Chuk Yuen Seafood Restaurant 竹園

Chuk Yuen Seafood Restaurant 竹園 has been around for a very long time, with a second branch in Tsim Sha Tsui on Kowloon side. My parents have been going to this restaurant for more than 20 years and I probably have been going since I was 5. This is a local seafood restaurant that serves great fish and seafood at reasonable prices and generous portions. Unlike Sun Tung Lok which has 3-Michelin stars, I believe Chuk Yuen deserves praise for the maintenance of its standard of seafood. There's nothing fancy in the decor of the restaurant, which holds about 100 people, but it serves good food, and I think that's what really counts and I believe it deserves more praise.

Upon entering the restaurant, you are ushered to the fish tanks to order your meal. Sure, you can order from the menu but for fish and seafood you get to point out what you want. There's a variety of seafood: the fish are in the top tank, then lobster, crayfish and shrimp, as well as clams, crabs and even frog. All of them still alive and ready to be cooked right away.

The fish we ordered, still swimming and jumping about...as fresh as it gets!

To start off...

Fried baby fish

Deep fried tofu with garlic

We ordered a bunch of seafood; all of them hot and steaming from the kitchen and with great taste!


Fried crayfish with garlic


The meat was succulent and there were a lot of eggs. Yum!

Clam with garlic and vermicelli noodle


The clam is steamed and served with minced garlic and scallions with vermicelli noodle and a little clam sauce. Simple and fresh. 

Whole Lobster with cheese and baked rice noodle


Yes, that's right I said Cheese. This is probably the only times you'll find cheese with a seafood, and Chuk Yuen is the place to serve it; at least it's the original place that started it all. A lot of people have come to this restaurant thinking it's a weird combination and refusing to try it, but to be honest, once they try a piece, they want more. True fact! I don't even like Cheese but this combination is THE BEST. 

Fresh pea sprouts 

Steamed fish in soya sauce with scallion and herbs


In every Chinese meal you have, you will order a fish dish, typically steamed fish in soya sauce. The meat was very sweet and tender and melted in your mouth.

We finish off with complimentary desserts. Typically, Cantonese restaurants end the meal with a fruit platter among other desserts.


Fresh fruit (Orange and Dragon fruit slices)

Mango Pudding (a very typical and popular dessert in Hong Kong. It consists of agar or gelatin, fresh mangoes, evaporated milk and sugar giving it a creamy texture. It is typically served cold). 

Za-za: stewed sweet mix beans (red and green) with milk. 

Steamed rice cake, Bak Tong Gou 

白糖糕 

- A typical Chinese sweet sugar sponge cake

Tofu Fa 豆腐花

- one of my favorite desserts (along with many locals) made from soya bean and sweetened with rock sugar; like a bean curd custard

Did I mention that along with dinner you get free beer, and soft drinks including orange juice and sugarcane juice. Not a bad bargain at all.


My parents bring a lot of their visiting friends to this restaurant for good Cantonese style seafood and so far all of them have enjoyed their time and their meal here.
For anyone coming to visit Hong Kong, I recommend this restaurant and especially the Lobster with the Cheese; it's definitely a dish worth trying for once in your life!


Chuk Yuen Seafood Restaurant 竹園
G/F, 7-9 Wong Nai Chung Road, Happy Valley 
Tel: 2893 8293

You can take the girl out of China but you can never take China out of the girl: Dinner at Wu Yueng Chun Shanghai Restaurant (滬揚川上海料理 )

As much as I love Cantonese food, Shanghainese food is one of my top weaknesses. I grew up eating my grandmother's cooking that she cooked when she was a young girl in Shanghai and everytime I go to Shanghai, I really cannot get enough.

Shanghainese cuisine is very different from Cantonese.  Shanghainese food refines food from its surrounding provinces like Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Its flavors are heavier (it is in Northern China so has to keep you warm). They feature a lot of preserved vegetables, fish and meats. A lot of its meat dishes feature pork (marinated pork belly, steamed pork dumpling, pork meatballs) but also chicken, e.g. "Beggar's Chicken" which is wrapped in lotus leaves, covered in clay and oven-fired.

