hkskyline
December 15th, 2004, 07:41 PM
Hong Kong cuisine still reigns supreme
As a meeting point of Chinese and world cuisines from Cantonese to Italian, JEREMY FERGUSON finds that Hong Kong's restaurants are holding their ground in China's heated culinary wars
Special to The Globe and Mail
Wednesday, Dec 15, 2004
HONG KONG -- As recently as a decade ago, cooking in most of China hadn't recovered from the maelstrom of 20th-century history and Hong Kong stood unequalled as the foodie capital of the Middle Kingdom. Not any more: A new generation of chefs have returned the People's Republic to ancient glory as one of the world's greatest dining destinations. Now the question is, how does Hong Kong maintain its gastronomic groove in the Dragon's wake?
Hong Kong gastronome and bon vivant Billy Mark responds with a cautious optimism: "Yes, we're facing a huge challenge from China," he says. "But we're still sophisticated and cosmopolitan. We have the international vision. We're the meeting point of all the Chinese cuisines from Cantonese to Szechuan -- not to mention world cuisines from Italian to Indian."
Indeed, a spin through Hong Kong's 3,500-strong restaurant scene is a tour of the world: Will that be Moroccan (Ali Baba), Indian (Veda), Japanese (Miso), French (Two Sardines), Malaysian (Bamboo), American (California), Vietnamese (Saigon), seafood (Yu) or fusion (Munch)?
It's no secret that Beijing plans to sideline the former British colony in favour of home-grown Shanghai. Yet in spite of the sweeping advances, Hong Kong seems determined to hold its ground, or lose as little as possible. The city's middle name is resilience, and it shines on every front, from tourism initiatives -- Hong Kong Disneyland is set to open next year -- to bold architecture that is transforming the skyline yet again. Food is another front in the battle between the cities and, in Hong Kong, the front lines are found in restaurants.
One of the newest in town is Spoon in the InterContinental Hotel, which used to be the Regent Hong Kong and still boasts the ultimate panoramic view of Victoria Harbour. Spoon is one of seven such restaurants established by stellar chef Alain Ducasse, who has collected nine Michelin stars in various places around the world. The concept is built to travel: streamlined French cooking emphasizing high-ticket ingredients in modest portions.
The restaurant exudes high-voltage glamour from the celebrated skyline view to velvet banquettes with mink cushions. The ceiling is a panoply of 550 hand-blown Murano glass spoons. Appointments are uniformly chic. All that's incongruous is the head-banging music. If Spoon's priority is to please the Cantonese, why the racket?
Dinner launches with an amuse of foie gras custard that sets the tone. Among starters, black cod, taking over from sea bass at the head of the fish parade, seems to have been caught that morning -- remember, Yu, possibly Hong Kong's finest fish restaurant, is just upstairs -- but the sweet flesh cries out for accents more exciting than the menu's mix-and-match accompaniments. Wagyu, Australia's answer to Japan's Kobe beef, with the cows massaged daily and fed on beer, has the texture of butter. Beef cheeks, lately the rage, arrive tender and succulent. For dessert, pine-nut ice cream prevails.
Hong Kong does Italy proud, too. Over at the rival Ritz-Carlton, Toscano has been pleasing the city for years with Florentine surroundings, effusive service and the northern Italian cuisine of Umberto Bombana, recently hailed by the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners as best Italian chef in Asia. Bombana's best dish may be the starter warm salad of scallops and scampi napped with Sevruga caviar. Scampi consommé with seafood and green-pea ravioli fuses Italian and Chinese -- Chitalian? -- smartly. Among mains, seared grouper cradled in zucchini flower and pinkly roasted duck breast set atop pumpkin gnocchi are sure things.
But if the Cantonese like their cooking subtle, outsiders may prefer more spirited Asian fare. La Cuisine de Mekong in the Knutsford Terrace strip of independent ethnic eateries looks to Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam. Go straight for the harmonious meld that is a salad of pomelo, shrimps, fried onions, shallots, peanuts, fish sauce, chilis, coriander and kaffir lime. Duck and scallop spring rolls may be a tad greasy, but we don't let it spoil our pleasure. And, in a decidedly Mekong turn, rack of lamb comes slathered in green curry.
