Sharmila on Food

Good eats in Hong Kong

Rather than plough through a load of blog posts focusing on specific places, I thought I’d take the slightly more lazy, but probably also less boring (for my dear readers) route, and do a little round up of some of the things I really enjoyed eating whilst in Hong Kong recently.

I barely scratched the surface in the 4 days I was there, and some of these places will be nothing new for many.  But these were all very tasty morsels that anyone would enjoy, however well known some of these places are.

First place I hotfooted it to after flying into HK was Mak’s (77 Wellington St, Central).  This place is famous for its won ton noodle.  Everyone knows about it, it’s meant to be the best blah blah blah.  But I make no apology for talking about it, because it’s great.  I have been to Hong Kong three times and I have been here every time. I’m sure you can get bigger and cheaper won ton and brisket noodles elsewhere in Hong Kong, but I love Mak’s.  If you want great broth, great won tons and truly springy tasty noodles, go here.  This time around, I plumped for the beef brisket noodles rather than the won ton ones.  Just as tasty.

Much has been written about Din Tai Fung.  Famous for its xiao long bao, it has branches across East/SE Asia.  I’ve been to the one in Shanghai already.  I have to admit, their xiao long bao were not akin to the Second Coming for me.  However, I ended up going back to the branch in HK, primarily because it was opposite my hotel, and I wanted an easy lunch (Din Tai Fung, ground floor, Shop 3-9, 68 Yee Wo St, Causeway Bay) .

I ordered a serving of the pork xiao long bao, and alongside a cold dish of shredded “wild vegetable” (I have no clue what this vegetable was) with diced beancurd.  The xiao long bao were good, definitely better than the ones I had at the Shanghai outpost.  However, the revelation for me was that dish of cold wild vegetable and beancurd.  It was so fresh and delicate, I couldn’t help gobbling it up.  When people think Chinese food is just crude, strong, gloopy flavours, they should get a spoonful of this. Order this if you go to Din Tai Fung.

Another small, but no less tasty eat were the delectable green tea mochi from Mochi Cream, which is located in the basement of Sogo in Causeway Bay.  I love mochi anyway.  Inject a centre of beautifully chilled cream and green tea, and I will love mochi even more. So good, I went back more than once.  I would love to be able to get these in London.

Finally, I had a lovely meal with Tom and Jen of http://www.tomeatsjencooks.com/, who kindly met up with me, rather than leaving me to another evening of watching BBC World in my hotel room.  It had to be Sichuan food, so Tom and Jen took me to a place out in North Point, called Little Chilli (33 North Point Road, North Point).  Aside from having probably the most friendly waitress in a Chinese place I have ever come across, some great dishes included:

The gong bao chicken.  You get it everywhere, but when it’s done really well, it’s so moreish.  I want to know how they get those peanuts that crispy. Alongside, the spring onion pancake was also pretty top too.

I also loved the garlic shoots with Chinese sausage.  That was a seriously good specimen of Chinese sausage.

We also gorged on boiled beef in spicy water, some good ma po dofu, and some aubergine that we probably could have done without.

It was a fun meal, and it was refreshing to get some proper ma la action, which is so hard to really come by in London.  Thanks Tom and Jen!

So, that was Hong Kong.  A great eating city, and one I always enjoy coming back to.  Then it was on to Beijing - more gluttony, more great food.  I’m definitely going on some kind of fast pretty soon…