Hidden Depths

When it comes to seafood, there are the tried and true favorites that everyone’s familiar with. But many fresh seafood restaurants in town also offer much more than your regular lineup of salmon, snapper and cod. The restaurants in Hong Kong’s seafood districts in particular offer myriad interesting seafood choices that aren’t easily found anywhere else in the city.

The fishing village of Lei Yue Mun is a perfect case in point. The fish stalls that cater to the area’s many seafood restaurants are great for scoring some peculiar sea-dwelling creatures. We found several bright red Malaysian slipper lobsters in the tanks of Hoi Lung Seafood. Unlike regular lobsters, slipper lobsters have two wide, plate-like antennae protruding from their heads. Despite their bizarre appearance though, their flesh has a fresh and succulent flavor and is often lauded as being even sweeter than lobster meat.

Just a few stalls down from Hoi Lung, Lung Cheung Seafood also has a fair share of sea creatures for customers to pick out and eat at the stall’s partnering restaurant. Lung Cheung’s May Wong recommends the striped zebra mantis shrimp, which can be served stir-fried with spicy salt and garlic. This Vietnamese import looks like the regular “pissing” mantis shrimp, albeit with distinct red or black bands around its body. Stonefish are another surprising seafood available at Lung Cheung. These hefty fish have a chunky, rough and mottled appearance, much like that of a stone and the resemblance deepens with their heavy, rock-like weight and their tendency to lie motionlessly on the seabed. Some species of the stonefish family are extremely venomous, so don’t step on them—but you can eat them! They are safe for human consumption after proper preparation, and are often prized for their smooth and soft flesh, which is highlighted best when the fish is steamed or lightly cooked in oil.

Just like Lei Yue Mun, Sai Kung is another great spot for fresh seafood and the district’s local wet market is an especially rich treasure trove of out of the ordinary seafood. Sam Chung, owner of Sai Kung’s Michelin-starred family style restaurant—Loaf On—is an avid fan and makes multiple trips to the market every day to check up on the latest load of fresh seafood catches that the local fishing boats bring back.

“The seafood selection is always changing because seafood is very much based on seasonality,” Chung explains, adding that he keeps his regular à la carte menu small and simple (the menu only has 12 items) to give himself more flexibility to use whatever in-season items the market happens to provide on any particular day. He points out several examples, including a mini scorpionfish, red “blood” eels (actually rice paddy eels). Our tour of the wet market also yielded other difficult-to-find-elsewhere types of seafood, including a giant octopus, caught off Hong Kong’s Basalt Island and several types of starfish, which according to Chung, have no edible flesh but makes for a delish, lung-healing soup.

But when it comes to being truly bizarre, few seafood items can compare to the gooseneck barnacle, which Chung serves at Loaf On whenever supplies are available. Because of their claw-like appearance, the barnacles are known in Cantonese as gau jiao lor, which translates into dog’s claw whelk. The barnacles are blanched to slightly soften the tough and bumpy, brown exterior layer. This inedible layer is then peeled off to reveal the almost translucent white meat, which has a slight sweetness tinged with a mild touch of seawater savoriness.