Thai is arguably the richest of the Mekong cuisines. In Hong Kong, head for the south side of the island, shop for a bargain at Stanley Market and lunch at Sukho Thai, one of a line of international restaurants revitalizing that formerly dull strip of beach. Sukho Thai isn't content to be good at what it does: It shares the building -- and its menu -- with the Vietnamese Saigon. The Vietnamese pho lover slurps a wonderful beef broth piled high with thinly sliced beef and rice noodles, roaring with sweet basil, star anise and cinnamon. At the same time, the Thai curry lover tucks into a green curry awash in coconut milk and kaffir lime. To finish? Iced Vietnamese coffee, the reason God created condensed milk.
For six decades, Hong Kong's four-storey Yung Kee in Central district has performed as a Cantonese banner-carrier. It has icons: shark's fin and bird's nest soup. It has signatures: Crackling won tons stuffed with minced pork show deep-fry acumen. Pork arrives in the style of crispy-skinned duck, alternately crunchy and fork-tender, savoury and sweet. And, zapped with five-spice and mint, roast leg of lamb transforms to a Cantonese classic.
But you don't need a glittering emporium to eat well in Hong Kong. Start your day at Law Fu Kee in Central, an amiable hole in the wall specializing in congee, simmered-to-velvet Chinese rice porridge laced with ginger and spring onion. Condiments range from shredded pork to fish head; as with pizza, you design your own. Arrive early enough, and you'll see family members shaping shrimp dumplings by hand and prepping noodles for the lunch trade in a flurry of flying fists.
Signalling a new wave of independent entrepreneurs revitalizing the restaurant business is Moon House, a cheery room in Causeway Bay. Its specialty is 125 desserts, some from recipes dating to the Qing Dynasty, some medicinal, others great fun. Who can resist iced peach tea or mango and pomelo soup, the silky sweet mango playing off the tart pomelo? Or the contrasting flavours and textures of green bean and tofu pudding? We may, however, be able to resist pancakes and puddings of Southeast Asia's durian fruit.
One of Hong Kong's most impassioned gastronomes is Chua Lam, renaissance man and food anthropologist. His career has vaulted from producing Jackie Chan films to writing more than 100 books on subjects ranging from wine to women. In recent years, he has godfathered Whampoa Gourmet Place, a "court" of excellent Chinese restaurants in Whampoa Plaza on the Kowloon side. Lam found the space, rounded up his favourite 14 small restaurants and persuaded them their collective clout might be their individual redemption. He proved correct.
The restaurants -- Szechuan, Shanghainese, Mandarin, Taiwanese, seafood -- cover the spectrum. Quality and price controls are rigidly enforced. Take-out is forbidden because Chua feels it damages the restaurants' reputations. At the Tasty Congee & Noodle Wonton Shop, fish congee begins with a base of shredded scallops and when it arrives at the table, a fork might stand up in it. Noodles get a lift from spicy shredded pork and piquant soy bean paste. Rice noodle roll stuffed with Chinese fried bread sounds like a starch sandwich, but it's shockingly good. Beef brisket is tender. Barbecued pork is out of this world.
For those who like fire with their noodles, join the queue for Szechuan sizzle at Wing Lai Yuen in the same complex. The owner's great-great-great grandfather was a cook in the Imperial Court. One of the current chefs prepared signature Szechuan noodles for son-of-Sichuan Deng Xiaoping. Paper-thin sliced pork sauced in soy, onion and chilies -- an award-winner -- sends the roof of your skull into lift-off. Scrambled egg whites tossed with shredded scallops and vinegar seems an oddity, but it's delicious. Desserts represent the court of the Dowager Empress. She wasn't very sweet and neither are they.
If Szechuan was home cooking for Deng Xiaoping, Hunan was the same for Mao Zedong. At Hunan Garden, the hot-and-sour packs the room. Handsome in pink and green with subdued lighting in Central's Exchange Square, it encourages long lunches. "Sea blubber" and braised "mutton paw" may fail to arrest the gwai lo -- venerable Cantonese for "foreign devil" -- but shredded potato with green and red chilis is a knockout. Chicken drizzled with whole Hunan chilis might sizzle your lips in a fly-past.
