MIKAWAYA (三河屋)

Price: $38 HKD (1 bowel of udon + tea)

Rating: 10/10 

As if all of a sudden, Hong Kong has gone from uncomfortably humid and sticky to freezing cold in the space of about a week. And no cat. 8 typhoons this year! What is going on with your weather, HK? Either way the temperature has caught me a little of guard and i've come down with a cold. After a shit night out in Soho the night before, I was grumpy and in need of some serious gastronomical pick-me-up. 

I had been meaning to go into MIKAWAYA in Hung Hom for ages. The good reviews on openrice and a couple of personal recommendations led me towards this fairly innocuous looking japanese place. Seating about 15 the place is small, but the staff are extremely friendly (and actually japanese) and the food is damn cheap. 

This place has some serious atmosphere though. Located in a grungy street in Hung Hom with not much going on, this tucked away little eatery is a real gem. I was dining alone (how sad), so only really had the chance to try one dish. The menu is fairly extensive, with different types of udon, japanese curry rice, tonkatsu, ramen and tempura dishes on offer, as well as a small selection of fresh cut sashimi. 

I felt like something a little spicy to clear my sinuses so I called upon a trusty bowl of Curry Udon, which was my favorite dish when I was staying in Tokyo. Nice bits of potato and thick chewy udon (I think they make it themselves!), with a nice spicy and thick japanese style curry sauce. For $38 it's a bargain considering how huge it is, and free green tea as well. While i'm tentative about giving Mikawaya a perfect score having tried only one dish, they've definitely got me going back. Tomorrow in fact, for lunch. And then maybe for dinner. Probably the day after that too. 

Siu Choi Wong (小菜王)

Price: $270 HKD (3 people + beer)

Rating: 6/10 

Dai pai dongs make me a little sad. Why? Because I love them. But I also realise they're getting fewer in number and I don't think Hong Kong's current generation really understands the cultural and gastronomic importance of dai pai dong. For those of you reading saying "what the hell even is a dai pai dong", it used to refer to a street dining scene with food cooked up open air on small outdoor kitchens, with a large wok burner, ice boxes full of seafood and beer (often both combined), with rickety tables and chairs. Since the local government crackdown on outdoor dai pai dongs (bloody OH&S laws...), few dai pai dongs still exist in Hong Kong, and a lot of them have been relegated indoors. 

Think about it this way. It's 35 degrees out at night, in the middle of a sweltering Hong Kong summer, with bad air pollution. You sit at a table on the middle of the street flanked by other rowdy diners doing the same, with a few long neck blue girl beers on the table, fried noodles, surrounded by friends. It's noisy, its smoky, and its so much fun. 

Siu Choi Wong is a perennially popular (and massive) dai pai dong in Sham Shui Po. There's always a line (or more accurately, a large crowd waiting on the street) but the whole place is so big the wait is never really that long. These days most of the seating is indoors, which a few tables outdoors, but given the humidity and heat caused by the open air kitchens, sitting inside isn't such a bad thing.

One thing I don't like about Dai Pai Dong's are the beer girls. Beer girls don't actually work at the dai pai dong, but they go around to tables trying to sell whatever beer they're paid commission to sell. At Siu Choi Wong, a carlsburg girl was making the rounds trying to push either Carlsburg or Asahi, which were slightly pricier than all the other options. I feel sorry for beer girls, since they work on commission, if they don't sell beer they don't get paid. Our particular beer girl used high pressure tactics like telling us how she wont get paid, how she's really upset, how the beer is really good, and she stuck around for a while (probably because we were white, and more likely to cave in). Normally, i'd pay the extra negligable amount to take whatever beer they were pushing (its like $4 HKD extra), but I don't actually like Carlsburg or Asahi. Eventually she left, but the whole situation made me feel extremely uncomfortable and guilty. We got Blue Girl, its a cheap and light locally brewed pilsener that goes great with the stir fried goodness of dai pai dong food. 

The dishes at Dai Pai Dongs are huge and designed to be shared. It's always a great place to take a big group of friends. Our first dish was a nice stir fried pork number with generous slices of green pepper, celery and chilli. One thing I love about dai pai dong dishes is that everything comes with a distinctive wok flavour. Though it sounds a bit wanky, the longer a dai pai dong has been around (and the older the woks), the tastier a lot of its dishes will be, as every dish picks up a unique flavour from the overworked and constantly sizzling large woks. 

