Feed me, Hong Kong
MANILA, Philippines - We’ve read all too often the old Proust line about how the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new places but in seeing with new eyes. I only had less than a week for a break and the default choice was Hong Kong. It’s close to home. I have visited it many, many times, but have not experienced it as the culinary capital of Asia. Feed me, Hong Kong was my battlecry.
Hong Kong was also a natural choice because it had always been the best place to lose myself and affirm myself as well. I had long realized that travail came with travel, when going overseas. I’d always end up physically tired. The aimlessness, the geographical uncertainties, the certainty of running into some hazard wear me down. And I love that. Hong Kong fulfills all that. It also tells me that, while I enjoy having sand all over my feet in an island down south, I enjoy more being in a crazy urban setting. It’s who I am.
The traveler in me wants to shake up the complacencies that living in the more comfortable side of Manila have gagged him. I rarely take public transport. It’s a pain to walk more than two blocks. I don’t sample cheap food. Hong Kong ungags me from those bourgeois restrictions.
So here’s a lowdown on our HK food trip. Thanks to my best pal James Reyes who’s good with maps, I was able to visit most of the restaurants on my list. I had a week to research and prepare the list. You should do the same if you’re in for a culinary adventure: seek the places out with a precise navigator, not enter a restaurant on a whim. Plus, take late lunches or early dinners because all the great places that don’t accept reservations will always be full. Allow time for getting lost, which can actually be fun. The unfamiliar alleys foster local color, humour and great shopping finds.
For our first dinner, we headed for Yuen Kee Restaurant on Kimberley Road, off Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Yuen Kee was an ideal first stop in my list. It was a short walk from our hotel on a cool late November evening (20 °C).
Yuen Kee is a decades-old chain known for its roasted goose. We ordered that along with braised beef with vegetables. The taste of the goose and its crisped skin was unbelievable good. It wasn’t greasy and gamey at all. It also smelled as good as it tasted. It had an after-taste that I didn’t want to get rid of. You can just have goose and be really happy. The price of the meal, soda included, was just under HK$50.
After dinner, we wanted to have a few drinks which we would usually have in the posh Lan Kwai Fong district. But it was late for a train ride to HK island. So we kept walking and searching for a bar until we chanced upon Knutsford Terrace. We never knew it existed because we rarely stayed in Kowloon before. We thought we were lucky to be staying in that part of HK. Kowloon has a great alternative to Lan Kwai Fong in Knutsford.
Hidden behind the buildings in Kimberley, Knutsford is a terrace street filled with bars and restaurants. Only pedestrians are allowed on the strip which is perched high on Observatory Hill. The bars are mostly themed Italian, Japanese, Indian, Mid-eastern, and Southeast Asian. We settled for Wildfire Grill which had a lone empty table in its al fresco section. The tall glass of draught was great, yet pricey (as in all other HK bars); the conversation with the animated Filipino waiter Sonny from Tondo, most engaging.
From Knutsford, off we went to 7/11 for cheaper beer — Blue Ice Beer. We missed San Miguel’s best beer brand, and HK still has sells it. That’s one more reason to love HK.
Our second day brought us to Horizons in Ap Lei Chau or Aberdeen Island (take Bus 590 from Admiralty). This was a retail adventure and must be the subject of another piece. Let me just say it’s pure retail heaven: 23 floors offering literally everything: home furnishing, books, children’s toys, Joyce, Dries van Noten, Comme des Garcons, Marni, Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood, Jimmy Choo, MaxMara, Paul Smith, Armani. Everything that’s beautiful, priced much less than in other stores.
I had to tick off another not-so-pricey restaurant from the list after contributing to Miuccia’s coffers. From Admiralty, we hopped the train to Central for Luk Yu Teahouse, said to be the most famous dim sum place in HK. Luk Yu is a swankier and neater version of Ma Mon Luk on Quezon Avenue. Named after the 8th century tea master Lu Yu, this tea house transport you to old Hong Kong with its marbled floors, stained glass windows, huge scrolls and black fans spinning lazily. The place was packed, the middle-age blasé waiters were all over the place, the kitchen was noisy, the dishwasher was banging pots, pans and plates– all good signs for a Chinese eating place. The dim sum, fried spring rolls with bamboo shoots, chicken in curry sauce didn’t disappoint.
