Gorgeous Sushi from Hong Kong

Left top: Kinki – Left middle: Tamasu – Left bottom: Seared Toro – MIddle: Kawahagi with liver
Right top: Hokkigai – Right middle: Sutsuki – Right bottom: Shimaji

My cousin recommended me to visit this tiny little sushi place in Causeway Bay area called Sushi Mori 鮨森日本料理.

Everyone in my party were in for a treat!

We went for lunch, and it was price-fix.: HK$300 (roughly US$37) for 9 pieces, HK$400 (~US$50) for 12 pieces and HK$500 (~US$62) for 15 pieces.

It was an adventure as the chef would serve the day’s specials and fresh-catch, and we had no clue what we were about to eat.

They only asked whether there was any food allergies or anything we did not like.

One thing we noticed as we sat down was that there was no soy sauce or wasabi.

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Creative Chinese Food feat. Pearl Ribs, Fried Squid Mouths and Snake Soup

We had 2 wonderful dinners in Hong Kong.

One meal was at “Happy Dot” 囍點.

The restaurant is located in Quarry Bay in Hong Kong in an industrial/factory building.

In the past years, rents on the ground floors’ of buildings were getting way too expensive for many businesses to be in.

Many restaurants started moving “upstairs” of residential buildings.

Apparently, the upstairs of residential buildings were also getting too expensive, so restaurants were moving upstairs of industrial/factory building.

This place served some fun, unique and excellent dishes; a place that I would definitely go back again!

We had a rib dish with plum sauce.

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Hong Kong Food Market

L: temporary store for hairy crabs — R top: tofu stall — L middle: frogs in the cage for purchase
R middle: all kinds of eggs — L bottom: all manners of balls — R bottom: fish monger

A part of life in Hong Kong that I missed the most was the vibrant food market.

Grocery stores here in North America, which are very clean by many countries’ standard, could appear sterile compared to this kind of “live” market.

Market opened early, 5am or 6am, already brimming with freshest products of the day.

Due to the very liberal import regulations, plenty of fruits, vegetables, meat and fish were available in the market from many parts of the world.

Farmland was a rare commodity in Hong Kong nowadays, and most food imports were from Mainland China, Southeast Asia, Australia or other exotic locations.

Stalls were typically fairly small in size, nothing compare to the capacity of a North American grocery store; as a result, storage was minimal.

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Hong Kong Thai Food feat. Pork Neck Meat, Curry Softshell Crab etc.

Back to Hong Kong from Southeast Asia and my Dad brought me to this amazingly great little Thai place called Thai Cuisine 泰金香小廚 for dinner.

It happened that he knew the Thai cook’s husband and we were able to get some special treat!

We started off with the fresh, delicious and extremely spicy green papaya salad with big crispy shrimps.

Then, we had 2 soups — Tom Yum,

which was light, spicy and delicious with all the herbs of cilantro, lemongrass and galangal (Thai ginger);

and a second soup (did not catch the name!),

which was cooked with this green vegetables specially imported from Thailand, ground pork, garlic and likely fish sauce.

The special vegetables tasted like a cross of spinach and pea vine, and was not available in Hong Kong market.

It was very tasty and the garlicky flavor just was irresistible!

Then, we had the tamarind fried fish.

The fish was plump and fresh, fried crispy, coupled with the sweet and tangy sauce, it was just fantastic.

I am used to this dish in North America usually made with fish that did not have much meat, and felt like I was eating crispy bones — this was heaven.

The next dish was yellow curry with soft shell crab, and it was out of this world.

Looked like that egg was mixed with the curry sauce.

Soft easily edible crab pieces with this wonderful curry sauce that was exuding lovely aromatics of herbs and spices; I could eat a whole plate of rice with just the eggy curry sauce.

This was my first time having pork neck meat as a dish.

Chinese used a lot of the pock neck bones for soup, but had not come across a dish with it.

It looked very simple, but it was one of the most tender pork I ever had.

Surprisingly, it also did not taste fatty at all (or that I could see any fat layer) — it looked like a lean piece of pork and with completely unexpected tenderness, simply grilled and unpretentious.

Lastly, we had pan-fried Hainen chicken.

Flavor was excellent and the crisp skin made the normally steamed chicken skin much more palatable.

The added slight charred flavor was a bonus to the already tasty Hainen chicken.

We were so full with all the food when left the restaurant.

I managed to get a to-go Pad Thai for DH.

At about US$5, it was one of the most wonderful Pad Thai I had for a while.

Noodles were fried with loads of flavors and managed to stay dry.

I will most certainly visit this place again the next time I am in Hong Kong!

The Search of Milk Tea and Intricate (and Delicious) Cakes

Since I have been back in Hong Kong, I had been obsessively looking for great cup of milk tea.

I had it almost every day, any chance I got, and this place in Wai Chai was still the best — “Golden Phoenix”.

A simple small place that served milk tea, coffee, or “yuen yeung”, which was a mix of milk tea and coffee with simple breakfast sandwiches, pineapple buns and bread.

The milk tea was silky smooth and creamy.

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