Profile | Tempura chef on the tricks of the trade, experimenting with ingredients like fish maw, and why eel is his favourite food

An allergy to flowers meant Kris Wong couldn’t help out at his dad’s shop so he apprenticed in a Hong Kong Japanese restaurant kitchen and discovered tempura

Having spent two decades honing his technique, he relishes the challenge of developing unique tempura dishes at Wa-En Kappo in Sheung Wan, where he is head chef

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Kris Wong Ming-yin is the head chef at Wa-En Kappo in Sheung Wan in Hong Kong. Photo: Edmond So

Bernice Chan

Published: 4:15pm, 7 Dec 2021Updated: 3:56pm, 1 Jun 2022

“My dad has a flower shop in North Point [on Hong Kong Island] and after school I would help deliver flowers. I thought I would help him full time when I was 18 years old, but after two weeks in the shop I couldn’t do it any more because it turns out I’m allergic to flowers and I sneezed a lot.

“Then I was lucky – just at that time I had a friend who was working at the Hong Kong Japanese Club, in Causeway Bay. I didn’t know how to cook at all and started by arranging the food on the plate after the chef had prepared it.

“They had four apprentices but, one by one, they left until there was just me, so the chefs had to teach me otherwise they wouldn’t be able to take time off. The restaurant was quite large, serving over 200 guests.

“The kitchen was broken up into stations, like ramen, grill and tempura, so I spent time in each place. My favourite station was the grill because I could watch how the food cooks. I worked there for over three years. When I was young, I liked to watch Japanese cartoons, so I had also managed to pick up some Japanese.”

Snow crabmeat, tomato jelly and curry mousse from Wa-En Kappo. Photo: Wa-En Kappo

Where did you go afterwards?

“Around 2002, I had a friend studying in Tokyo. He had an extra room and asked if I wanted to join him, so I did. He lived in an old wooden house that had a small eatery run by an elderly couple who made tempura with soba noodles. I watched them and then helped them. They were surprised I knew what to do and I told them I had some training. I helped them make meals and during my breaks I wandered around the city.”