Pici, Cadogan Street, Kennedy Town

Have been wanting to try Pici. Came across one of their branches at Kennedy Town (G/F, Hang Yu Building, 45-55 Cadogan Street, Kennedy Town, Hong Kong) this trip and we made it happen. 

There was white asparagus on their seasonal menu that came with shaven black truffles and truffle egg mayo. Asparaguses they served were kinda underwhelming thin. Not something we'd get again if the opportunity presented itself.

Their pici with truffle and parma ham was delicious. Great bite on the pasta and the flavour from the truffle cream sauce was nicely done and didn't spring the hidden surfeit knife onto us.

Got ourselves another plate of pici in the form of their cacio e pepe. Can you see what's not right with it?

Anyways, I helped myself using their pepper mill and made it better. Nice creamy cheese. We scraped the plate clean.

Tried their seasonal sweet potato tiramisu.

Nice. Flavouring's good. There's bits of sweet potato in the cream as well.

Fermented bean curd cheesecake from A.Jennbakery

Came across this local flavour of Basque cheesecake from A.Jennbakery (Kiosk 10, 3/F, D2 Place One, 9 Cheung Yee Street, Lai Chi Kok, Hong Kong) and knew we had to get one. Fermented bean curd or 南乳 is used as marinate or direct flavouring in dishes or as a condiment. Has a strong-ish heady/pungent cheesy aroma/flavour.

Nice! 👍🏼 The flavour from the fermented bean curd was present and not overly assertive. Reminded us a little of blue cheese. Loved that the cheesecake wasn't excessively sweet and had a great velvet creaminess in the interior. 🤟🏼

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.