Eating Hong Kong: Fu's Kitchen (or Why I Can't Really Be a Food Blogger)

Ostensibly, this post is about Fu's Kitchen, a chic little dim sum bistro in Causeway Bay.  But -- cue tiny violin -- I'd actually like to take the opportunity to whine about how hard it is to blog about food.  You're hungry -- hell, everyone at your table is starving -- and the food arrives, all steamy and delicious, and what do you do?  You have to yell at everyone, including yourself, not to touch the food until you photograph it.

Steamed scallop dumplings

Then in your eagerness to get to the actual business of eating the food, you take crazy shots with your camera.

Shots that are out-of-focus,

Stir-fried Eggwhites with Crab Meat and Dried Scallops

terribly styled and composed (ew that broccoli and eggwhite look egregious),

Baked Barbecue Pork Pastries

and terribly lit.

Garlic Tofu

And in the process, you do the food an awful disservice, making even the most delicious of foods (like those fried tofu cubes above) look sad.

Braised Noodles

Sigh.  I might have to abandon this line of posting and leave the photos and commentary to the pros.

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Eating Hong Kong: Yu Sichuan

"Am I crying?" I asked my sister at one point during our meal at Yu Sichuan in Causeway Bay.  My face was numb at that point, and I wasn't sure whether I just sweating profusely or tearing up.  At one point earlier in the meal, my tongue was en fuego, but now I couldn't even feel my tongue.

There's an expression in Sichuan cuisine called "ma lat," meaning numb-spicy.  This is not your quick burn cayenne pepper kind of spicy; the pepperiness of real "ma lat" food slowly takes over your whole mouth and almost paralyzes it.  It hurts so good, and I love it, even if pepper oozes from every pore in my body for days afterwards.

We started our meal with a few tapas-like cold dishes, like this thinly sliced pork and cucumber medley.  Like all of the dishes at Yu Sichuan, this one came with a liberal dosage of chili oil and pepper paste on top.  On your first bite, you get the unami of the soy and vinegar in the sauce, but then a slow burn begins to invade your mouth.  By the second bite, you are scanning the table for the cold beverage you're going to chase the food down with.  By the third bite, you've already downed the cold beverage and are desperately signaling the waiter to bring you another drink.

Next came a vegetarian cold salad sampler, with wood ear (a fungus), braised eggplant, and cucumber.  These cold dishes are like pickles at Jewish delis -- ubiquitous, obligatory, but also an indicator of the quality and spiciness of the restaurant.  All three were excellent at Yu.  And all very spicy.

Can you see the amount of chili oil that's in this soybean salad?

Or this cold chicken dish?  And this is after we already told them to make everything "mild."

Next came our starches, which we were hoping would offer a respite from the burn.  The dan dan noodle was excellent: they make their own noodles, I think, and they were cooked perfectly al dente.  But there was to be no break from the chili.  Although you can't tell from the photo, the noodles were sitting in chili paste.  I think it was at this point that my eyes started watering.

We did order one "non-spicy" vermicelli noodle dish, which came in a clear broth.  The broth was peppery, but not overtly spicy like the other dishes.  Not initially, anyway.  We ended up dipping so many of the other dishes in it to make them less spicy that eventually the broth took on the same shade as the chili oil.

I gulped down two iced milk teas during the course of the meal.  I don't think they helped.

Here's documentation of the amount of chili oil in each dish -- and this is what was left over in the dish after we ate it.  Oy.

I know it's masochistic, but the whole meal was kind of exhilarating.  I don't run unless I'm being chased, but I'm imagining this is probably akin to what it's like to do a marathon: painful in the beginning, numbingly painful in the middle, and numbingly painfully awesome at the end.  Then you chug water, curl up in a fetal position, and ask yourself why you are stupid enough to have submitted yourself to such torture.

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Eating Hong Kong: Bo Innovation

I'm not a sciencey kinda gal; I majored in English so that I could get out of having to take any courses having to do with labs, chemicals, or mechanized doodads.  Still, I love creative approaches to food, so I'm rather intrigued by the idea of chefs working at the frontiers of science and haute cuisine.  So when I saw a segment on Chef Alvin Leung and his restaurant Bo Innovation in the Hong Kong episode of "No Reservations," I was pretty curious about his effort to bring molecular gastronomy to Chinese cuisine.

Molecular "xiao long bao" at Bo Innovation.

