Hong Kong food adventures
MILLIE: Many followers of this column have asked for “where to eat” tips from us when they plan a trip outside the Philippines. It has actually crossed my mind to do an eating guidebook. Ha ha!
On a recent trip to Hong Kong, Karla and I met up with cousins on my mom’s side, Pol and Gigi Chavez, who flew in from Los Angeles to visit their brother Edward who works there. We decided to eat in places we have never ventured in before. For a change, we did not go to our favorite restaurant like Yung Kee in Central. We wanted to eat where the locals go and found ourselves walking along Lockhart Road in Causeway Bay where we chanced upon a tiny restaurant with hanging meats of roasted duck and barbecued pork displayed in the window. Famished from all the walking and the MTR ride from Tsueng Kwan O to Kowloon East where Edward lives, we went in and luckily found a table. The menu was in Chinese but I saw a tent card offering a house specialty, snake soup!
It’s a delicacy I’ve only tried once in my entire life and the meat is like chicken, from what I can recall. It was served at a Chaine des Rotisseurs dinner in Hong Kong, which I attended as a guest of Cassam Gooljarry.
KARLA: When we asked Tita Gigi and Papa Pol where they wanted to eat, all they said was where they serve roast duck and crispy pork skin. So when we finally found a restaurant with roasts on display, we went right in. It was a totally different experience for us walking into a restaurant filled with locals, who all turned their heads as we walked in.
When we sat down, we were handed a menu, one I could not read so I smiled and said, “English menu, please.” The server signaled one of the other servers and so he came over with an English menu. At this point, it looked as if he was the only guy in the restaurant who could speak English and attended to us. Tita Gigi and I ordered the roasted duck rice toppings, mom and Tita Cristy ordered the pork asado rice topping and Papa Pol ordered the pork sausage rice topping. On top of that, we ordered additional crispy pork to add to our lunch.
MILLIE: For dinner, Pol wanted to eat some dim sum but in Hong Kong, dim sum is only served for lunch. Lucky for us, as we came out of the MTR in the Popcorn Mall, we saw a nice food court so we looked around and saw there was a Tim Ho Wan outlet. Since it was almost 9 in the evening, we were relieved that there was no queue and we found good seating right away. We ordered baskets of steamed fresh shrimp dumplings, steamed pork dumplings, braised chicken feet with abalone, steamed bean curd skin roll filled with meat and vegetables, steamed spareribs and black bean sauce, steamed beef balls with bean curd skin, and the star of the night, Tim Ho Wan’s heavenly baked buns with barbecued pork!
KARLA: The next day, mom and I decided to explore the city more. I read about this restaurant online called Under Bridge Spicy Crab on Lockhart Road in Wan Chai. They say they serve the best spicy crab in Hong Kong and so we decided to check it out ourselves. When we arrived, there was only one table available so we had to share it with a couple from Korea.
The crab was fried and topped with crunchy bits of garlic, breadcrumbs, leeks and chili, which turned out to be soooo good. We ordered a cup of fried rice and added the breadcrumbs and garlic toppings to the rice. We had to order another cup because it was just so good. We ended up regretting we didn’t order the whole plate, we’re sure we would have finished it. We finished a medium-sized crab and could have actually eaten more because we love the lingering spicy garlicky taste, but decided otherwise as we were both stuffed.
MILLIE: After lunch, Karla and I went to the Central district area to shop a bit then later we met up with my former schoolmate from Switzerland for coffee. Coleen Tung now lives in Shanghai but comes to visit her mom in Hong Kong whenever she can. While waiting for Coleen at the Landmark Cafe, I could not resist ordering a piece of cake with my cup of coffee. The cake was gorgeous — it was a white chocolate-mint gateau with a hard cookie crust at the bottom enveloped with milk chocolate. It was so delicious the three of us enjoyed it tremendously!
KARLA: In the evening, Tita Gigi and I ventured into the Ladies’ Market in Mong Kok via MTR to buy pasalubong for her kids. But we got there around 10 p.m. and we were starving, so we went in the first restaurant we could find. I ordered the beef brisket with spicy noodles, while Tita ordered the smoked duck breast, which was very tender and flavorful. We actually wanted to eat it with steamed rice but we were in a hurry to get our shopping mode on as the shops were only open till 11 p.m.
For lunch the next day, we went to City Super at the Popcorn Mall in Tseung Kwan O and ended up eating roasts again. Tita Gigi and I had the roasted duck while Papa Pol had the Hainanese chicken rice but got a side order of crispy pork skin with hoisin sauce, which was very, very good. We then passed by Tim Ho Wan to order takeout for everyone else and all mom wanted was the pork buns. She ate four in one sitting.
Later that afternoon, mom and I were on the way to Central when she decided to stop for coffee and dessert. We settled at Agnes B. patisserie and Mom ordered a dessert called Lucie made of marble cheesecake, chocolate and biscuit crumble. Tito Pol had a Carla (named after me), which was a vanilla sponge cake with vanilla bavarois, mango and mango puree. I so wanted to try the Valerie made of chestnut puree, chestnut mousse and crème Chantilly, vanilla sponge cake and meringue and remembered my Lola Meldy as it was her favorite dessert.
It was a good thing that we had a snack because that afternoon was the height of the Occupy Hong Kong protest, the day when teargas was being used to disperse the protesters. We would have been stuck in Central if mom had not decided to stop for coffee.
MILLIE: On our last evening, pressed for time, we chose to dine at Crystal Jade at the Popcorn Mall in Tseung Kwan O MTR station as we were all craving the xiao long bao, the steamed pork dumpling filled with fresh ground meat and tasty, soupy broth. We also ordered braised pork with broccoli topped with knotted bean curd skin and enjoyed it so much, we ordered seconds.
We were going to take a walk around the block but suddenly decided to go all the way to Tsim Sha Tsui at the InterContinental Hotel for coffee and dessert so that Pol and Gigi could enjoy the majestic view of Hong Kong harbor. As expected, we each ordered a dessert of choice, while Karla had a Batman cocktail. Pol had a light lemon cheesecake, which was only slightly tart and perfect, and I had a Napoleon with fluffy vanilla cream. It was a perfect ending for a brief encounter in Hong Kong with Pol and Gigi, who flew in all the way from Los Angeles to spend a week with Edward. Karla and I had to fly back to Manila the next day.
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