lamma island is one of the outlying islands in hong kong – a 30 minute ferry ride from the central ferry piers, you have your choice of two villages to take the ferry to. we arrived too late (or early) to take the ferry to sok kwu wan, we got on the ferry for yung shue wan.

well, getting there, i didn’t know which of the seafood restaurants to pick (i’ve only been to sok kwu wan before) but there was certainly lots of seafood to choose from. we picked one at random and had a feast.

photos after the jump

fresh boiled shrimp

bamboo clams steamed with black bean sauce – these are especially delicious. i would’ve eaten another plate of these if i could.

clams steamed with the same black bean sauce. i preferred the bamboo clams, but that’s just me. these were also very good though.

steamed fish

lamma island is a 30 minute ride from the central ferry piers. usually, people go to sok kwu wan for the long row of seafood restaurants – i really don’t have one restaurant to recommend over any other. one note – these restaurants, despite the basic decorations, plastic chairs and lack of ambiance, are not cheap. the ultra fresh seafood and the laid back atmosphere make for a great day out though.

tofu fa – or silken tofu is a cantonese style ‘tong sui’ – or literally ‘sugar water.’ made with fresh tofu and served with a ginger simple syrup, it can be a refreshing end to a meal.

this particular shop specialized in tofu of all sorts – fried, baked . . .and dessertified.

the tofu fa here was excellent. served with a lot of different flavors

instead of the usual ginger simple syrup, i went with almond flavor.

Yan Wo Dou Bun Chong (causeway bay branch)
55 jardine’s bazaar
causeway bay
under $40 hkd

[post edited to change out the double photos]

cantonese home cooking is something i actually don’t get a lot of. here in shanghai – and even in hong kong, restaurants concentrate on the banquet or the dim sum or the fast and quick barbeque or noodle dishes. homefeel makes the sort of food that mom makes at home. and that sort of hearty cantonese food was just what i was craving.

with my friend abbie we ordered grandma’s chicken, the “old fire” or daily soup. let me just stop here a second and go talk about soup – so important for any cantonese meal or even cantonese life. when you’re looking for a girlfriend or a wife – your cantonese friends will say “make sure she knows how to make soup.” If you’re going home, your cantonese friends say “Oh, you’re going home so that your mom will make soup for you.” If you’re sick, soup. If you’re feeling good, it must be because of soup. If eating is the reason for existence for Cantonese – and it is – than soup is the alpha and omega of that existence.

but since i’m not truly truly cantonese – or i’m only half way there by way of pittsburgh, los angeles and berkeley, what i really was craving for was steamed pork loaf. kind of a cantonese meat loaf. yeah, doesn’t sound too appetizing. nor does it look that great.

but this is the sort of food that my mom made for me growing up. with a salted duck’s egg and a bowl of rice, this is home for me. sure they make it with a slightly fattier pork than at home, which makes it slightly tastier.

oh and grandma’s chicken

the signature dish of the restaurant – it was kind of expensive for $95hkd for a half a chicken, but man, they make a good bird. equal parts sweet and savory, with the nice tang of a reduced soy sauce glaze contrasting with the moist juicy bird. a little bit like a hainan chicken rice chicken, but juicier and more succulent, if that was even possible. i don’t make a lot of specific recommendations, but grandma knew what she was doing when she gave out the recipe for this chicken.

for those of us of cantonese extraction, the feel good food of home feel brings us back to a place where mom is cooking for us and the smell of rice steaming pervades the home. and that’s a nice place.

C, 7/F, Lee Theatre Plaza,
99 Percival Street, Causeway Bay
Hong Kong

$100 HKD per person

yes. and yes. man, do i love hong kong or what? so i went back with a colleague who is new to china/hong kong and had spent her first week in hong kong eating at the grocery store near the office. as her time in asia is limited, i was rather disappointed and told her that that was no way to see hong kong, especially if her visits to hong kong would be minimal in the future.

now it just so happened that i wanted to go to hong kong anyways, since it had been since chinese new year that i had been there last, so i invited her along to see my hong kong, which of course consists mainly of eating.

