Hutong, Hong Kong

Amnesty Post

This will be the last of my catch-up posts but I think the best.

Hutong was on our must dine list whilst in Hong Kong in July last year; Sichuan food as good as it gets apparently. Didn't need to know anymore apart from the instruction to have a pre-dinner cocktail at Aqua on the floor above.

High attention to detail tables, beautifully lit.

Ornate flatware that has me flipping it to take down the details.

" Green asparagus coated in white sesame"; crunchy fat asparagus with sweet sesame crunch.

" Chilli spiced bamboo clams (razor clams) steeped in Chinese rose wine and chilli sauce"; stunning, powerful flavours. Absolutely the dish of the night, and beautifully presented.

"Drunken crispy pigeon, half a crispy roasted pigeon and half a pigeon poached in Chinese wine"; the most tender of meats, intriguing presentation and pigeon brains to nibble.

"Golden fried pork tendon with scallions and dried prawn roe"; texturally perfect, crunchy, chewy, gelatinous and incredibly rich. Needed half this quantity.

"'Red Lantern' crispy soft shell crabs with Sichuan red peppers"; this dish reminded me of a child's play pen with thousands of balls... find the crab in the chillis.

Even with removing the crabs from the pit of dried chillis, this dish was so hot we laughed and cried at the same time. Perfectly crispy and seasoned well, just not as interesting to the palate as to the eye.

Dessert because we felt obligated but wish we didn't bother. "Coconut three ways(I think)"; bland dull, no passion.

Hutong offered some amazing food, presented in a beautiful manner in stunning surrounds. The service, as with all of our experiences in HK (except the 'western style' service at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon), was shaky at best. Too many waiters, too many strange repetitive conversations, too often.
The experience at Hutong, sets a new benchmark in my mind of how stunning Chinese food can be, elapsing every experience I have of this style of food, Flowerdrum included.

Go for the food and views, and the stunning food porn images you can take with the spot-lighted tables!

Roast goose in Hong Kong

A friend is heading off to Hong Kong soon and I was ranting wax-lyrical about of food places that must be visited.

The friend politely retorted but "I didn't read about this on your blog..., or did I miss it?" Well I was put in my place, yes, caught out in my own blog back log.

So in an effort to validate my recommendations - and thinking about this I really should post a list of Paris and Barcelona, so I don't have to keep writing it out - please may I share with you roast goose in Hong Kong.

We made a fleeting visit to Yung Kee in Central just before we jumped a ferry to Macau. It was meant to be a more relaxed affair with the opportunity to savour more of their menu over an extended meal but courtesy of Qantas we drank free champagne instead.

Yung Kee is a bustling multi-level building in the expats section of Hong Kong, lots of very steep hills and roads, but lots of spots to stop in for a drink and snack to refuel.

We were served these century eggs and pickled ginger as a complementary appetiser, a generous offering, that no doubt many tourists would waste.

The yolk was softer and I had seen in century eggs before and had a green tinge to the charcoal grey colour. They may look scary but the firm jelly texture and the thick, rich, creamy yolk are just to die for. The ginger perfectly cuts this richness, if its all a bit too much.

I love the idea of the techniques involved in this... image discovering it for the first time, what a game person it was to try eating it! But I guess there are lot of foods like that, the percebes I ate in Spain a couple of years back were hilarious, especially when you read through the comments of the post... we ate some bits we shouldn't have.

But I am getting off track, we were here for the roast goose and here it is.

Texturally the flesh was quite firm with glossy lacquered skin on top of a little layer of viscous fat. The exciting thing about roast goose in comparison to roast duck, is that you get so much more breast meat on the larger bird, a definite thick fillet of flesh between the skin and rib cage.

I've eaten goose many times before but cooked in a French method, so I was not surprised at the coarseness but increased flavour of the meat, but did think that the skin could have been a little more blistered and crispy.

Next time in Hong Kong, I'd perhaps seek out a less touristy goose destination but was none the less, pleased to be able to squeeze this experience into our trip. I should also note that the staff worked the space like clockwork, friendly and professional and extremely unhindered by our request to mind a mountain of luggage while we ate. Thank you!


Next backdated post is the best cheese of my life, at Atelier Joel Robuchon. Oh, I can just taste it now!
And perhaps even my yum cha round up, three days, three experiences and not even close to my benchmark experience 3 years ago... in Vietnam.

Free Billecart Salmon Brut or roast goose in Hong Kong?

I must boast, I flew to Hong Kong yesterday, but my flight was delayed by nearly three hours.
We were given a voucher for food at the airport to tide us over for the wait, but all I could think about was that nothing was going to replace the roast goose I should have been eating on my arrival in Hong Kong… so we had Champagne. It was only just midday on Saturday but hey, we were on holidays!

More news to come from Hong Kong
~Lots of yum cha (dim sum in HK)
~Tomorrow night is L’Atelier Joel Robuchon. Will it be as good as the Paris original that I visited last year?
~Tonight is Hutong. Many food writers that I respect think that this place was overlooked for the Top 50 restaurants of the world list (it would be the highest ranking Chinese if listed) I’m looking forward to the chilli of Hutongs food, to clear out the head cold I developed just before the trip, just typical!

Stay tuned…