Bon Bon Cafe (車品品小食), Tai Kwok Sui, Kowloon

It took us a while to find this little eatery (92 Ivy Street, Tai Kwok Tsui, Kowloon, tel : +852 2180 9655) but it was worth the effort. The seating capacity of the shop was rather small. However, the options on menu were anything but.

One of the recommended orders from the shop were their century eggs. I know they're available everywhere but we were told that these here were suppose to be pretty good. The yolk had an amazing consistency that bridged the two sliced halves of the egg. We noticed that they were also consistently presented that way for every order that was served. What I liked about it was their option to have them with vinegar and sugar, rather than the usual pickled ginger which I never eat.

Yes, that's a slab of goose liver foie gras on noodles. Rather large slice, keeping in mind that the portions of the noodles were huge. This was very very gobble-ly good. The springy egg noodles were tossed in a light oyster sauce and foie gras oil concoction, accented with just chopped spring onions. And the delicious foie.

Some sweetish pork dumplings with shrimp roe. It's a signature dumpling from Bon Bon Cafe. This wasn't mediocre per se. Honestly. It was just totally overshadowed by what arrived earlier.

Here's a mixed bowl of braised stuff. By stuff, I meant radish, chicken mid wings, rolls of tau kee stuff, pig intestines, cheese tofu, cocktail sausages and chopped beef briskets in a sweet and savoury soup. Everything was either soft, chewy or soaked up the broth well. Very awesome winter dish.

So good that we followed up with another bowl of little bag shaped tau kee stuff, sliced meat from pig's head and hidden below, pig blood cubes.

I'm had difficulty trying to put the emotions that their beef balls put me through into words. These beef balls were gristly, bouncy, filled with chopped bits of tendon; was seriously beefy tasting and reminded me of *cues a Vinnie Paul drum roll* .................... the first times I had a hamburger at McDonalds as a kid. Seriously, I shit you not. There was so much nostalgia in this innocuous looking beef balls that welled from flavour alone. I hear from the proprietress they are bought and not made in house, so somewhere in Hong Kong must sell these.

The Beef House has got nothing on these.

Very delicious and comforting luo han guo tea. Even better than any of the bottled stuff that you generally find in Chinese medical shops. There's enough of the dried crushed fruit in there to top up another glass of hot water with little dilution to the tea.