plenty of people have written and photographed about goldfinch cafe much better than i could ever do. the nostalgia value is there, with the posters of “in the mood for love” and “2046″

the atmosphere was so thick, you’d think tony leung and maggie cheung were just around the corner eating soy sauce western food.

oh yeah, the food. well, they offered a set meal with soup and rice dish and drink. so 3 of us (out of the 4) ordered the pork chop and rice. the cantonese soy sauce cuisine pork chop has its beginnings in the tonkatsu pork chop of japanese heritage, but the breading is fried up slightly crispier than panko breading tends to fry up.

and it was everything a pork chop could be. juicy, flavorful, without being oily or fatty. fried up just right, it was really the pork chop to end all pork chops.

the soup was historically mediocre (only cream or tomato soup) – but that pork chop. it makes me weep with joy with how good it was.

come for the nostalgia, or if you’re a wong kar wei fan. stay for the western set lunch – and if they’re offering that pork chop, get yourself on that.

goldfinch cafe
G/F., 13-15 Lan Fong Rd., Causeway Bay
??????13-15 ???
$50 HKD ($7 USD) for the set-lunch

and even when i do – its a time when i’m longing for char siu rice or something or other hong kong related. but this time i got this huge craving for popeye’s fried chicken.

when i was growing up, all of the popeye’s chicken franchises were located in, let’s just say economically disadvantaged areas. while i enjoy a good fried chicken from time to time, its not as central part of my fast food diet as burgers or sandwiches. so i never really felt the need to go enjoy chicken cajun style.

it was when i first moved to houston in 2002 that i discovered the wonders of red beans and rice, cajun style mashed potatoes and of course the fried chicken that popeye’s became my most trust brand name in fried chicken. so when i saw the outpost in chep lap kok hong kong international airport, i knew i had to go back. alas, the chicken was lukewarm – and so, were the mashed potatoes and the whole meal was kind of a waste of cholesterol and stomach space.

popeye’s fried chicken
Departures East Hall, Level 7
Restricted Area
06:30 – 23:30

HKD $55 for the set meal

while i was there over the chinese new year break, i shot some photos of the star ferry.

yes, that’s right, even if hk is one of the most urban places in the world, one is only a 15 minute cab ride from getting into nature.

just over the last chinese new year, my friend andrew suggested we do a hike from the south side of hong kong island over the wong nai chung gap towards the north side, starting near stanley hiking over “the twins” and bypassing “violet hill.”

a view of stanley from the first twin

nature!

andrew’s sister’s dog buzz accompanied us for the hike, frolicking in the hk countryside, and eventually meeting up with a friendly, but large black lab named lucky.

here’s buzz exiting my photo with lucky in the background. lucky’s owner is up the hill behind andrew

after a vigorous (and i mean vigorous – that first climb is almost vertical!) 2 hour hike, we were ready for comestibles. near andrew’s sister’s apartment in happy valley is the michelin guide mentioned “dim sum” – however, being the middle of chinese new year meant that dim sum was not open, so we opted for “tasty congee and wonton noodles” instead.

sticking with the house specialty, we ordered some congee – i am a lifetime member of the lean pork and preserved egg congee fan club, myself. i sound like a broken record, but no one gets it quite right here in shanghai. in hong kong, happily, they take this sort of stuff seriously. the pork was shredded providing a nice tender accompaniment to the plain congee and salty preserved eggs. here in shanghai, the pork tends to be tough, sliced pieces, so this came as a nice contrast.

growing up in la, you tend to miss a lot of cantonese food. either that, or i only knew what my parents and relatives liked to eat. so it wasn’t until i moved in hong kong in 1997 that i discovered what is called “zha leung” – which is a chinese yau tiu, a salty crueler, wrapped inside of a rice flour roll. but since i’ve discovered it, man, i’ve ordered it every place i could.

tasty congee does a particularly good one.

the prices at tasty congee were not wallet friendly, and the wonton (or as spelled here “wantans”) were not the same quality that you’d find at mak’s or chim tsai kee, but the quality of the food would keep me coming back here, if i lived anywhere near happy valley or any of their other locations. it wasn’t cheap though, our meal (granted we were hungry and may have overordered a bit) was close to $200hkd for the two of us.

Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop ??????
G/F, 21 King Kwong St.,, Happy Valley
??????21???

for most of my life, i believed that tsim chai kee with its signature giant oversized wontons and cheap prices was my favorite small snack restaurant in the world. while the people over at chowhound and my mom argued more in favor of the favorite of both the rich and famous and time magazine/fodor’s and gosh near everyone else – mak’s noodles. luckily these two restaurants are located 20 feet away from each other.

jim tsai kee

mak’s noodles

we’ll start with mak’s, since it was open over chinese new year earlier than jim tsai kee. mak’s is almost universally praised for their soup base, great egg noodles and delicate wontons. they offer a much wider menu than their cross the street rivals, including things like beef brisket, beef tendon, fish balls and other varieties of accompaniments with one’s noodles.

i opted for some beef tendon beef noodles – wow, the soup was delicious – meaty and crisp with the right amount of beef flavor; the tendons were both pleasingly chewy and tender in the proportions one would expect – and the wontons were pretty much perfect.

beef tendon wonton noodles

unfortunately, the tiny proportion size (especially for the cost!) meant that i was still slightly hungry, so i ordered another bowl of the wonton noodles. without the beef flavor, the shrimp base of the soup came through stronger – if you like that sort of thing. again, the noodles and wonton were the right mix of chewy and tasty. really the perfect texture.

the masters at work:

so mak’s puts together an almost perfect meal. the drawback? the price. as you can see from the photos, mak’s is a tiny small snacks shop, but the beef tendon noodles (40 hkd) and wonton noodles (27hkd) – well, you can see their prices are quite high – especially considering the tiny portions. but the food is really quite good.

crossing the street brings you to jim tsai kee. as recently as 2-3 years ago, this was a formica round tabled place with bright fluorescent lighting open to the street. a coupe of years ago, the owners refurbished the place to this old chinese dark wood – it’s much nicer, but i think it’s lost a little bit of its formica soul.

i am, however, still a fan of the simple menu (three types of toppings: wonton, beef or fish balls, egg noodles or rice noodles, and some vegetables make up the entirety of the menu. even though they’ve raised their prices (when i lived in hong kong from 1997 through 2003, they were $10hkd for a bowl of noodles, now they’re $17), they’re still ridiculously cheap. and as the bowl is 50% larger than what you get at mak’s, and the noodles are equally as good, and the wonton are tasty, the value here is amazing.

tsim chai kee menu

the overly large wonton and a bottle of soy milk – $22 HKD

either one you choose, you can’t go wrong.

apparently, they’re a special administration region wide chain.

Tai Hing is well-known for its “5-Star Roasted Pork” and “Chilled Original Milk Tea”. The Group is constantly injecting new elements in traditional food and innovating for more variety of food. The Group is also devoted to developing the retail market so that busy urban folks can enjoy the delicious products of Tai Hing anytime anywhere.

please develop the retail market in shanghai! and don’t screw it up like tsui wah did!

andrew and i went to the one in causeway bay for some cantonese style roasted meat.

roast pork + roast goose vs. roast pork + roast pork

mmmm, char siu

boston is most famoust for those sizzling hot plates of steak – but i hadn’t actually been there since 1986, and in the meantime have had many many excellent steaks. would boston be able to hold up its bargin with nostalgia (short answer: no)

supposedly, boston restaurant was one of the inventors of the sizzling black pepper steak, however, i ordered the flaming brochette set meal, since that was what was recommended . . .by the menu.

the set meal came with a plain roll with butter

a cream soup

the flaming brochettes themselves – alongside a vegetable medley

topped with a garlic sauce

it was, as anthony bourdain would say, real dinosaur type food. however, unlike his gushing over the old school french eateries he discovers in paris or new york, boston restaurant’s time has long past. the steak is, well, it’s okay – it was well charred and tender, but without much taste, but the rest of the meal is dragged down by the 1950s era vegetables and cream soup.

it was fun to relive part of my childhood, but i wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who didn’t grow up in hong kong – or even visit often during the 60s/70s/80s, unless you really want to find out where the pepper steak started.