At the 75-year-old Peninsula Hotel, the in-house "Academy" verses guests in the craft of dim sum. Maestro Yip Wing Wah imparts technique and wisdoms on making feathery shrimp-and-chive dumplings, and takes you touring around rooms of barbecued ducks, suckling pigs and marinated pigeons. The Peninsula's Spring Moon is arguably the finest Cantonese in Hong Kong and the source for Cathay Pacific's new "Best Chinese Food in the Sky" program. This is one of Hong Kong's most quietly stylish rooms, with gleaming hardwood floors, rich carpets, an exhibition of historic teapots, and photographs of Hong Kong as it used to be a long time ago.
Tea is taken as seriously as wine here -- the list is 30-types long -- and lunch may begin with an elite, aromatic Dragon Well green tea from Hangzhou. There are delicate little puff pastries stuffed with barbecued pork and levitating dumplings. Barbecued pigeon marinated in cinnamon is dense and gamey, the skin crispy.
Spring Moon's airborne recipes -- 30 in all, including prawns with chrysanthemum in clear broth created for Cathay Pacific Airways -- are fastidiously executed at the airline's flight kitchen on Lantau Island. The kitchen, the largest in the world, produces 44,000 to 64,000 meals a day. What's more, these flight kitchen guys actually compete with chefs from top restaurants and often win. Can the Cathay cookbook be far behind?
WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK
Hunan Garden: Exchange Square, Central; 852 2868 2880.
La Cuisine de Mekong: Knutsford Terrace; 852 2316 2288.
Law Fu Kee Noodle Shop: Central; 852 2541 3080.
Moon House: Causeway Bay; moonhse1@biznetvigator.com; 852 2881 6187.
Spoon: InterContinental Hotel, Kowloon; 852 2721 1211; http://www.hongkong-ic.intercontinental.com.
Spring Moon: Kowloon; 852 2920 2888; http://www.peninsula.com.
Sukho Thai: Stanley Beach; 852 2899 0999.
Tasty Congee & Noodle Wunton Shop: Whampoa Garden, Kowloon; 852 3152 2328; http://www.whampoaworld.com/choi_e.htm.
Toscana: Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Central; 852 2877 6666; http://www.ritzcarlton.com.
Wing Lai Yuen: Whampoa Garden, Kowloon; http://www.winglaiyuen.com.hk; 852 2320 6430.
Yung Kee Restaurant: Central; 852 2522 1624; info@yungkee.com.hk; http://www.yungkee.com.hk.
As a meeting point of Chinese and world cuisines from Cantonese to Italian, JEREMY FERGUSON finds that Hong Kong's restaurants are holding their ground in China's heated culinary wars
Special to The Globe and Mail
Wednesday, Dec 15, 2004
HONG KONG -- As recently as a decade ago, cooking in most of China hadn't recovered from the maelstrom of 20th-century history and Hong Kong stood unequalled as the foodie capital of the Middle Kingdom. Not any more: A new generation of chefs have returned the People's Republic to ancient glory as one of the world's greatest dining destinations. Now the question is, how does Hong Kong maintain its gastronomic groove in the Dragon's wake?
Hong Kong gastronome and bon vivant Billy Mark responds with a cautious optimism: "Yes, we're facing a huge challenge from China," he says. "But we're still sophisticated and cosmopolitan. We have the international vision. We're the meeting point of all the Chinese cuisines from Cantonese to Szechuan -- not to mention world cuisines from Italian to Indian."
Indeed, a spin through Hong Kong's 3,500-strong restaurant scene is a tour of the world: Will that be Moroccan (Ali Baba), Indian (Veda), Japanese (Miso), French (Two Sardines), Malaysian (Bamboo), American (California), Vietnamese (Saigon), seafood (Yu) or fusion (Munch)?
It's no secret that Beijing plans to sideline the former British colony in favour of home-grown Shanghai. Yet in spite of the sweeping advances, Hong Kong seems determined to hold its ground, or lose as little as possible. The city's middle name is resilience, and it shines on every front, from tourism initiatives -- Hong Kong Disneyland is set to open next year -- to bold architecture that is transforming the skyline yet again. Food is another front in the battle between the cities and, in Hong Kong, the front lines are found in restaurants.
One of the newest in town is Spoon in the InterContinental Hotel, which used to be the Regent Hong Kong and still boasts the ultimate panoramic view of Victoria Harbour. Spoon is one of seven such restaurants established by stellar chef Alain Ducasse, who has collected nine Michelin stars in various places around the world. The concept is built to travel: streamlined French cooking emphasizing high-ticket ingredients in modest portions.
