seems to be three locations but we always go to the one on Prince Edward Road. It’s a hole in the wall and the first place my dad took us to when my husband went to Hong Kong the very first time. This place is famous for their “fresh boiled” congee (生滾粥) which means they cook all the ingredients as you order them. My husband has fond memories of this place especially the minced beef congee—his all-time favourite Memorable Dish. My favourite congee to order in Hong Kong is the Boat Congee (艇仔粥). It has a mix of different ingredients but mostly seafood, hence the name “boat”. This congee is quintessentially Hong Kong and every restaurant makes it slightly different.

Minced Beef and Boat Congee – Just like how I remember them. Standard taste like all other congee places I had but very hot and fresh.

Youtiao (Chinese fried cruller) and Cheung Fun (rice noodle roll) – I don’t remember seeing them making these in-house. They taste ok, nothing spectacular.

Minced Beef and Boat Congee (right), Youtiao (Chinese fried cruller) and Cheung Fun (rice noodle roll) (left)

When travelling to the same place more than once, we tend to go back to the same restaurants over and over again. The food might not be the best but we tend to go back anyways. I think it’s because it brings back nostalgic travel memories for us. Sometimes it’s not about the food, but it’s about the company.

Read in the series:

Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 1
Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 3

Posted in: Places Visited, Special Meals , Tagged: cheung fun, congee, fish ball, Hong Kong, noodles, youtiao

Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 1

March 20, 2017 8:04 am , Leave a Comment , Winnie N

Dinner at Tao Heung - Crispy Chicken, Sautéed Pea Shoots in Broth, Steamed Garlic Giant Grouper (龍躉) Slices, Fish Fragrant Eggplant (鱼香茄子)

I can’t say I’ve had bad meals in Hong Kong. Some places might be mediocre but they are never “bad”. I think it’s because Hong Kong eaters have such a discernible taste that you cannot possibly serve bad food and stay afloat.

When I decided to go on a girls trip with my mother and my toddler girl, I researched on Yelp and online for restaurants and food places to check out. I don’t know if I ended up hitting any of the places on my list! Once I was there, we were eating on the go. Food is literally everywhere—big restaurants, little restaurants, fast food, fast but good food. If you’ve been to Hong Kong, you know what I mean. One can never go hungry.

We ended up eating at places we visited and nearby areas. My mother also knew of some places to check out from her previous trips (she pretty much goes once a year). Plus my older brother who works between mainland China and Hong Kong took us to different places to eat. Even people we met gave us recommendations on where to go. I have to say all Hong Kong people are food lovers!

When we think of chain restaurants in North America, we picture cookie cutter places that serve consistent but mediocre food. However in Hong Kong, chain restaurants could sometimes be better than the one off restaurants. They have standards to adhere to and the staff are usually friendlier than other local restaurants. Having said that, we did check out a restaurant that was famous for their roast goose but we were rather disappointed.

We had our first meal in Hong Kong at Tao Heung (稻香) near our hotel. We literally stepped outside of the hotel, looked around and saw their huge sign at a nearby local mall and headed towards it. Since we know it’s a chain restaurant, we were sure it would be decent. We were super hungry so we ate half of the food before I even took the photo.

Crispy Chicken – Standard at Cantonese restaurants. I find North American chickens to be blander. But in Asia, they are so much tastier.

Sautéed Pea Shoots in Broth – Fresh, tender and delicious. Even my 2-year old child could distinguish the taste of fresh vegetables versus not so fresh ones. She was gravitating towards them and couldn’t stop eating these yummy veggies.

Steamed Garlic Giant Grouper (龍躉) Slices – My mom said that you cannot eat it whole because it’s too big to steam on its own. Restaurants usually sell them in pieces instead of whole. They sliced them and steamed them like they would with whole fishes.

Fish Fragrant Eggplant (鱼香茄子) – This dish is a misnomer because there’s no fish in it at all. It is a seasoning mixture in Chinese Sichuan cuisine, and also refers to the resulting sauce in which meat or vegetables are cooked. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuxiang) It was very tasty with a hint of spice. Cantonese adopted this dish and made it not as spicy.

Dinner at Tao Heung – Crispy Chicken, Sautéed Pea Shoots in Broth, Steamed Garlic Giant Grouper (龍躉) Slices, Fish Fragrant Eggplant (鱼香茄子)

Below are the photos of the infamous roast goose restaurant. Tourists can actually buy it freshly roasted and the restaurant has a system of packaging it so that you can fly back to your home country with it (providing your flight isn’t that long and your country allows you to bring back meat items.) My brother took us there because we happened to be in the area so we gave it a try. This infamous roast goose restaurant was not as good as expected, and quite expensive for what it is. The roast goose was drowned with this brown sauce. It’s almost as if they were trying to disguise the lack of crunchiness of the goose skin. However, some might like that style of roast goose. But I prefer the crispy skin.

Roast Goose – Drowned with brown sauce. Why would they do that?

Lai Fun (瀨粉) in Broth – Usually people eat lai fun with roast goose. The lai fun’s texture was perfect and the broth was pretty tasty.

Roast Goose and Lai Fun

Qilin (麒麟) Tofu – The layers resemble the scales of Qilin (a Chinese mystical, mythical lucky creature). It is made up of tofu, Jinhua ham (金華火腿), and Chinese mushroom. The tofu is very soft and pairs very nicely with the salty ham and mushroom.

Qilin Tofu

Century Eggs (皮蛋) with Pickled Ginger – I have to admit it was one of the best century eggs I had. Apparently it’s their house specialty (soft yolk)—paired nicely with the pickled ginger.

Sautéed Chinese Mustard Greens (芥菜) with Chinese Mushrooms – Tender and tasty cooked in oyster sauce.

Century Eggs and Chinese Mustard Greens

There are more yummy Memorable Dishes to come as I travel through Hong Kong with my mother and daughter. Every time I come back to visit, there is always something new to discover!

Read in the series:

Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 2
Asian Food Trip – Hong Kong – Part 3