Highlights of a Hong Kong trip

How late is too late to blog about something?

I usually keep my posts up to 6 months before deleting them, but this post has been sitting in my drafts folder for almost a year, easily setting the record for the longest post in the draft folder. On various occasions I'd considered deleting it, reasoning that it's only about the food on my previous Hong Kong holiday- places that I'd no doubt visit again and could write about later.

Well, I'm almost off on another trip back, and I couldn't bear deleting these photos and text, so I thought it'd be good to get this posted before I have more holiday eats to write about!

Yue Kee Roasted Goose Restaurant, Sham Tseng

My mum has wanted to take us to Yue Kee for a while, after tasting the roasted goose there a couple of years ago which she describes as pretty amazing! It's located in Sham Tseng, an area well known for its roast goose/geese, and I'm told that almost every roast duck restaurant here does a great roast duck. My dad tells me of how he used to come to this restaurant after bush walking in the surrounding area...which goes to show how old this restaurant is!

I don't think I've ever had roasted goose in Sydney but to be honest, I can't really tell the difference between duck and goose. I've been told by roasted goose lovers that goose has more of a depth of flavour (or something along those lines), duck lovers tell me that duck has more tender and succulent meat, but the only difference I can really tell is that goose is usually bigger and meatier.

But I think the one best things about this roasted goose is the super tasty and crispy skin! The skin is definitely one of the crispiest I've had on roast duck/goose, but not dry like the skin of fried duck. My mum didn't think this one was as good as the one she remembered eating last time but I still thought it was pretty good!

Goose Liver

Of course, being a duck restaurant, they also serve up pretty tasty dishes of duck innards! I don't think I've had goose liver before, but it tasted rather much like pork liver.

Goose Tongue

Duck/Goose tongue is another favourite of ours- I especially love the texture of duck tongue as it's quite soft and a bit like eating chicken/duck skin, only much smoother! The goose tongue here does not dissappoint,  served in an incredibly addictive and tasty 'lo sui' sauce.

Clockwise from top left: Deep fried prawn meat balls, Stir fried Seafood combination with Cashews, Salt and Pepper Calamari

Their menu also offers a large selection of other dishes (at very reasonable prices too!), and we find them all to be really good, and to some extent, even better than the duck. The deep fried prawn balls had an incredibly bouncy texture and were definitely on of the favorites of the night.

力奇四季火鍋

Hot-Pot Restaurant with no English name....


We rarely have hot pot at restaurant in Australia, both because it's much more expensive than we think it's worth and the selection of food is quite similar to what we can do at home, but I don't think we've had a visit to Hong Kong where we didn't have hot-pot! With many Chinese restaurants offering heavily discounted prices after 8:30 or 9:00pm (often half price), and some of the freshest and tastiest meat and seafood we've had, a great hot-pot dinner only sets us back around $10-$15 AUD per person.

We're invited to this hot-pot restaurant for my cousin's birthday, and we can quickly tell that this restaurant is quite special, after searching around for it's (almost literally ) hole in the wall entrance. The restaurant looks more like a warehouse with plenty of aged round tables packed tightly together, round chairs thrown under them (most of which are broken), but the restaurant still manages to be packed with people on an ordinary weekday night so the food must be something!

For the broth, we order everyone's favourite- the pork bone broth, which also happens to be the most expensive one on the menu- and at ~$200 HKD (~$25AUD), it is easily the most expensive pork bone broth we've ever ordered. It doesn't take us long to figure out why....

It's the biggest pork bone broth we've ever seen!

We toss aside the mountain of super fresh veggies to have later, going straight for the pork bone. There's plenty to share, and as we suckle on them, everyone agrees they are amazingly good, although leaving so full we're not quite sure how we're going to stomach the rest of the food.

Clockwise from top left: live abalone, beef, oysters and live prawns

But we do surprise ourselves and easily make our way through the dishes of incredibly fresh seafood, meat, veggies and whatever else we ordered.

Prawns are served live and skewered (which must be painful!) and I can't really stand to put them straight into boiling water, though they do taste really fresh. Abalone is also live and quite interesting, especially for someone who's never seen live abalone before (me), as they like to swivel around their shell every once in a while when it gets warm. Thin beef slices are interestingly served frozen in an interesting array of rolls, which make it seem like a lot more than there is.

Clockwise from top right: sea cucumber, sea cucumber (different part of it), fish, ?

The wide range of seafood on offer never ceases to amaze me, and I can never seem to remember which seafood is which. Woops?

小雪園

Shanghainese Restauarant With No English Name

Xiao Long Bao

We've walked past this Shanghainese restaurant a countless number of times on our last few trips to Hong Kong. Which is not surprising since it does lie across the road from the our most frequented bus stop! We finally decided to give it a try when we decided we were in the mood for some Shanghai food one afternoon, and walked in to find it quite full, not only for an early afternoon, but also for a restaurant with no lunch specials menu!

The menu is a bit on the pricey side, especially the xiao long bao were around $40HKD (~$5AUD) for a serving of four, but it was worth it- afterall, they are the reason this restaurant is amongst the highlights of my trip! The xiao long bao skin is incredibly thin, and is pleated beautifully around a very generous serving of pork filling. But it's the amount of soup in within the dumpling which makes this one unique- it's definitely the most soup I've ever seen inside any xiao long bao! Perhaps a bit too much soup for some people, like my parents, who thought it felt more like the soup was injected in rather than naturally coming out through the process of steaming.

Clockwise from the left: Shanghai Noodles, Stir Fried Yellow Eel, Spicy 'Saliva' Chicken, and Pan Fried Dumplings (War Tip)

The stir fries are done quite well, with plenty of 'wok hei' or breath of wok. Though I'm not a huge fan of Shanghai noodles, the eels were deliciously moreish and we have not trouble finishing the whole thing, sauce and all! The highlight of the meal for me is definitely the spicy 'saliva' chicken- beautiful tender chicken pieces bathed in a spicy red chilli sauce. Although I don't usually can't take chilli well, this version was not eye-watering hot (despite its appearance), but much more subtle- leaving the light tingling feeling you get with hot food, without the spiciness. It was quite an amazing feeling actually, one which I still have not found elsewhere!

Yue Kee Roast Duck Restaurant (裕记)
9 Sham Hong Road
Sham Tseng, New Territories.

力奇四季火鍋
G/F, 53 Kok Cheung Street
Tai Kok Tsui

小雪園
Shop CA3, G/F
Smiling Sham Shui Po Plaza
155-181 Castle Peak Road
Cheung Sha Wan