Valentine's Day Inspired Hong Kong Food Illustrations

This is my homage to some of the most popular food in Hong Kong, and of course.. LOVE (yes, I'm cheesy like that).
Hope you like, and have a yummy Valentine's day!

Happy Yumcha at Choi Lung Restaurant, Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong - 彩龍茶樓, 荃灣

If you want to enjoy dim sum outside the usual stuffy Hong Kong restaurants, this is quite a cool alternative.

You have to self serve, get your own bowls, utensils, tea, find your own tea, grab your own food. I kinda like the experience. We ate in the open area (but with roof), the place was full with weekend hikers and pets. We enjoyed the change of scenery.


I especially enjoyed the fried noodles as it has a bit of sweetness that reminds me of Indonesian fried noodles. We heard that the watercress is famous. We had a serving and loved it. Being a total airhead, of course I forgot to take a picture of it :)

The rest of the dishes are fine, but they get cold really fast since it's one of the colder days of Hong Kong winter.







More than the food, I'd totally visit this place again and again simply for the atmosphere.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

彩龍茶樓  Choi Lung Restaurant

2 Chuen Lung Estate, Route Twisk, Tsuen Wan
荃灣荃錦公路川龍村2號
Tel: +852 2415 5041

I can't remember how much we spent, but it's not particularly expensive :)

Come Come Spicy Chicken Hot Pot, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong 來來重慶雞煲

Spicy chicken hotpot. The most perfect thing for winter weather. And now it's so "in" everybody's doing it, even MX fast food by Maxim's :)
My colleagues brought me to this Come Come Spicy Chicken Hot Pot place in Causeway Bay, and I fell in love.

First, we started with spicy appetizers. This spicy garlicky pork dish is a major DATE KILLER dish.
 Did you see that little mountain of raw garlic?
You're supposed to eat all of that with the spicy bits and the succulent meat.

OK, it's absolutely yummy, but I really can't stand having raw garlic taste in my mouth the whole night. So always ate this without the raw garlic. My colleague suggested eating peanuts to get rid of the raw garlic flavor. We tried it tonight (with peanut filled M&Ms), and I can conclude that it does NOT work. SC's garlic breath is still killing me, and I plan to let him sleep facing the wall tonight.

The duck gizzard with spicy sauce. I love the spicy bits so much, I kept a small bowl of it as a "dipping sauce" when hot potting.


Of course, you gotta have icy cold beer to go with those spicy treats.

Cheers.

Now the spicy chicken hot pot (medium level of spiciness - it's enough for us, no ass was hurt the next day. Oppps TMI sorry). We need to eat the chicken first, after which they will add broth for hot pot.
The chicken meat's tender and yummy, the soup's really flavorful, we can really taste chu hou flavor in there (hmm... perfect for beef).


We were pretty stubborn and didn't add broth for the longest time so that we can have super strong soup base for hotpot. It gets a bit thick, so it takes longer for things to cook, but absolutely worth it.


We also ordered a non spicy fish hot pot to balance out the fire dragon :)

This may look so innocent but really so chock full of flavors. Super tasty & fantastic to cook veggies and tofu puffs.

We had the usual suspects, sliced beef, beef cubes, etc etc etc...


And emperor veggie, which absorbs flavor like crazy and gives it an extra citrusy flavor. Always love this for hot pot.


We dipped a lot of things that soak up flavors like there's no tomorrow.
This crispy beancurd rolls. Dip, count 3 seconds, consume. The goal is to get flavors into the roll while retaining the crispiness. But I personally love dipping it until it's soft. Oppppps. I'm rebellious like that.


Beancurd sheets. Flavors. Soaked.


Konyaku noodles. Cooked until it took in all the spicy sauce. Oh wow.

Tips:
- Drink milk after super spicy food to avoid stomach ache the next day.
- Advance reservation highly recommended, especially in winter.
- You are allowed 2 hours, it's more than enough.
- Bring plastic garbage bags to protect your belongings from the spicy hotpot scent - unless you want your everything to smell like spicy chicken pot...

Come Come Spicy Chicken Hot Pot
來來重慶雞煲 

11/F, Kyoto Plaza, 491-499 Lockhart Road, Causeway Bay 
銅鑼灣駱克道 491-499 號京都廣場 11 樓
Tel: +852 2891 9017

We spent about HK$260 per person.

Yummy Meat Skewers & Dumplings - 山東餃子館, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong & A Rant

I must admit that have never been one who roams around Hong Kong searching for good food (I know, what a failure of a food blogger). When I discovered good food, it's normally because I happen to stumble upon it. Just like this one.

I don't think I need many words to explain how wonderful these babies are.

Juicy, tender, tasty, and at HK$14 a pop, what's not to love?! I LOVEEEEEEE!

And these dumplings... they are lovely too!

The skin's just the right thickness and wonderfully chewy. The filling's nice too. We had the pak choy & pork ones. We also ordered some other things... they are nice. Nothing earth shattering but definitely enough to make me happy.