The cuisine also bases a lot on sauces, sugar, and alcohol (rice wine) for seafood (like eel and crab) but also chicken that are "drunken" and are steamed.

Tonight, I had cravings for good, and hot Shanghainese food and I knew where to go: Wu Yueng Chun Shanghai Restaurant (滬揚川上海料理), a small, cheap and popular restaurant in the city centre - just what I needed.

Unfortunately, I couldn't order everything from the menu (as much as I was tempted to) but I think we ordered a good amount! Here's a brief glimpse of the food.

Sour Chili soup (with tofu, egg, mushrooms, pork skin, pork stomach)

Stir-fried rice cake with pork and cabbage (炒年糕)

Fried pork chop with spiced salt and sweet/sour sauce

Braised fish tails in dark soya sauce

Steamed pork dumpling - Xiaolong bao (小籠包)

This just makes me miss Shanghai even more! But good to know I can always grab a bite down the road. 

Wu Yueng Chun Shanghai Restaurant (滬揚川上海料理 )

G/F, 18 Matheson Street, Causeway Bay

Tel: 2575 4805

Subway station: Causeway Bay

Noël in Hong Kong

Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day!
I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas lunches and dinner, and were able to spend it with families and friends.


As for me; a very close family friend invited me to showcase culinary skills that I acquired during my time at Ferrandi. I know I'm fresh out of culinary school and am no superstar Chef but I thought 1. why not do something I love for Christmas and 2. take on the challenge?


I devised an 8-course tasting menu (including dessert) and decided to test my concept of east-meets-west food, a Fusion of Franco-Chinese ingredients. The number of people started out as 12 but last night I cooked for 16.


I was to prepare the meal in the hosts' home and was lucky enough to be assisted by a number of helpers, one of them my sous-chef and my right hand. I went to the local market (Bowrington) to buy all the produce for the next day and ordered the fish and seafood beforehand as during Christmas time it's hard to find a good amount of fresh produce (for such a large meal). I assisted in the location of the meal within the household, which ended up being outside, the place settings and the types of dishes and cutlery I wanted to use. 


It's funny...looking back, I really felt like a Chef in a kitchen, it was hectic at moments especially during the final dressage (plating), making sure the plates and most importantly the food was warm, plates were clean, making sure they were sent at the same time (or almost) so you can imagine the waves of waiters in and out of the kitchen and me trying to put the final pièce de resistance - e.g. dill leaf and the waiters just wanting to take the dish for the guests and me calling them back and telling them it wasn't finished...ahhhh i loved it all! I wanted to say Mais c'est pas possible! haha


The beautifully lit and set dinner party (for 16)

My kitchen for the night, all decked out with pots, pans, equipment even the oven we use at Ferrandi (the double dry and steam oven) and station for plate warmers

Before the guests had dinner, they sat down for hors d'oeuvres...

Now, the Menu and the pictures...

(Note: I was so busy plating at each course that I did not take the pictures, but someone was kind enough to do so but I realized they were also taken in such a rush so apologies for not showing the most accurate pictures of what I created)

Amuse Bouche: Emulsion d’Asperges Vertes, Poitrine de Porc Marinée    

(Emulsion of Green Asparagus, Marinated Pork belly)

Entrées:

Espuma d’ Homard, Crevettes et Tomates  

(Espuma of Lobster, Shrimp with Blanched Tomatoes)

Duo de Foie Gras, Salade Vinaigrette et Carpaccio d’Agrumes   

(Foie Gras Two-way, Vinaigrette Mesclun and Carpaccio of Citrus Fruit)

To Refresh the Palate

Sorbet au citron 

(Lemon sorbet with grated apple)

Poissons

Homard Poché, Sauce Bisque  

(Steamed Lobster, Shellfish Bisque)

1 comment about this photo: We had already sent 16 dishes of lobster (the much nicer lobes) and this was just for the picture, so the lobster bits are the tail ends. Apologies!

