Sai Kung Seafood

The thing about having a car in Hong Kong is that you always want to find every opportunity to use it. Since everywhere in hk is in proximity and accessible by public transportation, theoretically speaking, unless you are living really far away in NT, riding a cab or other means of transportation can take you anywhere you want without the hassle of finding parking and developing road rage.

What a weekend rider would normally do is to propose having dinner in places where convenience and accessibility are not the priority. One day my whole family decided to make a road trip to Sai Kung for the renowned seafood cuisine. I don't even remember why Sai Kung is famous for seafood.... I bet the freshest seafood wouldn't stay in Sai Kung anyway and the fishermen would rather supply to other restaurants to earn that extra premium.

We chose Chuen Kee (全記海鮮菜館) which operates several shops in different corners of Sai Kung. It was raining quite hard that day and we had to hide under the umbrellas standing next to the diners on the ground floor. It was so not pleasant to wait for half an hour in the rain.. and I was amazed by the fact that there're still that many people having the spirit to dine out in the wet and gloomy weather.


Our dinner came in the order of:

Steamed shrimps - the shrimps indeed are slightly bigger than what other restaurants offer.. flavor-wise they are the same.

Razor clams with black bean sauce - for the record I love razor clams, mainly because they are very meaty, fresh and chewy. These are very flavorful although they might have too much sauce in there.

Steamed abalone - We shouldn't have ordered this, basically the abalones were a bit overdone and too hard in texture, and the seasoning only touched on the surface while the meat was bland as hell.

Signature fried rice - add a few shrimps there and calling it the signature fried rice? I don't really see much difference.. ok this is quite tasty but still this is a regular fried rice.

Steamed scallops with vermicelli and garlic sauce - have to give them the credit that the scallops were quite big indeed. This is very tasty but a bit oily for my liking, it seemed like they splashed too much cooked oil as the finish touches.

Spicy mantis shrimp - I love mantis shrimp to the level that I enjoy licking the shell for the spicy and seafood flavor.. The shrimps were meaty and cooked perfectly and the seasoning was not too overpowering.

Steamed fish - I know it is a big grouper but we didn't enjoy the best of it since we needed to send back because it was still raw inside.

I probably will only go back if it's less crowded...the restaurant was a full house and all the waiters were so busy running around banging into back of the chairs, and drunken diners cheering for more alcohol and playing drinking games.

I haven't been to Lei Yue Moon for the longest time I wonder whether the seafood would come close to that of Sai King... at least at LYM I am surly be able to get a private room for a more peaceful setting

Fu Sing 富聲

I felt like i have been going out for chinese dinner a lot lately... going after JF's recommendation, four of us paid a visit to the one of the most talked about restaurant Fu Sing 富聲 a couple of days ago. The restaurant itself is just a miniature of what's happening in the surrounding wan chai area - tables were small and tightly setup, the noise level coould be comparable to a concert hall, the place was jam-packed with people, there's really not enough space for one to maneuver around.

Anyway it was just expected that chinese restaurants don't usually have as comfortable setting as western restaurant, at the end of the day we came here for the food not for the ambiance. We left it to JF to make our menu.

One of the most renowned dish at the restaurant - BBQ pork and roast suckling pig. The BBQ pork was indeed very good. The fat content was just right and meat was soft and juicy but not mushy, the honey caramel was slightly excessive but not too sweet. I still remembered the yummy bbq pork I had at yik sun and this one probably fall in the same league. Roasted pork has this thick crunchy skin to die for, if you don't mind the 50% fat content, surely should go for it!

Mantis shrimp with egg yolk. JF commented that the they were a bit soggy.. I thought they were fine, favor-wise the dish was very rich and a bit too salty, not what I would normally order from the menu.

Abalone and goose feet - this was super disappointing. I thought consider the price tag at least they would give us a smaller size dried abalone, unfortunately this was canned abalone. I am a big abalone eater and this was just not worth the price at all. The goose feet was fine, but the abalone just blew off my apetite at that moment.

Chinese lettuce with shrimp paste in clay pot. I love clay pot greens and this one tasted favorably. They probably had added too much shrimp paste so a bit too salty.

