Hing Kee Restaurant, Temple Street Market

Anthony Bourdain’s programme, No Reservations, had an episode on Hong Kong, and one of the places he went to in that episode was Temple Street Market for claypot rice. Therefore, claypot rice at Temple Street Market was a must go for me. Going alone was a bit of a problem though, as there are a lot of shops selling claypot rice there, and I didnt’ know which was good. Fortunately, last week I able to meet up with my friend and her family who happened to be going there anyway for, you guessed it, claypot rice.

Turns out that this Hing Kee Restaurant has about 5 or more branches around that Temple Street area, and they all have the same menu and sell the same things. There was also another bigger restaurant that was beside this particular Hing Kee, that already had a huge queue outside it. When I do go back the next time, I’m going to try that other restaurant.

There’s plenty of choices for you to pick from with regards to what you actually want in the with the claypot rice, ranging from HKD18 for some basic things like Beef with Rice Pot to HKD45 for things like frog legs and eel.

I went for one of the more basic ones.

Beef and Spare Ribs with Rice Pot for HKD23. As you can see, I had already put some soy sauce onto the dish. According to Anthony Bourdain’s guide in that episode, you put the soy sauce, then close the lid to let it steam for a bit before eating it, which is what I did, and which is what none of my friend’s family did.

Ah, I felt so much more knowledgeable than them then.

Just kidding.

Because her whole family was there, we also had oyster pancake and some vegetables.

As you can see, its actually oyster egg fried so that it comes out in pieces. But its not so good. Oily and greasy.

The vegetables were not too bad. I like vegetables.

There is also another part to the meal which shall come in a separate post.

For now, I must declare that it was an excellent dinner, and I love the Rice Pot, although I generally don’t like the KL style Claypot Rice. I plan to go back again for more Rice Pots before I leave.

I must also thank my friend and her family.

Good bye.

Wang Fu

So I went back to Mak’s Noodle Ltd on Monday and had the proper noodles with the wonton. It was better than the first time there, I must say.

Anyway, after that we decided to go to Wang Fu, a dumpling place that was just a few shops away from Mak’s, after reading a review on the net saying how good the place was. The review recommended the Mutton Dumplings, and also the Tomato and Egg Dumplings, which I would not have ordered had I not read that review. So we ordered 5 each of those 2, and also 5 Pork and Chives Dumplings.

And the conclusion? Not so good.

This was okay. Good, but boring.

This was also not too bad. The mutton flavour really came through.

This was not good. It wasn’t bad actually, but just uninspiring and lacking in flavour. The tomato was just diced tomato, and the egg was like bits and pieces of random scrambled eggs. The reviewer had no idea what he/she was talking about. Fail.

I won’t come to this place again. Not because its bad but because its boring.

Mak’s Noodle Ltd

One week ago, on my first Saturday in Hong Kong (my posts aren’t exactly in chronological order), and with nothing to do, I decided that I needed to go to the city area a bit and look for food. Considering that the purpose of my visit is for food, I had to have something that was unique to Hong Kong, and not just some chain or franchise. A random search on the net had me reading some reviews of this place called Mak’s Noodle Ltd.

So off I went, after consulting Google Maps. I took the bus to Central, then had to look for Wellington Street without a map. Eventually I found it, after walking one whole circle, when I could’ve got there a full 15 minutes earlier.

Mak’s Noodle Ltd has been reviewed quite a bit on the net, and has its own wikipedia page. It’s famous for its noodles served in small bowls (the same bowls that you eat rice out of). Apparently, the small bowls keep the noodles from going soggy. It’s name in chinese literally. means ‘Mak’s stingy noodles’. Most of the reviews describe this as the best (or very good) noodles that they have ever tasted.

The place also appeared in the Times magazine for being one of the top 3 best ‘hole-in-the-wall’ restaurants in Hong Kong.

Most importantly, Anthony Bourdain came here the first time he was in Hong Kong. I actually only found this out today, in a different branch of Mak’s Noodle in Causeway Bay (instead on Central). They displayed this in front of their shop. The address given for the one that Anthony Bourdain went to is the one in Central (which was the one that I went to), but his description in the article about the place talked about ‘jah-jiang noodles’ and noodles being served in plates. Which made me confused. They certainly didn’t have any noodles in plates, nor black bean noodles. Either they had a different menu a couple of years ago, or he didn’t actually come to this restaurant, or he got himself confused with some other restaurant. He did talk about won ton’s though, which is what they do have.

So I went in and said I couldn’t read their chinese menu and asked for recommendations and they presented me with an english menu. Ultimately, this is what I ordered. Beef Brisket Noodles, and a bowl of Wantan.

Were they the best noodles I’ve ever tasted? Probably not. Would I go back? Actually, yes. In retrospect, I probably should have had the noodles with the wantan, and the beef brisket by itself. The way I did it, the sauce of the brisket messed around with the flavour of the noodles and the soup. The wantan was pretty good actually. Juicy and succulent.

But the amount was quite little though. =(. Two bowls of that was just about right for me. Thing is, each bowl costs as much as a bigger bowl in another restaurant. My meal came up to HKD 55.

Or was it 58? Can’t remember.