Also another note, the dishes are very shiny because they're laden with MSG. If you have a phobia to MSG (which if you do, then you're an idiot because MSG is perfectly safe) then don't eat at dai pai dongs. For all the sane rational people out there who couldn't give a shit about MSG, the food is damn good. The beef stir fried with brocoli is great. The beef is tender and soft, and the brocoli is crunchy and fresh. 

One other thing i've noted with Siu Choi Wong is that you'll very rarely get exactly all the dishes you ordered. Sometimes it's because the menus have very dubious english translations, but I suspect more often than not the staff occasionally put the wrong thing down on the wrong table, which when you consider how huge Siu Choi Wong is, isn't the biggest of crimes. Either way you're usually going to get something good. Our third dish was meant to be Sichuan Chicken, instead we got a dish with fried tofu cubes, celery, pepper, chilli, peanuts and dried fried shrimp. Whilst I was looking forward to the sichuan chicken, this was okay, so we ate it without fuss. 

What I like about Siu Choi Wong is that it's a very local dai pai dong. You'll be hard pressed to see other gwailo here, which when the otherwise excellent dai pai dongs on tourist trap temple street are overflowing with fat american tourists taking pictures of themselves, is a nice change. It's not the greatest dai pai dong taste wise, but it's easy, it's cheap and so long as you aren't hassled too much by the beer girl (the level of harassment changes nightly), it can be very worthwhile. Come with friends. 

Branto: Pure Veg Indian Food

Price: $180 HKD (2 people)

Rating: 7/10 

One thing i've learned in Hong Kong is to not be too surprised, especially when it comes to finding good food in strange places. When a canadian friend of mine (and all round India enthusiast) recommended a 'secret' indian place she knew about in Tsim Sha Tsui that WASNT in Chungking mansions, I had to see how it stacked up. 

She wasn't joking about the secretive aspect of the place either. You go up to a locked apartment door on street level, and then wait to be buzzed in. A walk up a set of fairly dodgy looking stairs and you're confronted with a small door and a bright sign - Branto: Pure Veg Indian Food. Yep. we were definitely in the right place. Open the door and you're led into a suprisingly large dining room, with the only other people dining being fellow indians. Oh, and a bollywood drama on tv. Both good signs. 

Generous serves of typically indian condiments were placed on the table, a super spicy anise relish, a mint sauce, onion and the dark brown one - I can never remember what it is? 

My fellow food lover, claiming she wasn't feeling too hungry ordered a Masala Dosa ($44 HKD), the absolute hugest rounded crepe i've ever seen. This is very different from the Malaysian style Dosa that i've seen served in Kuala Lumpur. It was served with two spicy curries and a coconut concoction, which I tried, and was delicious. 

I on the other hand got the largest Gujrati Thali ($74 HKD) i've ever come across, consisting of 5 curries, yoghurt, coconut pudding, 5 sheets of roti, rice, a samosa and a small serve of masala cake. The whole dish was crazy big, but definitely not unmanageable. I enjoyed all the curries except for one, which was very cheesy and not all together that tasty. I also found the roti to be a bit chewy and stale. The other curries were lovely, well spiced and true to Branto's name, entirely vegetarian. The daal especially was delightful. 

We also had a masala tea, and a very well made mango lassi. So, thumbs up to branto. How does it compare to some of the veteren curry houses in Chungking mansion? Well, about the same I suppose. The benefit with Branto is that you might not be stabbed on a stairwell in the ghetto that is Chungking. 

上海飽餃店

Price: $49 HKD (4 dishes)

Rating: 10/10 

{texture / juiciness²}  + cost ≈ dumpling happiness

If one were to find a formula that described how dumplings related to human aspirations such as happiness, hope, and desire, it would not look like the above. Not just for the fact that I have no idea how to write mathematical equations, but because it'd be far more complex. 

 Take for example a fried pork dumpling, to which there are a few factors of want: softness of the skin so as to not require a great amount of chewing, crunchiness of the fried side to provide textural orgasm, and juciness in the meat to both retain heat in the dumpling , and so as not to make the meat and vegetable mixture inside too dry (but not too juicy so as to make xiaolongbao dumplings redundant).

It's a complex relationship to which formulaic and scientific analysis can be attributed to, but at the end of the day when it comes to food, we all think with our stomachs anyway. Another important factor with dumplings is cost: dumplings should not be expensive, they are very much a cheap eat, something to grab when you just feel like lining your stomach with meaty and carby goodness. Something that can be washed down with litres of cheap beer. Not only that, but atmosphere comes into play when dining on dumplings. The dingier the venue, preferably with hardly any personal space, shared tables and non-english menus makes the whole experience of actually recieving the tangible goods in front of you so much nicer. 