Fried crystal noodles. Another great clay pot dish. It's difficult to pan fry crystal noodles because if using too little oil they would stick to the pan, and too much oil would become too greasy. This one was cooked perfectly and noodles were not too moist or too dry.

Lam yu pork. Not really that impressive but great pairing with alcohol.

What the waitress recommended us was this crispy ma fa. It was okay nothing special since I grew up with shanghainess crispy ma fa anyway, it was too sweet for my tasting. I rather to go with something lighter considering we had so much food already.

A new creation from the kitchen was tart with milk pudding. I like the top part but not the bottom, interesting combination but the two didn't go well together. I would say they are friends but not buddies...

They ran out of what I originally wanted - the egg white almond tea dessert (something I order whenever I dine at chinese restaurant), and replaced with mango and grapefruit soup.

The others got the sweet dumplings.

Tasting was fine I probably would go again if it wasn't that expensive. I was surprised by how much it costed for those supposedly inexpensive dishes. The cost of execution and fame weighed more than the raw materials here. Considering what I had at sun tong luk which came with cheaper price tag and much better seating and service quality, I found food at fu sing not as delicate and exquisite.

Sun Tung Lok 新同樂

For Dad's bday celebraton #1, we went to Sung Tung Lok 新同樂 in Happy Valley for an extravagant traditional chinese meal. It is not difficult to find a restaurant in Hong Kong that serves those extravagant ingredients such as shark fin, abalone and fish belly, everyone of those says they are the best but obviously not that many can produce decent dishes at reasonable pricing and at the same time satisfy the yang family's exquisite tastebuds.

At first we were concerned about whether the restaurant could accommodate our big group of 15 people + kids. When we arrived, we were guided through a flight of stairs next to the main entrance, and taken to a very big room with private bathroom and a hugh round table. This was indeed a comfortably large room for big group dinner party.

We had some simple dishes to start off our dinner: fried vegetarin bean curd sheet roll, roasted beef, deep fried bak fan yu, deep fried bean curd, scallions and salty fish, beans and minced pork, etc.....

Here comes the main dish - shark fin soup. The soup base had a beautiful golden color and seasoned perfectly. It's amazing that even they used a huge chicken and salty ham to create the soup base, it didn't have a single drop of fat and was as light and clear as vegetable stock. The intense flavor did blow me away, this might be the best shark fin soup that I have ever had. The serving of shark fin was not shabby at all, each of us got a piece of ~3" wide shark fin. Also, instead of vinegar, the server placed a miniature crystal bottle filled with condensed ham stock on the table, is like magic water, to enhance the ham flavor even more.

Another main dish - Abalone and goose feet. What makes a good abalone? Firstly it has to be the dried ones and not from the cans, secondly if the abalone is cooked perfectly it should have what we call "sweet heart 溏心" in the center, thirdly the texture of abalone should be chewy and not too hard or too soft, and also the sauce has to be the thick abalone marinate but not as sugary as oyster sauce. Although the abalones we had were pretty small but they did have the sweet heart in the center and the sauce had slight hint of soy sauce and packed with seafood flavor. Whoever don't eat goose feet would have missed out the most nutritious food of chinese cuisine. Goose feet have more collagen than bird nest but selling as 1/1000 of the price. Along with the abalone sauce, the goose feet were perfect! I felt my skin all rejuvenated again...

Fried scallops stuffed with minced prawns. These are big scallops indeed and the minced prawns gave us the crunchy texture. Although they are deep fried but not oily at all.

No need to explain every single chinese dinner has to involve steamed fish. Of course this is not big enough to feed 15 people.. we had 2 steamed fish.

Smoked chicken. It's difficult to find good lean chicken nowadays, they are usually fat and force fed chicken which are tasteless. This chicken dish again was not fat at all, the skin was crispy and meat was quite juicy.

The longevity noodle for Dad.

Dessert - almond paste soup and sau bao. I needed to note that albeit small in size, the sau bao had an egg yolk inside with lotus paste. Not many places use egg yolk because of cost issue, but this one fully packs with all the neccessary ingredients, and most importantly not too sweet.

What a wonderful meal. Most importantly my dad enjoyed every bit of it albeit his high standard of everything.... good service (we had 3 people dedicated to our table), decent food, generous portion, comfortable setting. We killed 4 bottles of red and white, and a full bottle of wuliangye. We all came out being half drunk and needed a lift back home even it was just a 2 min drive from the restaurant.

