Best Eats
Our first night in Hong Kong was spent wandering around looking for place to eat which would satisfy both my meat-loving parents and the vegetarians (me, my sister and be (but he also eats seafood)). My parents reluctantly agreed to MGC since it was getting late and we were all starving from the plane ride. We ordered 5 simple homestyle dishes and every one of them was amazing - so good that even my father didn't miss the meat. We had a casserole type braised dish that i still think about to this day! MGC has an English menu that the owner always remembered to give us when we didn't arrive with my parents. And to top it all off, the prices were very affordable!
Combine MGC with overflowing street markets and yu ja guei* - that is some ultimate face-stuffing!
*"Yu ja guei" translates to "oil fried devil" but some people refer to it as a "Chinese donut," which is an understatement. Yu ja guei are about a foot long, super fried and utterly delicious. Usually they're eaten dipped in jook (rice porridge), hunched over the bowl with a spoon in one hand and a devil in another. Check out this drool-inducing picture of deep friedness.
posted by beXn @ 3:00 AM
3 Comments:
beXn,
I have a few great recipes from Kowloon if you're interested in posting them on the blog. They are from Tyler Florence. Please e-mail me and let me know. ketchumcfa@yahoo.com.
Dana
As a kid, I used to be gaga for ngow ley so (translates as "cow's tongue" something). It's a bready thing -- it just looks like a big tongue. I always considered it the sweet cousin of the yu ja gui. The only restaurant that I know of that makes it is Big Wong in Chinatown, and its splinter restaurant which is a few blocks away somewhere (maybe on Bayard?). The splinter makes smaller mouth-sized versions. They really have to be eaten hot for the oily sweetness to taste awesome.
Buddha Bodhai in Flushing makes really good fake roast pork. Might be the best in all of NYC! Unfortunately, my mom clashes with the service there, and she's convinced that the food is going downhill ("What do you mean, you ran out of pineapples? It's the beginning of dinnertime, and there are pineapples being sold all over Flushing!"), so I don't think we'll be having any family functions there anytime soon.
We've gone to Sentosa in Flushing. It's a Malaysian-style restaurant, and it's packed on weekends. I'm not sure how many good vegetarian options there are there, but some of the fish/seafood is very good, and some of the dishes are nose-runny spicy.
I think i know what you're talking about! I'll have to check out the Big Wong splinter for some fried goodness.
I recently ate at the Buddha Bodhai in Manhattan and yes, the fake char sui is awesome! It felt really fatty and rich - not exactly like the real thing but a great vegetarian alternative. I love their vegetarian "snail", which is crispy salted battered button mushrooms.
As for Sentosa, i've been meaning to head to Flushing to check it out! It was on the Village Voice's Cheap Eats list, which is where i first heard about it.
Do you know of anyone who makes really good and fresh yu ja guei anywhere in New York? Thanks for all the tips!
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