Macau Pork Bone Hot Pot

This month is fully loaded with birthday celebrations.
I guess most of my friend's parents did "it" in December...so most of my friends were born in the month of August.

Yesterday, we celebrated Ann's birthday. According to my local friends, the Chinese culture prefers to celebrate birthdays early, although they can't remember the reason. In Indonesia, celebrating birthdays after the day itself is better than earlier. Again, I can't remember why. Anyway, my friends don't care whether it's earlier or later, for as long as there's a party, involving a truckload of food. Hehe.

This time, we chose to have a summer hot pot. A few places had been shortlisted, however, since popular places are all fully booked (the locals love hot pot sessions, even in summer), we settled for this hot pot place. We were a bit weary...last minute booking and we could still get a good seat, does the food suck or something?

We'll find out soon.

The entrance's pretty impressive, full of celebrity pictures.
I don't know most of them, but recognised a couple, Vivian Chow (1), and Anthony Wong (2).
Is this an indication that the food is good, or is it an indication of privacy (which means nobody likes dining here, due to bad food?)...we were wondering.


Hong Kong's obsession with everything cute...look at these adorable little piggies...


Once seated, we assembled our own dipping sauce. Steer clear of the raw and fried garlic bits on the left if you're on a date. Even a large bucket of mint won't be able to neutralise their pungent scent. If you're not on a date, on a fight with your date/bf/spouse, or not planning to talk to anyone within 0.5 meter radius after dinner, then go ahead...they're delicious. ^_^

Now, decision making time...

All you can eat @HK$78 per person (plus extra charges, such as soup, tea, etc etc), or ala carte?
Since there were 9 of us, we decided to go for ala carte. We'd probably end up paying the same amount, for more choices of food and better quality.
If you're in small crowd, go for the all you can eat option. You'll still enjoy a decent selection of food in smaller portions.


Tick a tick tick...and soon enough...


Our pork bone hot pot arrived! It's really loaded with loads of pork bone chunks, spring onion and radish. Yum. If you had a hard time dipping food into this fully loaded pot, just like we did, ask for an empty bowl, transfer some pork bone chunks into the bowl temporarily and put them back later when you need more flavor. The soup turned super delicious at the end of the hot pot. Remember to let the soup cool down a bit before slurping it.


We ordered our favorite hotpot food plus some of the shop's specialties...beef diaphragm (1), fish skin dumpling (2), pork kidney (3), pork blood cake (4), chicken (5), sliced fatty beef (6), oysters (7), beef balls stuffed with cheese (8), and many more!


This is one of my favorite items from the selection...fried beancurd sheets! Dip these babies into the soup for a bit, into the dipping sauce, and...yum!...and this was our freebie dish!


The oysters were giant sized and they looked super juicy, but we'd probably avoid oysters next time, one of our lucky friend, Joe, got a bad piece and it was really fishy. Ew. We were prepared to take a sick leave today if there's anything wrong with the oysters (good excuse for a day off?).

What's a birthday celebration without a cake?

Ann's birthday "cake", the star of the night....this beautiful platter of beef!
Nicely marbled, fatty, lean, cubes...glorious!


...what's sweeter than a stolen kiss?
Nothing!

I put my camera back into its bag, stretched my arms, took a deep breath, and...
ready, set, go!



We washed down our food with bottles of icy cold Skol (super good deal at HK$10 for 3 bottles), and learnt to mix beer and sprite to create a "shandy" (thanks to Sinamar and Loz for the lesson).

We were super full, spent HK$135 each (birthday girl eats for free - Hong Kong tradition), and did not have to wait for no seat. It was pretty good.

正宗澳門豬骨煲
(Traditional Macau Pork Bone Hot Pot)
Address: 銅鑼灣謝斐道496號金利文廣場2字樓 (496 Jaffe Road, Causeway Bay)
Phone: 2838 5599