Mak Man Kee’s chef cooking bowls of homemade noodles
Last Friday we decided to partake in Urban Discovery’s “Kowloon Culinary Wanderwalk”, a guided tour through Jordan and Yau Ma Tei (including Temple Street) and five local food joints. Our guide, Carol, was bubbly and informative and kicked off the tour with an iPad presentation (complete with a short instructional slide on how to use chopsticks – not to boast, but we felt we were a little beyond that).
Wine + Chicken? Yes please!
We started off at the quiet Wong Chi Ka for some Shanghainese food. The xiaolongbao—for the uninitiated, this is the famous steamed dumpling that contains a mouthful of soup and a lump of pork—was perfectly soupy and juicy.
The drunken chicken, our favourite, had a savoury, alcoholic kick to it, but the chicken vermicelli with peanut sauce was smothered in sesame oil and pretty unpalatable. Finally, we had the crispy turnip cake, a sweet and savoury dish that foreigners don’t usually order. Honestly though, we still prefer good ol’ Crystal Jade or Din Tai Fung for our xiaolongbao/Shanghainese food fix.
Mak Man Kee’s dry beef noodles
We moved on to Mak Man Kee noodle shop for dry beef noodles, which were sticky, sweet, and thoroughly satisfying (they’re “dry” because the noodles are not in a soup, duh). A slightly off-the-beaten-path dish, but if we were planning a whirlwind tour of classic Hong Kong food, we’d have picked the wonton noodles. To be fair, though, our guide also gave us a wonton each to taste.
About to try a bit of our “surprise” dish
Enough turtle jelly for a small village
Next, we had our “surprise” stop. When we slowed down in front of a traditional herbal shop, our faces paled a bit. Our hunch was correct: we were indeed about to sample turtle jelly – a dark, bitter substance made from steaming turtle shells. As gross as this sounds (and indeed is), it’s meant to be extremley healthy according to the weird laws of traditional Chinese medicine. We closed our eyes and tried to think of all the health benefits and not the poor turtles as we swallowed down the jelly with a generous and welcome dollop of honey.
Chicken and mushroom claypot
We then stopped at Hing Kee for chicken and mushroom claypot rice, Chinese sausage claypot rice, fried oyster pancakes, and salt and chilli fried squid. This was our favourite stop on the tour; every dish was delicious. We don’t think it’s the best claypot rice in town, but claypot rice is a gem easily missed by non-locals.
Fried oyster pancake
Hing Kee’s kitchens
You, your dessert is on fire.
Finally, we stopped at a very typical Hong Kong dessert restaurant and shared a veritable smorgasbord of sweet dishes: ginger soufflé, molten lava cake, burning snow mountain (Oooh! Fire!), almond soup, some sort of green tea medley, and the classic mango, sago and pomelo dessert. One of the perks of the tour, with a maximum of eight participants, means that you get to taste way more dishes than you would with a smaller group.
Here’s something our guide knew and that we didn’t: these billboards are thinly veiled advertisements for brothels. That’s right, HKD390 for anything you want…
The tour seemed rather pricy at first at HKD650 per person, but with a guide who orders and explains everything, the chance to sample a variety of dishes at five different restaurants, unlimited non-alcoholic drinks and two alcoholic ones (phew!), it’s actually kind of reasonable. The tour is also very accommodating to vegetarians (though you’ll probably just sit there with a horrified look on your face during the turtle jelly stop).
Our guide told us that this dilapidated building is one of many that were constructed years ago by cheapskate construction workers who used salt water instead of freshwater in the concrete. Whoops!
If you’re a local or at least have been around enough to have wandered around the Yau Tsim Mong area on your own, you’re probably better off spending the money on a fancy meal at a high-end restaurant, though the guide definitely has something to teach even the most local of lcoals.
You also get a guided wander through the famous Temple Street market
If you’re a tourist (especially on a time crunch), are brand-new to Hong Kong, or have remained a total Hong Kong Island gweilo with an irrational fear of crossing the harbour and no local friends, then this is a fun, social introduction to the core fare that locals eat in a gritty, authentic (but still pretty touristy) Hong Kong neighbourhood.
The tour packs a culinary punch in four hours, and it does a great job of showcasing the less glitzy but culturally vital parts of Hong Kong’s edible heritage. For more info and reservations, check out Urban Discovery’s website.
Now you know how claypots are cooked!
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