Wing Kee (榮記茶餐室), Yuk Wah Crescent, Tsz Wan Shan

Wing Kee (Shop A-B, G/F, 12 Yuk Wah Crescent, Tsz Wan Shan, Hong Kong) is known for their satay meat noodles and claypot rice. We trekked uphill from Diamond Hill MTR and was disappointed to discover that there were no claypot rice dishes as it was a public holiday. 🥲 The friendly proprietor did furbish us with how to get some the next time though.

Note to self: 

• claypots only available from 5pm

• not available on Sundays and public holidays because they close at 5pm
• not available on 1st/15th of every lunar month.

First time having ginger Horlicks. Both the ginger and Horlicks were a little thin here.

That's their claypot satay beef instant noodles. It's apparently a thing for those who're in the know. For some reasons, I had the idea that the satay gravy would be viscous. It wasn't. There were bits of crushed peanuts and toasted garlic in it which added flavour and the taste was somewhat more intense, but otherwise, it was kinda similar to the regular satay beef noodles. Didn't think was bad tasting. That being said, I also probably wouldn't get them again. 

The menu described this sandwich to contain minced beef and smoked meat. The minced beef component was corned beef - which we had already guessed. But the smoked meat wasn't the sliced pink sludge that's commonly used. I'm not sure what ham this was but it was indeed a little smoky and better tasting than the regular variety.

Dinner at Kam Wah Cafe (金華冰廳)

First time getting dinner at Kam Wah Cafe. Admittedly, this wasn't one of the better dinners we've had.

Their rendition of yang zhou fried rice (扬州炒饭) had char siew, shrimps, ham and cabbage. In terms of ingredients, it looked to be much better than the majority back home. But it was too oily and a little too bland. The suitable adjective to describe it is 'edible'.

Also couldn't get behind Kam Wah's rendition of xing zhou mi fen (星洲米粉). Turmeric laced, spicy and a tad too oily. Tasted nothing like the version back home which we much prefer. Why the bell peppers? The flavour profile of this plate tasted...Portuguese.

The club sandwich (公司三文治) was a better eat than the other two things we got above. Should've just stuck to this.

Thankfully as well, their 茶走 remains a reliably good cup of creamy aromatic tea.

Tonight's a valuable lesson about how a nice breakfast spot we like doesn't necessarily agree with us during dinner. All the greasy burps we got was enough incentive telling us that we should never come back for any of their post breakfast food.

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.