The restaurant exudes high-voltage glamour from the celebrated skyline view to velvet banquettes with mink cushions. The ceiling is a panoply of 550 hand-blown Murano glass spoons. Appointments are uniformly chic. All that's incongruous is the head-banging music. If Spoon's priority is to please the Cantonese, why the racket?
Dinner launches with an amuse of foie gras custard that sets the tone. Among starters, black cod, taking over from sea bass at the head of the fish parade, seems to have been caught that morning -- remember, Yu, possibly Hong Kong's finest fish restaurant, is just upstairs -- but the sweet flesh cries out for accents more exciting than the menu's mix-and-match accompaniments. Wagyu, Australia's answer to Japan's Kobe beef, with the cows massaged daily and fed on beer, has the texture of butter. Beef cheeks, lately the rage, arrive tender and succulent. For dessert, pine-nut ice cream prevails.
Hong Kong does Italy proud, too. Over at the rival Ritz-Carlton, Toscano has been pleasing the city for years with Florentine surroundings, effusive service and the northern Italian cuisine of Umberto Bombana, recently hailed by the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners as best Italian chef in Asia. Bombana's best dish may be the starter warm salad of scallops and scampi napped with Sevruga caviar. Scampi consommé with seafood and green-pea ravioli fuses Italian and Chinese -- Chitalian? -- smartly. Among mains, seared grouper cradled in zucchini flower and pinkly roasted duck breast set atop pumpkin gnocchi are sure things.
But if the Cantonese like their cooking subtle, outsiders may prefer more spirited Asian fare. La Cuisine de Mekong in the Knutsford Terrace strip of independent ethnic eateries looks to Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam. Go straight for the harmonious meld that is a salad of pomelo, shrimps, fried onions, shallots, peanuts, fish sauce, chilis, coriander and kaffir lime. Duck and scallop spring rolls may be a tad greasy, but we don't let it spoil our pleasure. And, in a decidedly Mekong turn, rack of lamb comes slathered in green curry.
Thai is arguably the richest of the Mekong cuisines. In Hong Kong, head for the south side of the island, shop for a bargain at Stanley Market and lunch at Sukho Thai, one of a line of international restaurants revitalizing that formerly dull strip of beach. Sukho Thai isn't content to be good at what it does: It shares the building -- and its menu -- with the Vietnamese Saigon. The Vietnamese pho lover slurps a wonderful beef broth piled high with thinly sliced beef and rice noodles, roaring with sweet basil, star anise and cinnamon. At the same time, the Thai curry lover tucks into a green curry awash in coconut milk and kaffir lime. To finish? Iced Vietnamese coffee, the reason God created condensed milk.
For six decades, Hong Kong's four-storey Yung Kee in Central district has performed as a Cantonese banner-carrier. It has icons: shark's fin and bird's nest soup. It has signatures: Crackling won tons stuffed with minced pork show deep-fry acumen. Pork arrives in the style of crispy-skinned duck, alternately crunchy and fork-tender, savoury and sweet. And, zapped with five-spice and mint, roast leg of lamb transforms to a Cantonese classic.
But you don't need a glittering emporium to eat well in Hong Kong. Start your day at Law Fu Kee in Central, an amiable hole in the wall specializing in congee, simmered-to-velvet Chinese rice porridge laced with ginger and spring onion. Condiments range from shredded pork to fish head; as with pizza, you design your own. Arrive early enough, and you'll see family members shaping shrimp dumplings by hand and prepping noodles for the lunch trade in a flurry of flying fists.
Signalling a new wave of independent entrepreneurs revitalizing the restaurant business is Moon House, a cheery room in Causeway Bay. Its specialty is 125 desserts, some from recipes dating to the Qing Dynasty, some medicinal, others great fun. Who can resist iced peach tea or mango and pomelo soup, the silky sweet mango playing off the tart pomelo? Or the contrasting flavours and textures of green bean and tofu pudding? We may, however, be able to resist pancakes and puddings of Southeast Asia's durian fruit.
One of Hong Kong's most impassioned gastronomes is Chua Lam, renaissance man and food anthropologist. His career has vaulted from producing Jackie Chan films to writing more than 100 books on subjects ranging from wine to women. In recent years, he has godfathered Whampoa Gourmet Place, a "court" of excellent Chinese restaurants in Whampoa Plaza on the Kowloon side. Lam found the space, rounded up his favourite 14 small restaurants and persuaded them their collective clout might be their individual redemption. He proved correct.