After Central, we headed back to Tsim Sha Tsui for a break from eating, by shopping in our favorite clothing store Another. In Another, there wasn’t any lumberjack-inspired fashion which was the current trend. That was a relief.
I was hoping to visit Lau Sum Kee Noodle House, the Michelin-rated but inexpensive noodle house in Sham Shui Po. But I had been wearing the wrong footwear all day. I dreaded going through the MTR again, wading through the packed streets of Kowloon, unsure of where to find Lau Sum. We chose the nearest seafood and noodle place near our hotel. It wasn’t on my list but I was happy just the same.
At Aberdeen Fishball & Noodles Restaurant, we had braised beef with dry noodles, roast chicken in soup with Shanghai noodles, and fish skin. Unpretentious. Comfort food. Super cheap. Wonderful, wonderful fish skin.
On our third day in HK, we thought we should get nourishment of a different kind, one that feeds the soul: the art in the Hong Kong Museum of Art. We’d always see that huge structure by the harbor but never bothered to check out. If you thought art and HK don’t go together, try visiting the Museum even for just an hour. We were lucky to find Wu Guanzhong’s exhibition. Wu was the father of modern Chinese art, and the first Chinese to exhibit at the British Museum. His work was breathtaking. He combined the Western techniques of oil painting with traditional Chinese brushstrokes and calligraphy. I liken my experience with Chinese art to HK’s famous Peking duck: it’s rich, expertly carved/made, you’d like to bring it home, it takes the Chinese touch to make it distinctive and memorable, it’s hard to replicate. Of course, it’s just as filling.
In keeping with the day’s ‘art’ theme, we booked ourselves a table at Hutong (28/F 1 Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui). We knew that dinner at Hutong would be very pricey so the day’s shopping expenses were kept to a minimum. Our friend Sandy Higgins of Slim’s insisted that we save up for Hutong: It’s a must for art directors, ad agency people, or anyone in the arts. Sandy was right. Hutong was just stunning.
A hutong is an alley in an ancient Chinese courtyard. The restaurant version is a stylized recreation with red lanterns as the sole bright accent in a seductive and muted setting. The splendid view of Hong Kong from the 28th floor is what you mostly pay for. It felt like being in a period Zhang Yimou movie.
Some friends warned us that the menu wasn’t as good as the interiors. I thought otherwise. I love Northern Chinese cuisine, and Hutong was all about that. I wanted real Sichuan adventure so I asked for the spiciest thing on the menu: Soft-shell Crab topped with Chili. We ate all the crabs but had to down scoops of Ben & Jerry’s in Knutsford to literally let off steam. The crabs went well with pig’s throat-and-leek salad and some dry noodles which weren’t on the menu. Would I go back to Hutong? Absolutely, as long as I’m not paying.
Our last full day was spent dining in familiar places. We chose to end the adventure into unfamiliar culinary land with Hutong. That was too good to top. So lunch was at Din Tai Fung (Silvercord across Harbour City), also our default Chinese place in Shanghai and Singapore. We had our favorite Xiao Long Bao, steamed chicken and porkchop over rice. We then crossed the street to Harbour City for Lavazza coffee and green apple pudding with vanilla ice cream at Spasso Italian Bar on the mall’s roof deck.
For our last night in HK, we made plans for Da Ping Huo in the Central. The place serves a 12-year-old 12-course Sichuan meal in a hidden private kitchen on Hollywood Road. But we had to cancel. With 12 courses, there wouldn’t much time for shopping for footwear. After all, HK is the citadel for fabulous footwear, other than food.
So we had McDonalds on our last night, after finally getting the shoes I liked in Granville (yes, Inday, the strip that was once famous for knock-offs and cheap viajera merchandise has been made-over as a funky shopping haven). After 4 nights of re-discovering Hong Kong, with our guts and souls nourished to the max, we had to take it easy. The service by the charming elderly fastfood crew was quicker. The McDo burger seemed yummier. Maybe, I’m just biased for Hong Kong.