Filets de Bar, Purée de Vitelotte  

(Filets of Seabass, Sweet Potato Purée)

                                                                           

Viande

Magret de Canard, Tofu et Champignons Braisés 

(Duck Breast, Braised Bean curd and Chinese Mushrooms)

2 comments about this photo: 1. the braised mushrooms and tofu are not in the picture and 2. after putting the cucumber slices on the left, I decided to replace them with the absent mushrooms and tofu that I originally put below the duck breast. Apologies once more!

Desserts

Mille-feuille aux Fruits de Saison 

(Thousand layer cake with seasonal fruits)

Crème Brulée à la Vanille 

(Vanilla flavored Crème Brulée)

Lisa's famouse Crunch Cake (To die for!)

Don't forget the wine...oh the wine :)

2000 Cristal Champagne

1992 Puligny Montrachet, Bourgogne for Entrées and Poissons

1983 Chateau Cheval Blanc, St Emilion - Bordeaux for Viandes

1988 Chateau d'Yquem, Graves - Bordeaux for Dessert

I was surprisingly not nervous or anxious but felt excited to prepare a full dinner inspired by my culinary experiences at Ferrandi, Paris and abroad. For every course, I even went out to the guests and described the dish. It was my very first time and I enjoyed it all the way through. By the end, I felt a sense of satisfaction of having prepared the most 'gastronomic' meal I have ever prepared in my life. 


Obviously, there is a lot of room for improvement and some things I wasn't happy with but I am very proud of myself as a first-timer and want to relive these moments whether hectic or not again and again and again :)

Bowrington Wet Market

A 5 minute mini-bus drive down/10 min stroll to Causeway Bay leads me to Bowrington Market. A local Hong Kong wet market that has existed for years. I almost grew up going to this market many times a week.


Here, there are local fruits, vegetables, meat and fish street stalls being sold to the public. It's one of my favorite markets and so unique to Hong Kong in terms of how they operate, what they sell and the general atmosphere. Many people can't really stand the smell of the variety of produce or the amount of water on the floor but it's definitely an experience for the newcomer. 

Selling bean curd and everything tofu-related

Most Cantonese food uses light flavours and emphasise freshness (particularly in the seafood). You'll see live fish, crabs and shrimps sold here by the catty; on display they all flap and jump up, sometimes meters from the trays. Even after you're given your purchases, all the way home, you can feel them flap in the plastic bag. Vendors using a traditional weight scale using a weighting rod for the larger items.

As for the fish heads and meat, don't come if you're too squeamish as men with incredibly huge and sharp cleavers cut them off and then open the fish and display the bits to the customers. The gills of the head still beat in the fillets!

Just point and say how much you'd like and it's cut in front of you

If you enter the market a little more, you will also find some shops selling dried mushrooms and dried seafood such as mussels, clams, oysters and scallops. 

Finally, one of the best parts is buying ready cooked meat: this goes from soya sauce chicken, steamed chicken, roast pork, crispy pork, pig ears, pig intestine, etc...Just say if you want half or a whole and they chop it up for you, add some yummy sauce and ginger and scallion.

A typical Shanghainese store used to lie in the market as well but has for the last several years moved 300m up the street. Whatever Shanghainese item you're looking for, they'll have it. My mom loves coming here.

They serve a variety of items like air-dried cured pork belly, fish and sausages, sticky rice cake wrapped in zhong leaves (Zhongzi) and Shanghainese hairy crab when it's the season.

One of my favorite desserts: glutinous rice cakes (Ding Xing Gau in Shanghainese) with red bean inside - the pink one is usually served on Birthdays

And some eggs cooked in spices and soya sauce...

And finally, Shanghainese rice cakes (Cho Ni Go 炒年糕) in the blue buckets. You preserve them in water so they can become soft, cut them in slices and stiry fry them with cabbage and pork - YUM!