Matsubishi @ Marriot

Four of us went to Matsubishi @ the marriot hotel to satisfy the birthday boy's craving for teppanyaki.. Actually it is my first time having teppanyaki in HK, I remembered dining at Benihana when I was young, but we didn't have that good of experience there which reverted us back to the traditional sushi and donburi whenever we dined out.

Teppanyaki is all about a guy standing in front of you performing a show of searing food and frying rice... and here is our guy who have been working at the restaurant for over decades.... wouldn't he get bored by performing the same act everyday?

A salad and gyoza to start off our meal.

We all went for a set menu which comprises of scallop/eel, sirloin beef/kurobuta pork, fried rice and sauteed veggies.

First off, our chef went on a full explanation of the origin of scallop while grilling and dicing our lovely shellfish. Our scallops are huge with large gonads...the shell itself is as big as my hand. I guess the chef is way too chatty and didn't notice he has overcooked our scallops.. what a bummer, they would have been so juicy if they are not overcooked....

Next we had our sirloin/pork. Chef placed a piece of toasted bread on our plates to absorb the excess fat of the meat. It looks like a special home made bread with their own seal on it.. but surprisingly it is actually the normal HK garden brand, nothing fancy about it...

We had 3 dipping sauce in front of us - ponzi/soy, tomato with apple, sesame

The sirloin was cooked perfectly, tender and juicy. The meat can go by itself without the dipping sauce.. it was served with fried garlic chips as an extra kick. well.. i have already established that this is not a good place for dating.. with that much of garlic what kind of distance do you want to keep with your dating partner..

The kurobota pork was thinly sliced and wrapped with scallions and fried garlic chips when grilled. The pork definitely is much better than the China fed ones sold at wet market..which are basically tasteless. Instead of thin slices, I would really want to try the pork loin since kurobuta pork is supposedly super tender and fatty.

After the meat course, chef started making the fried rice. The technique is fast moving hands, super hot pan, little oil, cooled rice, fresh ingredients, and lots of scallions. The fried rice was nicely done, seasoned perfectly with slight soy sauce flavor. Comparing the jap fried rice to chinese fried rice... I think I would still prefer the chinese version because of the seafood flavor from dried scallops.

To sum up - decent food, good atmostphere, nice decor, dimmed lighting, clean bathrooms.. one weak point is inexperienced staffs who didn't refill our choya every now and then...other than that a good meal overall.

Roasted beef with yorkshire pudding

A few weeks ago, we reconvened at MC's place for our regular cookout after resting for summer. It's been awhile since our last gathering and I have to admit that it was my fault to keep postponing our date. Thanks to MC and EW, after a long chain of emails exchange and my minimal contribution, we pinned down on what we wanted to make the day before. We went for something masculine, homey and satisfying - a recipe of roasted beef and yorkshire pudding by gordon ramsay. To be honest I had no idea of what yorkshire pudding is before I saw the recipe, they are english muffin like creature made with egg and milk and flour that go with meat dishes.. apparently these are traditional english food just like the american mushed potato..I felt so ignorant..

What makes a great steak?? A grill pan!! What a great investment to have a grill pan at home.... it heats up the steak at high temperature to seal in the juices and get you that perfect grill marks.

The making of the gravy sauce. Trust me, this is really delicious. Normally I don't like gravy too much since the sauce tends to be too thick and overpowering, but this gravy sauce is indeed a very good compliment to the steak. The ingredients are simple, comprising of thyme, garlic, onion, tomatoes and port wine, and as GR says: REDUCE.

We also have the tomato soup to go with the meal. A simple hearty vegetable soup that stimulates appetite.

It's our first time making yorkshire pudding..the key is to preheat a greased muffin pan at very high temperature, and then pour the thin batter into the sizzling hot pan and pop that back into the oven. Within 15min we got our delicious and chewy yorkshire pudding.

Our roasted beef was slightly overdone.. but the marinate and gravy made up for a slight misstep.

Probably is the age thing again, I really enjoy home cook dinner party with close friends rather than hanging out at karoke and getting drunk at pubs and clubs.... food is a great bonding factor for people, and I am grateful to have friends who enjoy food as much as I do.