Fettucine, Chinese style - Yat Woon Min

Pork cartilage braised in soy and grapefruit/yuzu sauce on wide noodles

The title says it all. These al dente ribbons are about 2cm wide and go awesomely with a range of rich sauces/toppings, from the classic zhajiang mian (spicy mince, or what I call Chinese spag bol) to pork cartilage cooked in yuzu sauce (think yuzu marmalade). For offal fans, there's plenty of that too. If you're looking for comfort food, this is it. In case you think it's a bit "dry" (us Cantonese often like our noodles in soup), they're always served with a bowl of slightly milky-coloured, peppery pork soup - more like a light consommé, though it's not to everyone's taste.

Yat Woon Min's new 'dry' laksa

It was good, but needed a 'spark'. Maybe an intense prawn or chicken consomme, a squeeze of lime and some belachan. It's a little to thick and heavy to mix around but they serve it with the usual bowl of peppery pork soup so if you ladle a little in, it'll loosen it up nicely. If I was a picky b*tch, I would say the addition of pulled chicken 'shreds' and better quality fish cake would have made it even better (who am I kidding, I am a picky b*tch), but overall it's pretty good. I questioned myself internally re: the sole use of thick egg noodles (i.e. no rice vermicelli - I like my usual laksas 50-50), and came to the conclusion that in this dry form, thick is best as vermicelli would break too easily in the weightier sauce.

This dry laksa is apparently limited to 30 bowls per weekend, but I only knew after I read a little press release on the door as I was leaving - I had no problems asking for it - it was just on the specials blackboard.

Onsen egg

People also rave about their sha cha sauce (think peanut + spicy Chinese miso), and wine-marinated 'onsen' egg (gooey yolk). Being a non-chilli person, I still think the former needs more chilli, and as for the latter, I like the gooeyness, but the wine doesn't really seem to add to it. It's not often that I say no to alcohol, but forget about the wine, I say, and just give me a plain ol' gooey onsen egg.

Yat Woon Min
93 Wharf Rd.
North Point
Hong Kong
+852 2578 0092


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