Now. The rant.
And it turns out that I didn't exactly 'discover' this place. It's apparently quite 'famous'.
I haven't read openrice's reviews for a long time, but I was just curious and read some of the 'reviews' for this place. I can't believe people kept complaining about the place, the noise, the service, crowded, bla bla bla. Come on... at these prices???!!! What do you expect? Private window seats overlooking the harbour? Table-side saucing? Did you come wearing your tux & evening gown?

Consider yourself lucky if you didn't visit the place when my son was there screaming "ALL ABOARDDDDDDD!" on top of his lungs just because he's crazy about Polar Express that day (to those who happen to dine that time, my deepest apologies).

End of rant.

And I think nobody read or care about those 'reviews' anyway.

Moral of the story: the meat skewers are MUST TRY.

山東餃子館
G/F, 81C Un Chau Street, Sham Shui Po 
深水埗元州街81C號舖

Seafood Feast & Sunset Beach - Lei Yue Mun, Hong Kong

Where to go this weekend? Here's an idea. Some might think that Lei Yue Mun is a typical tourist rip-off place that's not worth visiting. Oh, that doesn't need to be the case. This was my first visit to Lei Yue Mun and I could not believe that I haven't discovered it earlier!

I visited the place with my family and we had an awesome time. I mean... look at THAT beautiful pink sunset. It is just breath-taking.

I'd recommend arriving Lei Yue Mun before 5:30 pm, especially if you drive - so that you can still get a parking space easily and you can enjoy the beach and the seafood market a bit before dinner. Once you've arrived, walk towards the seafood market and walk all the way to the beach.

The beach is unique in a way that...there is no fine white sand, but there are shells and broken glass everywhere. I'd recommend wearing appropriate footwear (with thick soles) at the beach.


Beautiful display of seafood.


Feast for your eyes.


We didn't do the "select your own seafood and get a restaurant to cook them" thing. We tried that in Sai Kung and it ended up really expensive. So, this time we chose a set dinner instead.


There are some food souvenirs to buy too.

Not overpriced at all. We bought pork jerky and it's really yummy.


I bought HK$15 worth of honey coated walnuts too. Really nice!

After exploring the market and enjoying the beach, it's time for dinner. We didn't pick any restaurant near the beach with wall to wall sea view. We're pretty happy with this restaurant. Decent seafood, great value for money!


Here's our set dinner.

We started with a nice fish and tofu soup - which I didn't photograph. Duh! And then this plate of snails. These are nicely cooked, but I just never liked anything of this texture. It came with sweet hoi sin sauce, but I prefer dipping them in soy sauce.


Razor clams - beautifully cooked. Sweet and fresh.


Scallops. Perfectly cooked and those noodles are SO FLAVORFUL, I'd love to eat them with rice. The perfect companion for the sweet scallop.


Abalone. Again, I am not a big fan of abalone texture... I won't look for it, but if it's there, I'd eat it. Nicely cooked.


Steamed crab with egg white. Silky smooth egg white. Love love love it. The crab meat's lovely too, but I am not a big fan of crab roe cooked this way.


Prawns. Tasty sauce, sweet and fresh, but the meat is just a tiny bit over. I enjoyed licking the shell.


Perfectly cooked steamed fish where the meat's satiny smooth but gets off the bone really easily. Love it.


Mantis prawn. Perfectly cooked, tasty crispy bits. Licked my fingers clean.


The beauty of seafood meal is... that you don't get full so fast. We all needed some carbs at that point. This sticky rice with Chinese sausages is subtly flavored (to me that is equal to being under-seasoned, but I am sure I need to watch my sodium level, or my palate is dead and I can only taste something when it's really salty T_T). This is not ground breaking, but it's nice.


I've never been a big fan of lobster, but everybody raved about how much meat we get (daam daam yuk) and how we didn't have to struggle to take out the meat from the lobster's shell. I just enjoyed the noodles. The sauce can be saltier (again, dead palate). It's a nice end to the meal. We got a platter of fresh fruits too. Icy cold but not frozen. Just the way I like it.

The whole meal costs HK$350 per person. Wayyy better price that the seafood meals I had in Sai Kung.

After dinner, enjoy a nice sea-side stroll. The sunset's changed to a sparkling night view.

Tips:
- Get there before 5:30 pm for easy parking/exploring the market/beach
- Book restaurant ahead and ask for the price and the set menu

How to get to Lei Yue Mun:
Taxi from Yau Tong MTR Station or ferry from Sai Wan Ho MTR Station

The restaurant we tried:
Kam Lee Loy (funnily, their signage says "Kam Lee Lok")
金利來
G/F 54B Lei Yue Mun Praya Road, Lei Yue Mun. 
Hong Kong.
Address in Chinese for taxi: 鯉魚門海傍道西54B號地下
Tel: +852 2244 3003