Where to eat some winter warmers amid Hong Kong’s cold snap
When temperatures plunge, Hongkongers’ thoughts turn to foods traditionally thought of as warming - hotpot, double-boiled soups, claypot rice and snake soup. Here are some places to get some
When the weather in Hong Kong is this cold, we need some seriously warming food. There are four traditional options: snake soup (not for everyone, we know), hotpot, double-boiled soup, and claypot rice.
Some hotpot lovers will tell you the best hotpot is the one you prepare yourself. However, unless you are good friends with stall owners who reserve the best cuts of meat or you are expert at making your own soup base, you’re best off eating out.
At Golden Valley (1/F The Emperor Hotel, 1 Wang Tak Street, Happy Valley; tel: 2961 3330) the Sichuan spicy soup is so good, we barely touch the others. A condiment bar is equipped with a mortar and pestle for you to crush your seasonings and there are instructions on how to make a Sichuan-style sauce.
Double-boiled soups are a traditional Chinese way to keep the chills at bay. The soup and its ingredients are placed in either a tureen or ceramic jar, sealed and then put in a steamer and slow-cooked for three to four hours. The end result is an intensely flavoured, usually clear broth that has absorbed all the nutrients from ingredients that are chosen for their benefits to the body.
At fine-dining Cantonese restaurant One Harbour Road (7/F-8/F Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, 1 Harbour Road, Wan Chai, tel: 2584 7722), double-boiled chicken soup with matsutake mushrooms has clean, complex flavours that we found very delicate. There’s a more medicinal aftertaste in the double-boiled frog soup with fresh ginseng and American ginseng.
At Jin Cuisine (2/F Holiday Inn Express, 3 Tong Tak Street, Tseung Kwan O, tel: 2623 2333), the lamb bone soup with wolfberries is clear, with a delicious flavour and makes you feel warm and nourished. The double-boiled pigeon soup with pear and apple has a delicate, sweet flavour.
Chau supplies snakes to restaurants across the city, including The Chinese Restaurant (Level 3 Hyatt Regency Hong Kong Tsim Sha Tsui, 18 Hanoi Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, tel: 3721 7788), where chef Lo Kwai-kai takes snake that’s been boned and boiled, steams it and adds sugar cane, an old chicken, pork, ham, mandarin peel, and lemon leaves to make soup that’s a bit thinner than other places serve.
At Tim Lok Yuen (4 Fuk Lo Tsun Road, Kowloon City, tel: 2382 2369. Open: 7am-2am) the menu is filled with old-school combinations including Jinhua ham with grass carp belly, chun pei (mandarin peel) with fish intestine, and shiitake with chicken. Owner Kong Fu-sing says they don’t mind if guests ask them for a bowl of their wonton soup broth to add to their almost finished claypot before they scrape the crunchy bits from the sides.
At Chuen Moon Kee Restaurant (Man Fok Building, 419 Reclamation Street, Mong Kok, tel: 3760 8855. Open: 7am-midnight; claypot rice available from 5.30pm-11.15pm) the main event is watching chef-owner Yu Ho-chuen use a knife to loosen the crispy crust off the bowl – in one piece. Yu likes to use seafood from the nearby wet market in his dishes.