With the above in mind, I believe i've found the very best dumpings IN THE WORLD. 

This small 10 seater open kitchen in Hung Hom defines why I love the food culture in Hong Kong, and why I started blogging. It's cheap, it's easy, it's local and its really bloody delicious. The menu is limited to basically what you see placarded on the walls (with pictures for those of you without cantonese), every single item being dumplings except the excellent spring onion pizza. I shuffle in and find a seat (no wait, a crate) to sit on with a very small amount of table space. No one really takes your order, you kinda just yell what you want in the direction of the kitchen and they'll make a mental note of it (so far they've never forgotten anything). The staff are all very friendly, and don't at all mind my imperfect cantonese. 

First to come at me are the excellent Sheng Jiang Bao ($14HKD), big plump doughy dumplings filled with pork, scallions and soup, and sprinkled with sesame seeds. By far the most carb heavy of the dumpling repertoire, but fantastic with beer. 

The Xiao Long Bao are steamed to order, and are all made fresh each morning ($16HKD). The skin is soft, moist and imperfectly put together. Din Tai Fung devotees, get ready for a shock: these roughly made unpretentious dumplings beat the pants off the ever-reliable xiao long bao from both din tai fung and crystal jade (the king and queen of xiao long bao makers, respectively). The soup inside is well proportioned and salty, purely heavenly. The skin also doesn't droop with the weight of the soup like a Din Tai Fung example might, as the skin is a little thicker and the soup and the meat doesn't separate as much (probably due to less time under steam). These guys are so tasty that I take them without vinegar, soy, or ginger (which isn't offered anyway). 

The fried pork and chive wo tip ($14HKD) are a textural delight, soft skins that tightly hug and contort the filling, and freshly pan fried bottoms with a purposeful crunch that induce a large dopamine release in the brain. 

Lastly, the only non-dumpling item on their menu, a big hearty slice of warm spring onion pancake ($5HKD), which really is more like a pizza. Deliciously crunchy, and laced on the outside with smatterings of sesame seeds the sandy remnants of a generous sprinkle of flour through the baking process give this friendly slice a kind of italian foccacia taste. Except you're eating it with chopsticks, which isn't very italian (or easy).  

All that food for $49 HKD not only makes this one of Hong Kong's tastiest local eateries, but also one of the cheapest. Located in a fairly nondescript street in Hung Hom (map on openrice), it's a bit of a trek unless you live in the area or studying at the nearby Polytechnic Uni. For me, the trek from Kowloon Tong is worth it every single time. These guys in here are worth supporting too, they work hard all day pumping out this excellent food for not much money, in fairly cramped conditions. And here's an insider tip, if you go around 9.30PM when they close, they'll give you all of their unsold dumplings of the day for a crazy price. 

So there you have it, the best dumplings... 

IN THE WORLD.

Yokozuna (橫綱)

Price: $69 HKD (ramen + drink)

Rating: 7/10 

I've passed through Yau Ma Tei a couple of times, and each time have seen long cues outside a cool little japanese place called Yokozuna just off nathan road in a small side street. Cool funky wooden panelling and a neon name certainly sets it within the bounds of Hong Kong hipster. Also... the queue...

Hong Kongers love a good queue. But people will only queue for two reasons in Hong Kong. 1. There is free stuff being given out. 2. Queueing for really good food. One glance at the small crowd waiting outside and that's all the convincing I need to go, even if i'm not hungry. 

Seated after about 20 mins, which isn't so bad. The whole dining space seats around 12 people max. Themed like a japanese izakaya, but with less personal space. Yokozuna have a fairly large menu but the main order of the day here is ramen. I pick the 'Yokozuna' ramen (their signature dish I guess?) with a spicy bean paste (toubanjian) soup base. This'll put it fairly on par with what I ate at Ippudo a few weeks back, and at around the same price it makes for a good comparison.

The noodles are rather tough and al dente (as they should be) by default (you don't get a choice like Ippudo). Inside the soup are nice healthy slices of quite fatty pork, bean shoots, seaweed, radish and spring onion. The soup is only slightly spicy, but thick and verrrry rich. I find it much richer than Ippudo's spicy base, and though the portion sizes are around the same, you come away from a bowel of ramen at Yokozuna feeling much more full. For $59 I reckon it's definitely a good deal if you're around Yau Ma Tei and dont mind waiting to get in, just beware of the rather cramped dining conditions.