Mon Kee Cafe (旺記冰室), Tung Choi Street, Mong Kok

Dinner at Mon Kee Cafe (Shop 7, G/F, Block B, Hung Fai Building, 2Q-2Z Tung Choi Street, Mong Kok, Hong Kong, tel : +852 2894 8268). These guys have a stall at The Food Place at Raffles City that's been generating a crowd that I don't understand.

Teas. The one at the bottom was ginger milk tea. I asked for extra ginger juice and after emptying the little pitcher of it, I realised how much real ginger juice it took just to get the flavour to be prominent through the tea and milk. Makes me wonder how Indian masala/ginger tea is made back home.

XO pork chop rice - decent tasting I suppose. Pork chop was tender enough that only spoon was needed to cut it. That XO sauce was pretty good with rice though. That being said, it's not something I'd look forward to again.

Our order of tomato broth macaroni came with buttered toast and scrambled eggs. 👍🏼

That's the mentioned tomato broth macaroni with luncheon meat. I ended up liking this more than I thought I would.

Coffee Jack, Hau Wo Street, Kennedy Town

Ducked into this hole-in-the-concrete (Shop 3, G/F, Shun Fai Building, 19 Hau Wo Street, Kennedy Town, Hong Kong) refuge in the middle of the day. It was quiet, dimmed down and pretty peaceful; worthy of the description 'sanctuary'.

Got a couple of espresso tonics. Left's lychee and right's cucumber. The lychee one tasted fruity but not distinctively lychee. In fact, I couldn't tell. The cucumber one was nicer because it tasted like cucumber. Decent tasting espresso but we didn't get them just for the coffee. It was the flavour and the fizz in the shady bolthole.

Sun Hing (新興食家), Smithfield Road, Kennedy Town

Have been wanting to come to Sun Hing (Shop C, G/F, 8 Smithfield Road, Kennedy Town, Hong Kong) for their dim sum a long time (read as years). Finally made it for an experience that we didn't quite see coming. The shop has some of the old school allure/vibe like Lin Heung Tea House minus the space and a noticeably more grubby setup. Be prepared to 搭檯. 😬

Cheung fun with prawns...this has light soya sauce and vinegar drizzled over. The vinegar was a mistake on our part because we thought the bottle was soya sauce but it turned out to be pretty good with the cheung fun. Happy mistake.

Siew mai with quail eggs (鵪鶉蛋燒賣). Not bad tasting.

I don't remember what this is called. It's steamed duck leg with yam wrapped in bean curd skin.

Loads of yam beneath the bean curd skin. Not bad.

Steamed radish cake was nicely done.

Check out those chunks of radish.

Wanted to know the standards of their char siew bao.

Skin's a bit thicker and denser than I imagined. Fillings of the char siew and sauce were good though.

We got curried tripe because a lot of people were ordering it. Tasted much better than how I thought it would because the curry was pleasant and the tripe was beefy. Texture's tender but pretty chewy.

If anyone's wondering, this was pig liver siew mai (豬潤燒賣). Butterflied pig liver with minced pork. The last time I've had one of these was back at Luk Yu Tea House. Sun Hing's rendition was a little gingery and tender enough to be cut by spoon. In spite of the faint ginger, I enjoyed this.

Salted egg custard lava buns (流沙包).

Nice.

劉興記 (Lau Hing Kee), Tong Choi Street, Mongkok

Heard about Lau Hing Kee which is apparently known for their sheng jian bao (生煎包) amongst other things. While they don't claim or hint to be the best ones around, their rendition was pretty nice tasting. There's a few branches of their shop and we found ourselves in the one at Mongkok (Shop D, G/F, Wah Fat Mansion, 1M-1T Tung Choi Street, Mong Kok, Hong Kong).

What's memorable here was that soya bean milk is bottomless for anyone eating here.

These were the sheng jian bao. Many people describe the well done renditions to be juicy but what metrics can one have for juiciness?

Ours were this juicy. 😬

There's vegetable rice with hairy crab roe sauce.

What one can expect is a heavy thalassic umami from the crab meat and roe laden sauce which reminded me of dried shrimps/hae bee/虾米. Loads of oil richness and crabbiness in there so the vinegar helps.

Doughman, Cheung Yee Street, Lai Chi Kok

Some loot from Doughman (G/F, Cheung Lung Industrial Building, 10 Cheung Yee Street, Cheung Sha Wan, Hong Kong). The shop became suddenly very crowded after we got in and started looking around. Anyways, pretty nice bakes. Corn pastry was nice with a layer of sweet cream (or was it custard?) beneath the corn. Tie guan yin madeleine didn't have any tea flavour.

Miching Omurice Co. (米青蛋包飯公司), D2 Place One, Lai Chi Kok

Lunch at Miching Omurice Co.(Shop 303, 3/F, D2 Place One, 9 Cheung Yee Street, Lai Chi Kok, Hong Kong). The menu's mostly omurice paired with various protein choices and carbs. There's also wagyu steak.

Pretty impressed with their thick cut ox tongue which was arguably tender. Tongue was beefy tasting. Curry was lightweight and savoury without being overly sweet like Japanese curries tend to be.

This was a serving of their hanging tender (a.k.a. onglet). Steak came with a small hill of fries and underneath those fries, were chopped up romaine tossed in vinegar that was piled on top of mashed potatoes. This plate was loaded.

Special mention goes to the corn soup and that yellow stuff with the ketchup which I had initially mistook for mustard. It's garlic butter and it kicked ass with the steak and the fries.

Pretty nice onglet.

Because of the garlic butter, I kinda overlooked these other condiments that came with the onglet. That paste-y stuff on the right was yuzu kosho.