Monday 28 November 2005

Review: Hong Kong Food Culture

**Non-Halal Posting**

Heh, what's with the current trend that everywhere you go, there seems to be a Hong Kong style "char charn teng" (coffee shop/cafe in Cantonese) around in the vicinity. The frenzy started by Kim Gary at their first outlet in Sg Wang Plaza a few years ago. Later on more and more similar cafe opened and Kuala Lumpur is like being hit by a bomb *kaboom*... now like little Hong Kong. It's still growing ok...

Anyway, I got tired of Kim Gary as when they started one of my colleague always dragged us there for lunch at least once a week. When she left the company a year later, we never stepped into Kim Gary ever again and that was like coming to two years soon. However, we never stopped ourselves from trying other places when we're tired of our local stuff. I always welcome a cup of hot Hong Kong style milk tea, missed the real thing!!!

Whenever we visit Low Yat Plaza for our PC stuff, we'll drop by Causeway Bay Cafe on the Ground Floor, opposite Coffee Bean Cafe. I liked the noodles with prawn wantan or sui kow (dumplings) there. Loads of prawns and meat in them...

Of late, we ventured downstairs at the Lower Ground Floor as they've renovated a bit and seems brighter and more new food outlets have opened. I've never noticed Hong Kong Food Culture until my colleague pointed out the kooky name of this place in Cantonese. I think it's "Kong Yum, Kong Sek" (Talk About Drinking, Talk About Eating literally). One evening it was raining heavily and the traffic in the city centre had gone hay wire, hubby decided to park the car at Low Yat Plaza to have dinner. Walked around and hubby said "Causeway Bay again???". I brought him downstairs and check out this place, he was pretty sceptical as we stood outside but anyway checking that the place is rather filled with diners, he guessed it must be pretty safe.

After scanning the menu that evening, I ordered the dry version of Noodle with Wonton and Dumplings (RM7.40, weird amount!). Hubby ordered Fried Rice With Salted Fish and Chicken Dice (ermm that's how it sounds like on the menu... RM10.50). I had my standard order of Hong Kong style milk tea (RM2.70) as my benchmark hehehehe which came out pretty well as they used the authentic large cup and saucer like those in Hong Kong. One slurp and the balance of milk and tea were right. Added in some sugar and it tasted lovely and creamy. Other similar cafe serves them on a much smaller cup, no kick leh but I really missed those "si mutt lai char" (panty hose milk tea kekekeke yeah that's what they used in Hong Kong to filter the tea!!!!). Hubby did asked the proprieter in Hong Kong (he goes to that shop so often that the boss sort of recognise him)... he said the panty hose have finer holes compared to those traditional cotton sieve, hence allow the flavour of the tea to come out the fullest it seems! Ohh my how bad of me... hehehe I drank 3/4 cup of the tea before remembering I have my new phone with me. I was too scared embarrassed to bring out my digicam as the place is pretty cramped and errr there's a table full of errrmmm "tai kors" ("big brothers") behind me.

hk milk tea

My noodles came... I checked the 3 pieces of wonton and 2 pieces of dumplings in the separate soup bowl. Hohoho so huge... mmmm... visual approval granted! Tasted the noodles, just the right kind of texture for me. The wonton have one whole prawn and minced meat where else the dumplings have one whole prawn mixed with carrots and loads of black fungus in there... wahhhh nice. The first pic depicted the noodles together with one each of the wonton and dumpling, second pic showed the inside of a wonton and the last was a dumpling splitted into two!!!

DSC00014 hk wantan hk sui kow

I finished my noodles and poor hubby still waiting for his rice. Have to asked the waitress a few times then only they told us they forgot to put in the order... goshhhh... anyway they sped up the order and the fried rice came in no time. I tell you... as the waitress place the plate down... I could smell the wonderful aroma of a fried rice full of "wok hei" (Cantonese literally means the breath of the wok... something stimulated by the large amount of heat). As hubby busy dug in, I can't help but spoon some into my mouth. Heh I was right... the rice was so full of "wok hei"... it has been a long while since I last tasted such nice fried rice. The rice have loads of diced chicken pieces, pieces of fried eggs, loads of spring onions but not much salted fish there, just a hint of the taste. I presumed salted fish is an expensive delicacy these days. What I liked is they fried the finely shredded iceberg lettuce together with the rice which lended an extra bite to it. Other places so far, they just placed the fresh iceberg lettuce on top of the rice.

hk ham yue chow farn

Hubby was delighted that this place have his fave Fresh Milk Curd With Ginger (RM5.00) which I've tried many times to replicate this at home but somehow always failed to get it set to the right consistency. Anyone with a fail proof recipe to share?? Hong Kong Food Culture's version is just slightly curdled and smooth. Taste wise... not as great when hubby benchmark it against those he ate in Hong Kong hehehehe not fair huh? I had the Grinded Walnut Soup (RM6.00) which is something unusual as compared with peanut soup. Errr tasted funny okay, maybe I was so used to the aromatic peanuts instead of walnut but me being a good gal, I forced myself to down the whole bowl... urghhh! No choice... early education from parents that one must not waste food unless one is really too stuffed to swallow had taught me not to waste food!!!

hk fresh milk curd wid ginger hk grinded walnut soup

Looks like we'll go again to check out the rest of the stuff offered unless we're so sick of Hong Kong style food. Teehehehe...

Hong Kong Food Culture
Lower Group Floor, Low Yat Plaza

(look Baoz kiosk and vegetarian shop, there's a lane there going to more shops including a big boy's toy shop selling manga and anime stuff I think)
Opps no telephone number provided in the receipts.


Since we're on this topic, we tried new a Hong Kong style shop around my parents place in Kepong recently. This row of new shoplots is located directly opposite of Jusco across the Jalan Kepong. There are two such shops but we tried the corner lot (behind Petronas Kiosk) - KYS (Kong Yam Sek, funny this one is literally translated as Talk Drink Eat, how original they can be?!!??!). I wished they have invested in a good ventilation system for their kitchen as the inside of the aircon shop can smell of the cooking fume, hence we sat outside along the corridor which we can still smell the fume... Ok back to the food.

We loved the cheese baked rice where my boiboi wallopped all my cheese toppings!!!! My mom's pork rib rice was fantabulous but my dad's porridge sucks. So the poor him have to abandoned his porridge half way and ate half of my mom's rice. My brother ordered a piece of peanut butter and condensed milk toast and a bowl of mango sago to help him filled up. The toast is nothing out of the ordinary but my boiboi liked it a lot that he polished up 1/4 of the thick toast! This smart fella knows how to ask my dad for peanut butter bread for breakfast some days when he have the craving for peanut butter hehehe atta boy, just like mummy (his daddy don't like peanut butter!). The sago in the mango sago were kinda crunchy and not chewy... I wonder if they're really sago or some kind of those pearl balls substitute. The puree is not as nice as those KTZ's.

So enough of Hong Kong food, I wished they could give me some authentic Por Lor Yau Bao!!!!! Am gonna be away working for the whole of this week, most likely there won't be much updates... so please head on to Alberto and Jennifer for the round up of the Cookie Swap.

KYS Restaurant (CLOSED)
No. 1 Jalan Metro Perdana Barat 1,
Taman Usahawan Kepong Utara
Tel: 603 6257 4205

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