Tim Ho Wan

I keep getting asked the question “Why did you choose Hong Kong for your elective?”

And my reply is “For the food.”

Usually I get a blank stare in response, the other person probably waiting for me to come up with a punch line of some sort.

But no, really, I came here for the food.

Anyway, when I read that the cheapest Michelin star restaurant is located in Hong Kong, I knew I had to go there during my 4 weeks here. The problem was, the restaurant only sits 20 people, and on our first try there, there was a crowd waiting outside the restaurant, and there happened to be a TV crew as well. Oh yes, this is a Dim Sum restaurant. I’ve also recently declared that I’m sick of Dim Sum, and don’t want to go eat Dim Sum anymore, but this was a must-try, and if I had to eat Dim Sum to get to eat in a Michelin star restaurant, then so be it.

This was at 7.30 pm on a Wednesday night. We were told to come back in 2 hours time or something, so we did not bother (we ended up eating some steak which cost me HKD 140 (that’s RM 70) that wasn’t very good anyway).

So, a week later, I came again with 2 other people, prepared to wait for 2 hours. Arrived at 6. Took a ticket that said 260, and the then current number was 210. The 2 girls went off shopping somewhere while I waited. A lot of people didn’t bother waiting so quite a few numbers were skipped. By 6.50 I gave the girls a call and they came back.

If you’re wondering whether it was fair that I stood there for an hour while they shopped, well, all things considered, I didn’t mind actually. The original plan was for them to walk around Mongkok for 15 minutes then come back and I walk around for 15 minutes and just take turns, but I was afraid that they would not have the patience to wait had they come back after 15 minutes. If they weren’t willing to wait, then I would not have been able to eat here. Turns out they found a nice dress shop and I didn’t hear from them until I called them 50 minutes later, so it all worked out well in the end. Plus, waiting to collect my passport in KL was infinitely more excruciating than this.

This is a picture of their kitchen. Didn’t get a picture of the seating area, but it was quite cozy and comfortable, considering the amount of people that were packed in the restaurant.

Everything is in Chinese so I don’t know which was what.

You can also see a smiley face which I drew on the top left corner while I was standing outside waiting.

The food did not take long to come. Apparently, everything is made to order. And everything was so good! Also, part of the enjoyment was that I knew that I was eating in a Michelin star establishment, and I was also pretty pleased with myself for being willing to wait an hour to get it. As a result, every dishes’ taste, flavour, and enjoyment was enhanced multiple times. So the enjoyment that I felt is a few times better than the how I am going to describe each dish. For each description that I make, imagine that the food tasted 3 times as good.

This came first. As I was preparing to take a picture and was wondering what it was, the congee then appeared. The quality of the dim sum here is really just that much better than most you get outside. As you can see in the picture, the skin is quite thin, and the each ingredient could be tasted individually. Comparing this to the places where you get dim sums with thick skinned, this place beats them hands down.

The congee was very good as well. One of the girls declared, upon taking a spoon, “This is really quite good.” Considering that she is from Hong Kong, I’ll take her word for it, and I guess everyone else should too.

And then suddenly everything else appeared all at once until our table was stacked up with the bamboo baskets.

My favourite. Har Gao. Again, skin was very thin and delicate, and you could really taste the prawn.

The ribs. Not overly flavoured with the black beans, so you could also taste the pork properly. In other places, you get a very strong black bean flavour, that you don’t actually taste the pork.

Beef balls. Not the best I’ve ever eaten.

Chee cheong fun. Very clean flavoured. Thin outer layer, fresh prawn, and soy sauce.

Minced beef on rice with a fried egg. And it was the runny egg yolk too!

This was very good. Freshly made, crispy on the outside, and the char siew inside was piping hot. Each bite produced a crunch effect.

Not a fan of spring rolls. These had cheese and vegetables and some meat inside them. Again, not a fan of spring rolls. No matter how many times you multiply this, I still don’t like spring rolls (which basically means that these were okay).

Ah. The Siew Mai. Remember that there were 4 Har Gao as well. And there’s only 3 of us. Well, this is the first time that I actually prefer the Siew Mai over the Har Gao, and that says a lot. In the end, I took the extra piece of Siew Mai without asking the other 2, and let them fight it out for the last Har Gao.

This is Tim Ho Wan’s Char Siew Pao. Their specialty Char Siew Pao is unlike the usual pork buns; as you can see, the outer crust is actually crispy, and is a bit sweet as well. You could also taste the milk that they used to make it. Very very good, but this took ages to come. We finished all the other dishes and had to wait an extra 15 minutes for these to come out as their oven could only make 8 plates of these at one go. And quite a number of other tables were also just waiting for this last dish as well. What this means is that the throng of people outside had to wait the extra 15 minutes as there were a lot of tables that couldn’t leave because they had to wait for this specialty Char Siew Pao.

And finally, a picture of their kitchen. The guy happened to put out his hand as I was snapping, which resulted in a pretty good capture.

Good day, and goodbye.

Roast Duck and Crispy Pork Noodles

The first satisfying meal I had in Hong Kong was this takeaway noodles from the cafe in the hospital where I am doing my electives.

Instead of saying ‘Siu yok siu ngap fan’, they say ‘Yok Ngap Fan’. Everything is shortened here.