Torimomo shichimi yaki teishoku from Suju

We have a thing for Suju. They aren't cheap but the food's always been good without resorting to being fancy.

That's their torimomo yaki with shichimi. Charcoal grilled deboned chicken thigh with some sea salt and pepper. Japanese pepper to be precise. Skin was crisp and meat was tender and so moist. This was some seriously amazing grilled chicken.

The tray of their refillable rice and miso soup. Topped up with a raw egg that was stirred into the steaming hot rice for good measure. 

Maxim's Jade Garden (美心翠園), Hong Kong International Airport

So this is the end. For this trip.

Knowing that there wouldn't be much to look forward to on the flight back we loaded up on some food before catching that flight. Jade Garden (8/F, Terminal 1, Hong Kong International Airport, Chek Lap Kok, tel : +852 2186 6068) from the Maxim Group looked like it was convenient. 

We tried their abalone siew mai. The abalone was delicious but the rest of the dumpling was kinda boring. Had many a better one back home even, not to mention that this was still Hong Kong. It's not bad per se. It had just a disappointing ball of minced meat packed into the skin which had no layers of flavours of good siew mai.

Char siew pau was passable. I could eat it, but I wouldn't recommend it. Not getting much of those flavours from the stuffings which were also pretty dry.

The menu mentioned that this was fish maw and chicken wrapped in bean curd skin. There was pork as well. Bean curd skin was chewy so it all unravelled as I tried to bite them.

Some obligatory har gow were ordered. It was edible.

So, pan fried radish cake again. These were okay too. If you hadn't been catching on, everything was just okay. For the prices they charged, above average quality would be the reasonable expectation.

We ordered their e-fu noodles because it sounded like it might be good. The portions turned out to be humongous. The noodles were all underneath the gravy if anyone was actually wondering. Gravy that was filled with bits of crab roe and crab meat. I was suckered into this as the dish was supposed to be flavoured with hua diao wine (花雕酒). 

Tasted none of that. I felt duped. The gravy was also surprisingly bland. The only thing that helped us finish this was pepper. The other condiments seemed to be chargeable. Can you believe that?

The Ichiban Mega Don from Yoshinoya is still around

We were still able to get this huge beef bowl at Yoshinoya. Seems like a permanent fixture on the menu then. Yum! What's interesting is that Yoshinoya here serves hot pots and those things seem to be pretty popular.

Getting the sweet bean curd

As far as local desserts go, this tou fu fa (豆腐花) was one of those that I could eat repeatedly. With evaporated milk and a generous spoonful of yellow (or is that considered brown?) sugar. And yes, it's from that same shop in Mongkok. I wouldn't know if they are the better ones because I haven't really tried much of others. But this one works for us.

Tai Hing (太興), Tung Choi Street, Prince Edward

We've seen Tai Hing around. Never gave them much thought because of their ubiquity as a chain of roasted meat restaurants. But we ended up in this particular one (Unit C, G/F Kai Wan Building, 142-146 Tung Choi Street, Prince Edward, Hong Kong) for dinner one day and hooked up with a plate of their 8 treasure rice. Or at least that was that I remembered/interpreted of it. It's a sample of their roasts and meats with rice. We were hungry - it didn't taste too bad. But nothing was particularly outstanding.

Maybe a sampler of meats isn't the way to go here because we've seen nicer looking plates of roasted meat on rice going around.

Fried egg and luncheon meat with rice was definitely one of the safe options to go when hungry.

And yeah, ice cold milk tea undiluted by ice!

Warm sugar cane juice

We discovered these a few years back and they seem to be available during the colder seasons. Awesome stuff. I don't know if it's just imagination at play but we definitely felt hydrated after chugging down a bottle of these things. Just be sure to ask for the really warm ones.