Andrew C.
Yelp
In Apr 2016, my best friend and I and her boyfriend had came to HK for a visit after a week in Korea. My mom had been planning with her old friend of 30+ to prob 40+ years to take us to Sai Kung for a seafood dinner. Since its been 10 years i've been to HK, i had forgotten how crappy of a drive it was to get to Sai Kung. I knew it was fairly inaccessible unless by private vehicle or small bus. One major thing i had forgotten was how much seafood cost in HK (more about this later)
When we had arrived, the restaurant and the area had a small parking lot which was full by the time we got there. We had reservations and the restaurant took care of getting the cars parked. When we had arrived, i had not recognized the area as it was a little bit away from the actual known area of Sai Kung, with the arch way, market, etc. When we were waiting for my friends, we had looked at the menu (or lack of) and noticed this restaurant was a ONE MICHELIN STAR RESTAURANT AND IT WAS RECENTLY AWARDED IT either last year or this year ! holy crap $_$ ! When my friends arrived, we were taken around the side of the restaurant to their many tanks of fresh live seafood for us to pick. I LOVE how you get to go pick your own seafood but not being the person to pay and essentially host and what not, even when they asked what i wanted, i kinda pushed them off and let them do the ordering xD
What we ended up getting was their popular fried salt & pepper tofu, popular fried scallop fritters, geoduck sashimi, soy sauce large prawns, award winning fried fresh abalone, black bean razor clams, mantis prawn (not sure style, maybe similar to bei fung tong? as it had salt pepper fried garlic chili).
First thing first. EVERYTHING IS FRESH. as noted before. FRESH AND LIVE ! Naturally sweet and tender
Salt & pepper tofu was the best ive ever had. Fried logs of tofu but without a thick batter and lightly seasoned with salt and pepper. As noted by the waiter, fried scallop fritters (limited amount per day apparently), were decent. Fresh and nicely fried. Crispy outside with much chopped scallops inside. Not overcooked so scallop was nice and tender, and not chewy.
Geoduck Sashimi ! GEODUCK ! for those who dont know what a geoduck is, its essentially a large clam with a long long siphon that can be up to a few feet when relaxed. (google at your own risk - dont do it at work LOL) Super fresh ! Sweet slices of flesh ! Has a nice crisp texture as what fresh raw geoduck has. In the states, they usually would take the body (in the shell) and make a congee or soup, and sashimi the siphon.
Soy sauce large prawns - super delicious. fresh large prawns. not overly salty from too much soy sauce. perfectly cooked. meat was nice and tender. Amazing for something so simple. But its always the simple things that are hard to master and do well right? :P
Mantis Prawns - lightly fried with salt pepper and GARLIC . love garlic. mantis prawns are something fairly rare to see in the states. Yeah you can get them but so expensive ! ive been waiting years to have this again! oh man it was yummy ! if you think a large shrimp is big, you've never seen a mantis prawn. as the name states, it does have mantis like claws but unlike a shrimp that is short to curl into a ball, this is MUCH longer in size
Fried fresh abalone - according to the waiter, this is the item that got them their one Michelin star ! As this is fresh abalone, not much prep is needed in comparison to dried abalone (which is MUCH MUCH more expensive and painful to prep - rehydrating, cleaning, braising, making a stock to make a sauce, etc). When i first heard fried abalone, i was like WAH SO WASTED ! but boy was i surprised, and what a way to prepare. Like their tofu, the batter is very light. And seasoned well. Shape of the abalone is very much retained. A normal knife cuts through like butter. My god was it tender. Bravo and congrats to this restaurant for this dish. Fresh clean taste as all other fresh seafood. mmMMmm
Razor clams in black bean sauce - surprisingly the plating of this dish was underwhelming in comparison to the other dishes. Very sloppy. As if they took the meat from the razor clams, cooked it, then plopped it back in the middle of nicely laid shells. Flavor was very nice as usual.
Dessert was provided of 3 different flavors of chinese style custard cubes. Forgot what they are but yummy at least XD
Service was amazing throughout the time we were there. Had a "VIP" room as well with another table that didnt arrive till much later in our meal. Very attentive service.
Total cost for this meal was $4,200 HKD which translates to over $500 USD. As mentioned in the beginning of this post, i have not been to HK in 10 years. I had forgotten the cost of seafood here. Apparently it was in the 3s when i last came here according to my aunt. Worth this price? maybe not. Experience? pretty good. Another thousand for michelin star experience? eh not bad. Lol