Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Prince Restaurant 王子飯店, Lee Gardens, Causeway Bay HK

Visited this restaurant a long long time ago when it first landed 1 Peking Rd. Originally came here to Lee Gardens for Lawry's but then noticed this branch just above Lawry's was opened and most of all, Lawry's was fully booked back then (monday).

1/2. appetizers. The left one is very nostalgic family cooking squash/dried shrimp節瓜蝦米 and it's the one of the top 10 family cooking in my childhood.

3. Stired fried mixed mushroom with truffle HK$88. Pretty good and very dry (but moist) stir frying. That leaves the truffle a nice frying aroma. 4. Sweet and sour pork HK$98. A bit flattered with the part of pork they used "water" pork loin 水柳. To those mom who adore their kids so much wouldn't find it a stranger and to me (esp. the recent years) it is. This is the most wanted part of pork loin because it's not "hard paper" chewy like the lean pork loin but not fatty as 柳梅 (loin with 30-40% fat which is good for BBQ pork). If you don't have an acquainted butcher, you could hardly get this part. Our dearest moms don't mind waking up for fighting for this from the market at dawn. Back to this dish, that's the exact sour level I think it's perfect. Most other restaurants often tend to make this one to 95% sweet and 5% sour. This one is at least 60% vs. 40%. Most important it's not that heavy in sauce. Just good enough to cover each piece of ingredients without any sauce left on the plate. If they put some shallot in it, it would be perfect.
5. Roasted pork HK$78. Very nice. As you can see, it's very juicy inside and crispy outside. 6. Loofah black fungas in fish stock 魚湯浸勝瓜 (BTW, do you know why it's called "win" squash in Chinese?) HK$128. At first, I doubt why it is a bit too expensive. It turned out it's worth it. The fish stock is awesome. Very sweet and not salty at all. Fish sweet but not smelly. Apparently the ginger was stir fried enough to take the "hot" taste but the ginger aroma is there to balance the fish smell. That made the loofah and black fungas so nice too.

7/8. the shop inside. Some may wonder why no dessert followed and it doesn't sound like me. It's because I wanted to save it for going to another new French choco shop just opened in Lee Gardens, called Debauve & Gallais. Unfortunately they closed at 8pm! That's why I headed to Agnes B Cafe for a light French choco.
9. place for the wine. 10. the entrance.

4 comments:

Paranoid Android said...

Yum Yum... I still have not found the "perfect" sweet and sour pork in KL yet. You are right. Most of them is very sweet and they hold back on the sour, even in KL.

Stella said...

The food looks good here.
Don't know the meaning of the "Sing Qua". Is it you have to win something before you can eat this Qua?
Cannot believe there is dessert place that can close at 8 PM in HK.

in the sea said...

So far only this restaurant gets me the one with the correct balance of sweet and sour, but a bit not too perfect they didn't put the shallot to bring more aroma.

Stella, "winning" squash is to avoid the old time superstition of the same sound "c" 絲 to 屍 (corpse). I kind of argued this with my aunt, just like at our school time and we need to buy book, we could only say buy "win", since the same sound of "she" 書(book) 輸 (lose).

Re Debauve & Gallais is an established choco. shop in France. Not sure if they follow their traditional business hour, and if the staff can retire on 60 rather than 65 (as per the HK labour law - some even proposed a self-discretionary retirement age to 70).

Stella said...

Thank you for the explanation.
So same as why the "empty" house is called "gut" house then.

Yes, French people have good and laid back life style.