Ma Sa Restaurant (孖沙茶餐廳), Hillier Street, Sheung Wan

This old school cha chaan teng (G/F, 23 Hillier Street, Sheung Wan, tel : +852 2545 9026) serves a plethora of local comfort food. It's actually quite simple to understand what can be ordered once one figures out what they have for ingredients of the day since they're flexible with requests. Any of the starches on menu can likely be paired with any of their meats even if it's not stated.

On more than one occasion, we had walked by without realising this shop existed. The food here is relatively inexpensive, generously portioned and gut sticking.

An auntie from the shop recommended (in a strangely, almost conspiratorial manner) their fried rice with chicken and salted fish. This wasn't too bad, we could taste the salted fish on some parts of the rice rather than salted fish on just the salted fish like what many places do. While it wasn't major on flavours and didn't have very much ingredients, it was unexplainably addictive.

The rice plate that they are known for comes with a meat of choice along with trio of eggs where one could specify the doneness which are then finished with splashes of dark soy sauce. This was the char siew with sunny side up. I believe you get this with pork chops, luncheon meat or even sausages. This was awesome.

The other item that was unexpectedly good was a stir fried hor fun with char siew. What worked for me was the sparing use of the starchy sauce and the smoky aroma from the stir fried rice noodles. A Chinese stir fry that would probably be done very poorly back home. Notice the grains of meat peeking their cracks on the char siew. These tender slices are just waiting to fall apart in the mouth.

Starring Yat Lok

So, these guys have been awarded their Michelin Star last year. I wonder how many more people will flock the shop now that they're under "starlight" and it would be interesting if the quality would sustain to maintain their luminance; a Michelin Star is after all a retrospective award.

Estab De Comidas Ngao Keo Ka Lei Chon (牛記咖喱美食), Rua de Cinco de Outubro, Macau

We came over to Macau this trip to visit the ruins of Saint Paul. It was a lot more to look at than what many pictures on the web had suggested. We had time for one meal and ended up here (G/F, 1 Rua de Cinco de Outubro, tel : +853 2895 6129).  There were posters up on the shop front mentioning that they had been listed in the Hong Kong/Macau Michelin Guide for a few consecutive years; so I'm guessing they're well known, at least to the locals.

One of the items this shop was known for were their crab fat noodles (蟹黃撈麵). Man this was good, but we definitely would not have minded if there were more of that rich creamy gooey stuff to go with the noodles. Doesn't any other shop do this in Hong Kong?

We ordered some lamb brisket with rice. Apparently, the lamb briskets are only on the menu during winter and not the rest of the year.

It wasn't bad, but this was a traditional Chinese recipe where the spices used also help remove that gamey flavour from lamb. The broth was flavourful but I'm probably never ordering this again since I couldn't taste much lamb. 

Po Lin Monastery Vegetarian Restaurant

We made a day trip to the monastery and the giant Buddha statue at Lantau so it made sense that we stopped over at their vegetarian restaurant for lunch. This came from the deluxe meal ticket and the food was unsurprisingly very tasty. I liked most if not all of the things they had served, even those Chinese mushrooms that I normally don't enjoy. And I blame them for making me ask for seconds of their delicious steamed rice.

Sister Wah (華姐清湯腩), Electric Road, Tin Hau

Sister Wah (G/F, 13A Electric Road, Tin Hau, tel : +852 2807 0181) has apparently been compared with Kau Kee; both in their standings of well regard that places them as the top dogs of beef brisket noodle vendors in Hong Kong. I didn't think very much of the latter location some years back when I tried their noodles. Here's a trip to the former.

What I found odd about the particular bowl of noodles that we had was that it was really oily. It wasn't the case for everyone else and we were a little disturbed by it. After skimming off all the grease, it was a rather enjoyable bowl. The briskets were tender and the rice noodles were light and smooth.  

Their curry beef briskets were equally tender, but I couldn't get past feeling that the salty curry was saturated with MSG. But - their vegetable rice was really good. Good like it was the best thing I remembered of Sister Wah and would be the one thing I would be looking forward to if I ever came back.

Lung King Heen (龍景軒), Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong

There were a couple of reasons for visiting Lung King Heen (Podium 4, Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, 8 Finance Street, tel : +852 3196 8880). They're the first Cantonese restaurant in the world to receive 3 Michelin Stars. They are as of this year, still the only Cantonese/Chinese restaurant to do so. Bo Innovation does not count. I wanted the experience or a close semblance to the actual experience. That and a couple of people I know have recommended me to give it a go so, here I was.

I get it that this was dim sum and isn't an accurate reflection of how an experience could have been like for say, dinner. Still. 

That's the steamed shrimp and crab meat dumpling with egg white. Not bad, I could identify that it was crustacean meat even though I couldn't tell it was crab or shrimp or even that it had egg.

If there was any point of equilibrium where one could consider as balanced in terms of flavours for siew mai, I suppose these here would qualify. Honestly, we liked them.

I've generally never been a fan of abalone but these whole mini abalone tarts seemed to the one of the pastries that LKH is known for. I guess they weren't too bad. The pastry was especially buttery.

And those are baked bbq pork buns with pine nuts.

Not bad too, but they could have omitted the pine nuts and I wouldn't have known. I thought that the only thing we could taste apart from the char siew were bits of onions?

That's the Lung King Heen Appetizer Combination. That's from left to right; roast goose, suckling pig and barbeque pork with honey. There was a four appetizer combination platter, but the last item was jellyfish so I decided it wasn't worth the money. That barbeque pork was tender, fat laced and the meat grains fell apart easily in the mouth. The favourite of the platter. The rest was unfortunately, quite mundane.

The other item I was recommended was their lobster fried rice with seafood. It's quite nice, very competently fried and what would be impressive for most was that there were actually chunks of lobster that you could identify by taste. Each grain was well coated and there was a medley of textures from the rice the greens and the seafood. Nice, but rather pricey. I wouldn't have minded eating this again if not for the fact that I actually needed to plan for some months in advance to get a table here. 

That's a dessert of bird's nest with double boiled egg white custard. A signature dessert of Lung King Heen. Again, all I could say was nice. But I've had better done bird's nest than most of the rest of the world, so very little outside impresses me.

And a closing of their petit fours of osmanthus flower jelly and Chinese walnut cookies.

I kept my expectations really low and so I left with little disappointment. The service was commendable. It's been a while since I have had any that were at the level that Lung Keen Heen provided. The servers could actually answer questions, were very polite and knew now to manage a discreet distance while paying attention.