Da Bin Lou (Steamboat)

I had a steamboat dinner with my relatives one night in Causeway Bay.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get the name of the restaurant as I took this picture in a haste (there was a lift full of people waiting for me to get on).

Steamboat in Hong Kong is really different from that you get in KL. For one, its held indoors in an air-conditioned restaurant (there could be air-conditioned ones in KL that I don’t know about, but I don’t eat steamboat much).

Before you start, you have to choose from an array of sauces.

This is placed on the table, and you have to scoop up whatever you want into your own bowl before they bring the hot pot to you.

So I grabbed whatever I could recognise and scooped them into my bowl.

And because it’s my first time having a HK style da bin lou, I also opted to have the soy sauce separate (people just mix everything together into the bowl) because I thought I’d like to enjoy some of the food without having too many sauces interfering with the flavour.

I eventually mixed them up anyway.

Self-explanatory soup base (this particular one cost HKD30 more than the others I think).

Fish skin to be eaten on its own, or to be dipped into the soup before eating. Didn’t sound like it would work, but surprisingly it does. I preferred it dipped into the soup.

Chicken in wine. Served cold, but can be dumped into the soup to warm it up/cook it more.

Make small scoops of this and drop it into the soup, and you’ll get squid balls.

“What happens if I put the whole thing into the soup?” I asked.

One of my favourites.

Very nearly my favourite.

Needs more colour.

Fish head was good.

To be put into the soup to enhance the flavour of the soup, and can also be eaten afterwards.

 

Not a fan of liver.

Also needs more colour.

Self explanatory.

Ah. Fish paste on a plate. You squeeze it out into the soup and you’ll get noodles.

Ah. Tongue. My favourite. Had 2 plates of this when I eventually discovered that the entire meal was a buffet.

Quite enjoyed this, especially when dipped into the sauce (the one at the beginning).

Would like to have actually tasted this, but it takes a while to cook even in the hot soup, and it shrinks, so by the time you want to (and can) eat it you can’t find it anymore.

Char siew pao! Now this is different. They actually have char siew inside those mini buns (not really buns) which have to be cooked in the soup as well. Not too nice though, didn’t think there was enough char siew.

Self explanatory.

 

I like fish.

I think that’s about all we had. We had multiple of some dishes though.

A very good experience.