Gorgeous by night too
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Nice!
IMHO, any ’ head-on ocean prawn ’ dishes in HK are a must have!!
BTW, my favorite ’ Spiced salt and pepper fried prawn ’ dish in HK was from ’ Fung Lum ’ …previously located in Tai Wai, NT. They have moved to Wan Chai and besides the prawns, their Sha-Tin style roasted pigeons are awesome too!
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Looks like it’s a block over from SiJie where we ate the other day.
(I am the only one sucking prawn heads around here)
Plan was Maxim’s for cart dim sum today, but our solo and departing vegetarian wanted to join and I wasn’t sure about viable / plentiful vegetarian options there so we switched to Paradise Dynasty for Shanghainese to scratch my xlb itch.
It was a new spot for my HK friend, who loved it, as did the vegetarian. I thought everything was well-prepared and flavorful.
We ate:
Spiced boiled peanuts and water chestnuts (complimentary)
Pork xlb
Vegetable dumplings
Scallion pancake / pastry
Lettuce rolls with sesame sauce
Pork and prawn wontons in chilli oil
Fried rice with preserved vegetables
String beans with preserved vegetables (no pork)
Shanghai braised pork belly
The boiled peanuts were so tasty!
The xlb were nicely made with flavorful soup. I went with the classic, with the intent to order the crab roe ones later in the meal, but by then we had eaten too much.
The lettuce rolls were new to everyone, and lovely and refreshing because they were served very cold.
The sauce on the wontons was perfectly balanced, and very different than the Sichuan versions we’ve eaten a couple of times. Wontons themselves were lovely too.
The pork belly was perfectly cooked and the sauce was well-balanced — not too sweet, not too heavily spiced.
The rice was surprisingly good — surprising because we had them leave off the egg and shrimp in the actual dish for the sake of the vegetarian.
The vegetable dumplings had an extremely flavorful filling, another hit.
And finally the scallion pancake was a different style, with scallion filling rolled into a cylinder of flaky pastry that was then rolled into a pinwheel.
There was finely shredded ginger and a flavorful but not very spicy chilli oil at the table.
Very successful meal, even with the vegetarian consideration. In fact the vegetarian absolutely loved the meal.
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Today might have been my best day of eats – or at least the most fun day of eats.
I met a friend of a friend who lives in HK to wander around a bit and eat some of the things I haven’t gotten to yet.
We explored the escalators and environs a bit.
Picked up roast goose and char siu at Yat Lok (which we ate later with dinner at home). Sooooo delicious! Goose tastes pretty similar to duck to my palate. The char siu was moister and more delicious than any I’ve eaten so far.
Went to Base Hall 2 to relax and graze on several interesting things after that.
Twins Liangpi
— Signature cold steamed potato noodles (cold “skin” noodles) (paging @DaveCook) - absolutely fantastic!
— Spicy lotus root cubes - ditto!
— Diced oyster mushrooms in house sauce - and again!
Ah Chun Shandong Dumpling
— Lamb and scallion dumplings - and again!
— Shredded potato noodle - and yet again!
— Spicy shredded chicken cold noodles - I didn’t love this, but it’s the only dish my friend ordered, so I hope she liked it more than I did
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Outstanding! I have the feeling you might not come back home! Gorgeous food and good company!!
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Haha! Trip is almost done. What have I not eaten yet? Gotta check my list!
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Hong Kong French Toast is quite popular at a few upscale brunches in Toronto lately.
Some fancier versions enhanced with pandan, others are enhanced with black sesame. Have you seen that around? (My apologies if you posted a photo and I missed it! 
)
https://www.tatlerasia.com/dining/food/best-french-toasts-in-hong-kong
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On the way home later (with the home group), we stopped somewhere for street eats for the first time.
Shumai - street version, not dim sum version
Fish balls - ditto
Waffle cakes
The spicy sauce they used was delicious, and different from others I’ve had.
The waffle cakes were very mildly sweet, but fresh and crunchy.
Fish balls are not my things, and I wasn’t expecting to like the doughy street shumai — but then I did.
We also stopped by Happy Bakery again for more…. SPONGE CAKE! And I picked up curry puffs and chicken pies for us to snack on before dinner (because we really need MORE food 
). The sponge cake was stellar again, and my hosts loved the savories which were new to them (what?!)
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WOW!!! NICE JOB!! 
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Please note that I bought FOUR sponge cakes this time, cut them up into bite size pieces for dessert alongside tea.
I had to take a call for an hour, and when I returned, there was no sign of any cake or cake plate or even crumbs. When I inquired as to the whereabouts of the rest of the cake, my friend who is hosting us gave me a sheepish little grin .
So, more sponge cake soon. I am glad everyone else here loves it as much as I do now!
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I think I’ve eaten all the food available at this point, or at least it feels like I need to fast for a couple of weeks
We went to Din Tai Fung today because my friend wanted me to try the xlb there, which she said are vastly better than at the US locations (at which I am not a fan of the xlb).
We got truffle xlb, crab roe xlb, prawn and pork wonton soup, vegetable dumplings, soy and seaweed salad, green beans with pork, noodles with scallion oil, prawn and pork shumai, and spicy wontons.
The crab xlb were tastier than the plain pork ones, but it hasn’t changed my mind about DTF xlb in general. The soy and seaweed salad was delicious. The rest was tastier at other places (mainly Paradise yesterday).
I stopped by another goose place for goose and char siu to freeze to carry with me, and it was also very tasty, so I don’t know about “best of” anything after all
Then a stop at a bakery I was walking by to pick up more sponge cake for dessert, plus egg tarts for some folks who had not tried them yet.
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Dinner was ALL THE THINGS from a cha chaan teng, brought home for us by my friend (ordered by his assistant from their 3 favorite spots).
This reminded me of food from the tiny greasy spoon Chinese spots that are ubiquitous in nyc.
We had fish in black bean sauce, pork chops with noodles, chow mien type crispy noodles with pork and vegetables, beef chow fun, salt & pepper tofu, mixed greens, and pork and shrimp wantuns that we ate with drinks first.
Finished with James Bon Bon sponge cake and egg tarts — the egg tarts were better than Happy Bakery’s, the sponge cake just a shade worse but still delicious. Plus a nice Sauternes.
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Yum.
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Mouth watering deliciousness!
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Awesome reports!
Just be careful. We got home from Norway yesterday and there was an announcement on the plane admonishing the import of meat and fruits when we landed at Logan.
ETA: It was the first time we’d heard that coming back from Europe (after 12 trips, this our 13th). Maybe it’s an SAS-specific thing?
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I never heard US customs ever allow people bringing back meat and fruits. They confiscate it every time if they find out.
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I’m flying to India.
(But also, I do often carry stuff back and forth, though much more cautiously since global entry. Always cooked and frozen.)
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Amazing trip and now you leave for an arguably better food destination!