What finally got me beyond mere curiosity to actually making a reservation was finding out that the restaurant has a (somewhat) affordable set lunch for HK$228 (about US$30) per person.  The lunch includes a choice of two "dim sum" or "classic 'bo' dishes," an entree, a starch, and a dessert.  No way you'd ever find this at El Bulli or wd~50!

My sister, the gourmand, is not too impressed with the mosaic'd chef.

Upon arriving at the restaurant, which is on the second floor off a non-descript little street a few blocks from the Wan Chai wet market, we were greeted by a GIANT mosaic of Chef Leung, who has his self-created moniker, "the demon chef," tattooed on his arm.  The tat, dark sunglasses, muscle T . . . it's all a little pretentious, but the best artists usually are, right?

The open kitchen, with Chef Leung at work on the right.

The real, non-mosaic'd Chef Leung was actually also in the house today.  (There was some sort of film crew setting up when we were leaving, so that probably explains the chef's presence on a random Monday lunch service.)  I doubt he had anything to do with our dishes, but he did seem to be supervising fairly closely what his sous chefs were working on.  Probably a good thing, since his restaurant just lost one of its two Michelin stars this year.

The unique table setting.

The wait staff, with their dark-rimmed glasses and narrow-cut suits, looked more like Soho gallery reps than waiters.  I was pleasantly surprised, though, at how gracious and attentive they ended up being.  There were four of us dining together, and hearing of our intention to share everything, our server helpfully offered to bring us an array of the dim sum and classics so that we could sample as much as possible.

We began with the black truffle cheung fun, which is an homage to the rice flour rolls that are ubiquitous at dim sum places.  While the preparation was not that different from regular cheung fun, the black truffle gave it a rich, umami taste that was really yummy.  I could have eaten the whole plate of these.

My sister and I then sampled the famous "molecular xiao long bao," which is Leung's take on Adria Ferran's olive jellies.  Although the spherical shape on the spoon looked nothing like the classic soup dumpling, when you put it into your mouth, the ball explodes with the taste of xiao long bao.  The red strip on top of the ball is a strip of ginger that has been soaked in red vinegar; the taste mimics the vinegar and ginger condiment that is usually served with soup dumplings.  It was, in a word, awesome.

Next came "har gow" -- the classic shrimp dumpling -- with black truffle.  Truffle is truffle, so I enjoyed the dish.  But I didn't find it very memorable or creative.

I also liked the spring roll, which was filled with chicken, bamboo shoots, and pesto.  Again, not particularly innovative, but still very tasty and a good fusion of East and West.

Same goes for the cuttlefish ball with kaffir lime sauce.  Not unique or memorable, but really good.  The salt-and-pepper-flavored cuttlefish ball had a snappy bite to it, as all good meat balls should.  And the kaffir lime cream complemented the savoriness of the cuttlefish.

I was less impressed with the final dim sum offering, a cod ball with morel and EVOO.  The flavors were fine, but I didn't like the texture of the steamed fish.  It was mushy and dense, like eating polenta that's been sitting out too long.

Next came the entrees.  My mom ordered the "slow-cooked suckling pig, with Chinese vinegar and egg."  I loved the fact that it arrived in a rustic clay pot.  And my mom enjoyed the taste of it, which is reminiscent of the traditional Cantonese dish of stewed pigs feet with red vinegar.

I ordered "French quail 'beggar style' with Chinese lentil and wolfberry chutney."  "Beggar's chicken" is a classic Chinese dish in which a whole chicken is stuffed with goodness, wrapped in lotus leaves, and baked in a clay pot.  The deconstructed version at Bo Innovation uses a lotus leaf oil and a wolfberry reduction.  But while the concept is ingenious, the execution was just okay: the quail seemed overcooked and needed more moisture and flavor.

Any disappointment I felt over the quail was abated by a taste of the "langoustine with preserved duck egg, English mustard, and cauliflower risotto."  The mild sweetness of the langoustine worked beautifully with the intense savoriness of the duck egg.  This was definitely the highlight of the meal.

The dish was also gorgeous to look at, even if foam is oh-so-very 2007.

Accompanying the main courses was a Westernized version of yang chow fried rice that used a long-grained rice pilaf as the base.  It was decent, albeit not very exciting.

A greater disappointment, though, was the dessert, which I think was some sort of strawberry bread pudding.  First of all, conceptually a bread pudding is just not that exciting.  Second, this bread pudding was dense, one-dimensional in flavor, and not particularly appealing to the eyes or the palate.   Not even the tiny tart strawberries adorning it could save it, and we felt less obligated to eat it than they did to serve it.

