Hei Wan @ Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong

Was feeling rather tired after walking around countless of alleys and shops. Passed by this dim sum place called "喜運", so we decided to go in and try (part of our to-do in Hong Kong was to eat some dim sum...). The lady asked us to wait for 5-10 minutes for a table.

shop front with menu board

take-away area

While we were waiting, we saw people coming in and ordering "鸡饭" or chicken rice. Not the hainanese chicken rice but the dim sum/soup restaurant type of steamed rice with chicken. The chicken pieces looked succulent and tender. Very fragrant too!

Soon, we were called and seated inside.

table setting

A flask of tea was immediately placed on your table as soon as you sit down. Next came the cups, plates and chopsticks. The waiter will also place a bowl for you to rinse the utensils with the tea. The tea from the flask is also our drinking tea for the night.

We ordered a variety of dim sum such as quail's egg siew mai, har gao, custard bun, century egg and lean meat porridge, soup of the day, salted fish meat cake with steamed rice, fried beancurd with mushroom fillings, fried springrolls, charsiew cheong fun, dong po beef balls and chicken feet. All are just single orders, so some of the items I did not get to try.

century egg, lean meat porridge

yummy porridge, flavourful

salted fish meat cake (pictured without the rice), nicely fragrant and not too salty

charsiew cheong fun, with rather thick layer of skin

assorted dim sum

quail's egg siew mai

har gao

har gao

chicken feet, nice sauce and tender feet with a bite

xiao long bao

fried beancurd skin with mushrooms

fried beancurd skin fillings

dong po beef balls, huge!

dong po beef ball

tender and nice

fried springrolls

fried spring roll with prawns and fruit

custard bun

not the type that we wanted!

We paid in total about HKD185 for the meal. So each pax was about SGD6+. Cheap and good.

Hui Lau Shan @ Hong Kong

Passed by this dessert shop while we were walking aimlessly around Mong Kok (or at least I think we were at Mong Kok....) We were pretty tired from all those walking around and not to mention, thirsty too. So what better way than to go in and have some cooling desserts!

signboard

The shop was pretty small in size, but we managed to get a table for us 5 pax.

menu

Service was brisk and very soon our orders came.

all time favourite mango pomelo

nice and smooth

They were having a special combo and it comprises of three small items. One of my group members got that for himself.

special combo

glutinous rice balls in mango soup

ice cream and jelly

Cold birdnest soup with hashima at HKD53 (less than SGD9)? Why not. Got one to try.

cold bird nest soup

birdnest

hashima and lotus seed

First time having hashima or snow jelly (or in reality, dried fallopian tube from a species of frog..ugh!). It tasted soft, and on its own nothing funky (thankfully!) The soup was sweet and cold. Nice. Lotus seed was still crunchy and birdnest was rather gooey. Drink everything together with the soup and it made a refreshing dessert.

The mango desserts there were as nice as whoever that had tried Hui Lau Shan (许留山) would say.

Yung Kee @ Wellington Street, Hong Kong

First thing we did in Hong Kong (on a day trip from Macau), was to look for lunch. Someone suggested to eat roasted goose and I thought, "Yea, why not."

My friend led us towards Lan Kwai Fong and this restaurant is easily recognisable from across the street.

roasted goose, char siew~

entrance to the restaurant

a poet and goose?

certification

menu

maybe super rich customers sit near the dragons?

We took a lift to Level 3 and was promptly shown our table. It was about 12pm and there were many unoccupied ones. Probably still early.

We were served century eggs with ginger soon after we arrived. The waitress said it is a specialty in their restaurant. Nobody in my group said anything, so we just accepted it. I reckoned its like being served peanuts in Chinese restaurants, ie. chargeable.

century eggs with ginger

I like 'pei dan' or century eggs. So this dish was enjoyable. First time having smooth and soft center for century eggs. Their version of century eggs here do not have the usual pungent taste. It was actually nice!

yummy yolk~

My table is a bunch of budget conscious tourists (after all, we flew by budget airline....), so we ordered just two dishes; meat platter and vegetables, and a pot of tea and a round of white rice.

pot of Pu-er + chrysanthemum but why is the English wordings called "Pu Li"? No idea man.. 

vegetable with oyster sauce (choi dam in Cantonese)

soft and crunchy stems

meat platter with various sauces (attentively placed near its matching meats by the waiter)

ta-dah! Roasted goose!

pork slices

char siew

jellyfish

The jellyfish was actually quite bland tasting. Char siew was nice and soft although not charred. The roasted chicken was not as tender as the char siew. The pork slices was nicely refreshing when dipped in the vinegar sauce. The roasted goose, well... I guessed the good stuff comes from its oil? There's a layer of fats underneath its skin that oozes flavours when bitten into. Goes well with rice. Otherwise, its meat was kind of tough and reminds me of duck meat.

roasted chicken on steamed rice

condiments for roasted chicken was simply oil, ginger and spring onions equals to yums!

roasted goose

yummiest part of roasted goose was.. the skin?