The restaurants -- Szechuan, Shanghainese, Mandarin, Taiwanese, seafood -- cover the spectrum. Quality and price controls are rigidly enforced. Take-out is forbidden because Chua feels it damages the restaurants' reputations. At the Tasty Congee & Noodle Wonton Shop, fish congee begins with a base of shredded scallops and when it arrives at the table, a fork might stand up in it. Noodles get a lift from spicy shredded pork and piquant soy bean paste. Rice noodle roll stuffed with Chinese fried bread sounds like a starch sandwich, but it's shockingly good. Beef brisket is tender. Barbecued pork is out of this world.
For those who like fire with their noodles, join the queue for Szechuan sizzle at Wing Lai Yuen in the same complex. The owner's great-great-great grandfather was a cook in the Imperial Court. One of the current chefs prepared signature Szechuan noodles for son-of-Sichuan Deng Xiaoping. Paper-thin sliced pork sauced in soy, onion and chilies -- an award-winner -- sends the roof of your skull into lift-off. Scrambled egg whites tossed with shredded scallops and vinegar seems an oddity, but it's delicious. Desserts represent the court of the Dowager Empress. She wasn't very sweet and neither are they.
If Szechuan was home cooking for Deng Xiaoping, Hunan was the same for Mao Zedong. At Hunan Garden, the hot-and-sour packs the room. Handsome in pink and green with subdued lighting in Central's Exchange Square, it encourages long lunches. "Sea blubber" and braised "mutton paw" may fail to arrest the gwai lo -- venerable Cantonese for "foreign devil" -- but shredded potato with green and red chilis is a knockout. Chicken drizzled with whole Hunan chilis might sizzle your lips in a fly-past.
At the 75-year-old Peninsula Hotel, the in-house "Academy" verses guests in the craft of dim sum. Maestro Yip Wing Wah imparts technique and wisdoms on making feathery shrimp-and-chive dumplings, and takes you touring around rooms of barbecued ducks, suckling pigs and marinated pigeons. The Peninsula's Spring Moon is arguably the finest Cantonese in Hong Kong and the source for Cathay Pacific's new "Best Chinese Food in the Sky" program. This is one of Hong Kong's most quietly stylish rooms, with gleaming hardwood floors, rich carpets, an exhibition of historic teapots, and photographs of Hong Kong as it used to be a long time ago.
Tea is taken as seriously as wine here -- the list is 30-types long -- and lunch may begin with an elite, aromatic Dragon Well green tea from Hangzhou. There are delicate little puff pastries stuffed with barbecued pork and levitating dumplings. Barbecued pigeon marinated in cinnamon is dense and gamey, the skin crispy.
Spring Moon's airborne recipes -- 30 in all, including prawns with chrysanthemum in clear broth created for Cathay Pacific Airways -- are fastidiously executed at the airline's flight kitchen on Lantau Island. The kitchen, the largest in the world, produces 44,000 to 64,000 meals a day. What's more, these flight kitchen guys actually compete with chefs from top restaurants and often win. Can the Cathay cookbook be far behind?
WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK
Hunan Garden: Exchange Square, Central; 852 2868 2880.
La Cuisine de Mekong: Knutsford Terrace; 852 2316 2288.
Law Fu Kee Noodle Shop: Central; 852 2541 3080.
Moon House: Causeway Bay; moonhse1@biznetvigator.com; 852 2881 6187.
Spoon: InterContinental Hotel, Kowloon; 852 2721 1211; http://www.hongkong-ic.intercontinental.com.
Spring Moon: Kowloon; 852 2920 2888; http://www.peninsula.com.
Sukho Thai: Stanley Beach; 852 2899 0999.
Tasty Congee & Noodle Wunton Shop: Whampoa Garden, Kowloon; 852 3152 2328; http://www.whampoaworld.com/choi_e.htm.
Toscana: Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Central; 852 2877 6666; http://www.ritzcarlton.com.
Wing Lai Yuen: Whampoa Garden, Kowloon; http://www.winglaiyuen.com.hk; 852 2320 6430.
Yung Kee Restaurant: Central; 852 2522 1624; info@yungkee.com.hk; http://www.yungkee.com.hk.