In any other circumstance, a bad dessert would bum me out and send me away pouting.  In the case of Bo Innovation, though, the molecular xiao long bao, the truffled cheung fun, and the langoustine saved the meal.

All in all, Bo Innovation is worth a visit, though perhaps not multiple returns (unless it earns back its second star next year).  The food is, at its best, innovative and delicious, but at its worse, dull in conception and execution.  It feels like a restaurant that is a little bored with itself, capable of doing what it does well very well, but not stretching itself beyond what it has already achieved.  

Are you a fan of molecular gastronomy?  Or do you think the whole movement is played out?

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Eating Hong Kong: Jasmine at Festival Walk

Growing up in Hong Kong, I did dim sum so often with my family that I usually find the whole experience pretty monotonous.  If I never see a shumai or hargow in my life, I'd be just fine.  But there are two restaurants in Hong Kong where I really don't mind doing dim sum: Dynasty in the Renaissance Harbor View in Wan Chai and Jasmine in the Festival Walk shopping complex in Kowloon Tong.

Jasmine features a fusion dim sum menu with dishes that are as lovely to look at as they are delicious to eat.  Delicious enough, in fact, that I'm willing to take a 30-minute long subway ride and to shove my way through Hong Kong's most obnoxious mega-mall to get there.

The specialty at Jasmine is its roast suckling pig.  (I know, I know.  This is a Chewish blog.  But if I were to keep kosher in Hong Kong, I'd starve.  Plus everyone needs something for which to repent on Yom Kippur.)  Anyway, back to the piglet: imagine unbelievably crispy skin overlaying a thin, unctuous layer of savory fat and tender meat, with a slathering of the most ridiculously tasty sweet and tangy barbecue sauce on the underside of the bone.  St. Louis has nothing on this barbecue.

The suckling pig is pretty unbelievable, but perhaps even better than that is the garlic beef cubes.  The dish consists just of small cubes of filet mignon and fried garlic slices, so I lack explanation for why it's so awesome.  It probably has something to do with the marinade, which is some wicked combo of Maggi and other umami-ful magic.

THE most delectable dish, though, is the cold eggplant in sesame sauce.  Again, this is a really simple dish: cooked eggplant tossed in a sesame-flavored dressing.  But the sesame dressing (which is probably just Japanese sesame salad dressing mixed with Japanese sweet mayo) is unbelievable.  You could probably cover cardboard with this dressing, and it'll still taste delicious.  This eggplant is so good that my sister and I usually request two orders of it and still have to fight over who gets to lick the dish.

Aside from the above highlights, there are a ton of other yummy dishes at Jasmine, including an airy pumpkin layer cake that is indescribably good.  Since my interest is primarily in the dishes I can recreate at home, I leave it up to my sister, the real food blogger in the family, to acquaint you with some of the other winning dishes at Jasmine on her blog.

Are you a fan of dim sum?

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Eating Hong Kong: Tong Pak Fu

It's the dead of winter in Hong Kong.  Of course, that means that it's a near balmy 55 degrees.  Perfect temperature for shaved ices.*

I'ved raved before about the Taiwanese "snowflake ice" at Tong Pak Fu:

The "snowflake ice" is created using a special machine that integrates the flavoring right into the ice itself, so that every bite tastes like mango or green tea or chocolate . . . or whichever flavor you choose.  Also, the consistency of the dessert is more like a snowflake and less like ice: it's soft, almost creamy in texture, and very light.  The best part of the dessert is that you get to select any number of delicious "toppings" (well, more accurately, "bottomings," as they sit under the pile of ice).

Since I've got my macro lens with me this time around, I figured I'd take some decent photographs of our favorite flavors of shaved ice there.

My sister had the black sesame snowflake ice, which looks like a muppet but tastes delicious.  And I had the mango snowflake ice, with tapioca balls, chewy jelly bits called "QQ," and fresh mango.

It was so yummy I might have to go back for another today!

* I know it seems weird to be having shaved ice in the middle of "winter," but have you noticed that many of the best ice cream places in the country are in cold regions?  Boston is darn right frigid, but we've got Toscanini's, JP Licks, Emack and Bolio's, etc. etc.  And let's not forgot Ben and Jerry's comes from Vermont.

Are you an iced dessert in the middle of winter kind of person?

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