Guess how much we racked up for this meal? A grand total of HKD918 for 5 pax! That is like SGD$30 per pax?! Whoa! After we paid, the bill only stated the total and not the individual charges for the dishes. But I remembered from their menu that the plate of vegetables costs HKD75, a bowl of white rice is HKD14 and the century eggs should set us back like HKD10 per head.

Service was efficient. We just need to lift the lid of our teapot and in less than a minute, someone would zoom in and remove our pot to refill the water.

I think we were pretty hungry and finished our meal in less than 40 minutes. On our way out, we saw many people waiting for their tables.

Wong Chi Kei @ Largo De Senado, Macau

This place has been written up by so many travellers, that I couldn't resist going in when happened to pass by during a recent trip to Macau. Located at the touristry Senado Square, this place looked pretty small and there was a small queue outside the restaurant on a Thursday night. Get a queue number and wait for someone to call. We were just slightly slower in responding (the lady called twice in a successive manner) and in return, we got "ngiam-ed" (probably can be translated to something like nagged at in a slightly sarcastic manner?) at.

outside of the restaurant, at about 8pm

Once inside, the place is separated into upper level, lower level and ground level. We were told to go to the lower level where there are probably about 5 tables. It was not fully occupied, so we got the entire table for 5 pax to ourselves.

table setting

hot Chinese tea, on the house

chili oil

Tried the 云吞虾仔捞面 (wanton shrimp eggs dry noodles). Think it was the priciest noodles at MOP42 (~ SGD7). There's another version of this without the wanton and it's called "虾仔捞面". There are other side dishes available, but we were not that hungry so did not order any.

the red bits are shrimp eggs

closer view of wanton and shrimp eggs

after mixing

whole prawns in wanton

The noodles were a tad too dry and too 'al-dente' for me. Would have preferred it to have more sauce. Saw a lady putting red vinegar (found on every table, along with pepper and chili oil) onto her noodles and I tried that too. Slightly better but only if you like sourish-sweet taste. Think the noodles needed another few seconds of cooking time.

There was not much taste from the shrimp eggs too. But it gave some contrasting texture. Imagine crunchy tiny bits of roe with the smooth wantons. Wantons were nice with whole prawns in it. Fresh but slightly salty. But overall, it is not something that I would crave for. So much so for novelty! Noticed that in Macau, the noodles are seldom served with vegetables. Maybe only a chopful of spring onions at most.

They serve chinese tea to all diners, on the house. Service is functional.

Sushi Tei @ Vivocity Part II

What do you think of, in summer? Breezy sunny day, with splashes of bright colours? I think of ayu fish because apparently Sushi Tei's summer menu features it. So off we went to Sushi Tei, in search of this fish that I've been wanting to try since Japan Hour days.

As usual, one need to wait to be seated during lunch hour at Sushi Tei Vivocity. The big menu displayed at its entrance listed out aji, unagi, sakura ebi and ayu fish as their featured items for the summer. Can't wait. Or so I thought.

We were seated at the corner of the restaurant where one can see the waters. Not bad. A seat with a view.

summer promotion menu

view from our seats

After a few minutes of deliberation, we were ready to order. Ordered the grilled ayu shioyaki and imagine the surprise when the waitress just shot back, "Not available." I must've worn quite a crestfallen look on my face and my colleague was quite symphatetique. "Next time better call the outlet before coming..." There was no where on its online menu, nor the printed menu nor the entrance menu that stated the inavailability of this item. Appalling, indeed.

With half the mood gone, I ordered the sakura ebi kakiage (@$6.80++), yaizu sushi set and my colleague ordered a garlic fried rice and salmon temaki.

sakura ebi kakiage with salt

tiny black dots for the eyes

a little too much flour?

The sakura ebi kakiage were pretty to look at. A bit tiny. And the waitress said, "Eat it with the salt." Ok. So I did. Tasted a little too floury, hence the ebi taste was quite muted. The salt did little to bring out the flavours. Maybe, they should use sea-salt or flavoured salt like matcha or ume.

salmon handroll

garlic fried rice

The garlic fried rice was tasty, served piping hot and it came with small chicken pieces. Nice, but my colleague preferred a more garlicky version.

yaizu set (@$16++)

My sushi set was colourful and it has uni sushi in it. Yay! First time I had it, they ran out of uni sushi, so it was replaced by chutoro. Nice. But it was always apprehensive to try uni because the first time I had it (elsewhere), it has a certain 'pong' taste to it.

uni sushi

The uni sushi here looked 'dryer' than the ones I had elsewhere. Maybe that's a good sign? Not plump nor juicy, but just smooth. No weird taste. In fact, it doesn't have much taste. Hmmmm.

The rest of the stuff were pretty run of the mill. But the ebi sushi that day tasted not as fresh. Maybe I should've eaten that first rather than uni.

ebi

negitoro

This meal for two pax costs about $40+ in total, without using their wet towels (chargeable).

Before leaving the restaurant, I asked the waitress when will the ayu fish be available and was told, it would be available in August. I think it will be prudent to find out prior to visiting the restaurant, to avoid any surprises. Dear readers, feel free to tell me, if you ever get to taste the ever elusive ayu (at least for my case) whether it is nice.