I don't get out to Cheung Sha Wan much, but if I needed a reason, Sun Wah Cafe 新華茶餐廳 would be a good one. Their egg tart is one of the best flaky ones I've had in Hong Kong. Baked in-house, the trays sell out almost as soon as they reach the front of the shop, so you're almost always assured of a warm one.
As you might know, I've been writing a column called 25+ for the South China Morning Post's 48 Hours Magazine for a while now. The column features one restaurant a week that's over 25 years old. Basically I go in and ask old-timers (where possible), or second, third generation operators about the past, present and maybe future of the restaurant.
The column is pretty short, and sometimes I get really interesting stories and details from the interviewees that won't all fit into the column, so I thought I'd share my notes here, instead of having them sit in my notebook as illegible scribbles... Hope you enjoy them as much I enjoy speaking to these folks. I'm filing these posts under 25 Plus Plus.
The lovely refurbished Cheung Hing Coffee Shop, on the ground floor of a beautiful building built in 1950; expensive car illegally parked outside. So Hong Kong.
Just a couple of years ago, Cheung Hing Coffee Shop 祥興咖啡室 was a rundown cha chaan teng that people wanted to love but just couldn't, because the food was awful and the place was falling apart. When I called to schedule an interview, the lady in charge wanted to make sure I knew it was under new ownership now - indeed I did, and I was desperate to know the story. Some of my favourite stories for 25+ have been small businesses taken over by people with a vision - it's heartening to know that Hong Kong's heritage will not die out completely in my lifetime.
Inspired by Jason's post on Lau Sum Kee, one weekend, Jen and I went to Sham Shui Po, western Kowloon, just a little further west from Mong Kok.
The morning before we were due to meet, I trawled Openrice and the wider internet for tips on where to go - because we weren't gonna go all the way out there* just for a plate of noodles!
*ok, it's not that far - very convenient by MTR actually.
My Sham Shui Po "map", if you could call it that. How about "Artist's Representation of SSP"?
So I drew up a crappy map (I would have printed a Google map, but I don't have a printer at home... is that weird?) and wrote the names down in my kindergarten-Chinese handwriting and set off.
Lau Sum Kee
48 Kweilin Street
Lau Sum Kee is known as one of Hong Kong's last remaining wonton noodle shops that still kneads their dough using a huge bamboo pole.
How it works: there's a huge bamboo pole on a lever of sorts that goes above a table. Dough is put on the table, under the pole. The noodle maker rides the pole and bounces on it rhythmically to flatten out and knead the dough. (However I say it, it sounds scandalous, but trust me, it isn't. Or don't trust me and watch the Youtube video above.)
[edit: thanks to Miki in the comments below for reminding me to say that you can't actually see anyone doing this at Lau Sum Kee - well, at least we didn't when we went... Also, another place that supposedly does bamboo noodles is Wing Wah in Wanchai. The noodles there are less bouncy and more pasta-like though, and similarly, I never see no poles.]
I know it's not fair to judge a restaurant after having tried 2 things at the opening cocktails and one lunch, but as far as judgment on a purely personal am-I-gonna-come-back-if-I-had-a-choice grudge goes, my mind is pretty much made up for now.
Sous vide char siu and egg rice
About 3 years ago, when "organic" hit our local wet markets, my mom bought some choi sum for about 1.5x the price of normal choi sum, and stir-fried it for us for dinner one night, without telling us it was organic. As we dug our chopsticks into the jade green mountain of veg, I still remember dad and I saying almost simultaneously, "hey this choi sum is good, where did you get it?". In the dark days prior to this moment, we had sadly gotten used to the taste (or lack thereof) of a proper choi sum. This one was a sweet, fresh, juicy (oh yes) awakening for our palates.
Since then, when people say, "all that organic and healthy stuff is bland", that's the example I quote. I do believe that organically farmed vegetables have great potential to be hyper-tasty.
