On a ferry ride from Hung Hom to North Point, HK

A tram ride at 10:30pm.

Tiny Green Kitchen 蕃薯苗 North Point Road, HK

Missed this restaurant pretty much after it moved to North Point from Quarry Bay. After this re-visit, there's no more missing. The restaurant offers a low carbon-emitting service. They don't say anything, nor respond with a nod, nor re-confirm your order. Actually quite many shops in North Point are like this. So I enjoy spending time in Mannings, Watson's here because I can avoid those sales ladies soliciting facial cleansing stuff.

1. the shop. 2. Si Zhuan mouth-watering chicken. This is just some simple hot sauce on it. Very over-priced at HK$68 for this portion. Most of all, frozen chicken.

3. Veggie rice. As seen, you can see how many veggie is in the rice.

4. Shanghai smoked fish. I didn't change any color. The first time I see an orange smoked fish. The flavour is not smoked fish anyway.

5. Stir fried veggie. 6. pan friend dumplings. Both are so so. The bill for this meal is HK$350. Amazingly cheating.

North Point Phoneix Restaurant (the original) 鳳城酒家 HK

Been here 3 years ago and that was still very good. Came back to hope for a nice authentic Cantonese dinner. Dropped to almost zero. First the pickled isn't nice. Too sweet and soft. Second their renowned deep fried chicken (HK$128 for half and it's a very small one) is awful. Quite undone inside but the skin is a bit overcooked to shrink, not crispy at all. See that so-called aromatic salt 椒鹽. See that color. It's just plain salt with very little roasted "five spice powder" in it. The other 2 dishes are just average, but if they charge it at HK$78/$50 respectively, then I wouldn't find it ok. Most of all, services are way below standard.

Harbour Grand Heen 君綽軒, Harbour Grand HK, Oil St., HK

The Chinese restaurants in Harbour Plaza Hung Hom and North Point are so outstanding that I gotta try this Harbour Grand Heen on Oil Street (Fortress Hill). However, it turned out the prefix "Grand" is just a prefix. In general, it is much lower than their fellow twins.

1. the menu. 2. BBQ pork buns HK$48. The BBQ pork is a bit dry though the sauce is very thick. It's due to their using some very dried out BBQ pork. Their dim sum ranges from at least $48 to $88.

3. Shrimp dumpling HK$88. The shrimp itself is pretty nice but the wrapping is a bit too mashy. It's due to the "reverse steamed drop" (倒汗水), as a result of a sudden high temperature drop and uncovered from from turning off the heat first. 4. steamed rice roll HK$68. Quite pitiful to see the choy sum which was tried so hard to trimmed but didn't turn out to be a nice veggie. This baby choy sum wasn't supposed to be trimmed, but the bigger one was.

5. Steamed veggie roll HK$48. The fish maw is pretty nice. 6. stir fried morning glory with preserved tofu sauce HK$88. When ordering this, I had a gentle arguement with the captain as he claimed only morning glory is now in season while I rectified with him both 莧菜 & 通菜 are summer veggie but he even didn't appeared to be compromising. The captain really needed to go to the food market and see what's happening out there. Anyway, though he claimed and suggested for morning glory, I found out quite some rotten leaves. Apparently the kitchen want the morning glory to go first. Excuse us - we are not dining at a local tea room restaurant!

7. Ginger juice crashing into Hokkaido milk HK$48. Well, it's just out of my curiosity. Texture-wise, UHT milk (in fact so far only Hokkaido UHT milk can be found in HK due to the transportation problem). UHT milk isn't the right milk for this renowned Pun Yue dessert. It should be with the milk from "water" cow as it's thicker and more aromatic. UHT is a high heat processing milk and no matter how good the milk is, after UHT, the aroma, texture and nutrients wouldn't be the same. The Chef may be looking for something to attract customers rather than looking into this magical invention by the noble families in Pun Yue.

Kuen Fat Restaurant North Point

This Kuen Fat is on Tsai Tze Mui Road 七姊妹道 in North Point and said to be a good one besides the one in Shaukiwan. It seems Kuen Fat is like Tsui King Lau whose name isn't registered.

1. the menu suggesting the Yuen Long style steamed rice flour flat noodle in clay pot 陳村粉. 2. sweet and sour spare ribs. The rib is a frozen one and chopped in very tiny pieces. The sauce is not enough to coat every ingredient though I don't always suggest heavy sauce.

3. Stir fried Kai Lan. This one is good though. At least the veggie is cut in proper size and stir fried nicely with salted fish yet to a not too salty flavour. 4. Pan fried lotus stem minced pork patty. This is also a good one. Besides the lotus stem is minced in the pork patty, a slice of lotus stem is put together with the patty to make it more crunchy and sweeter.

5. Stir fried sticky rice. The various dried sausages were used and pan fried nicely before mixing it with the sticky rice. Most of all, the rice texture was handled well. Not too hard but not too mashy.

Hoi Yat Heen 海逸軒, Harbour Plaza North Point, Hong Kong

Hoi Yat Heen, the Chinese restaurant of Harbour Plaza North Point and almost most other Chinese restaurants in Harbour Plaza Hotel (e.g. Hung Hom) are the very few restaurants which have been able to constantly provide high quality Cantonese cuisine. Almost none of the meal I have tried, since their establishments, has turned out a disappointment to me, not even this time I tried with my business associate 2 days ago.

1. Abalone and veggie dumpling (HK$48 for 3). Some may say it may be quite expensive but it's much worth it for me as the abalone (though quite tiny) did give a very nice aroma in the dumpling (who said abalone doesn't taste needs to have an exam. on his taste buds, or he may have taken some cheap or fake abalone.). The dumpling wrap is excellent! My business associate also spoke highly of this dumpling. 2. Soup dumpling (HK$45 for 3). This one is also nice but the wrap is a bit thick and it doesn't matter much to me.

3. Shrimp dumpling (HK$45 for 3) - also very nice. Their XO sauce is so good to be with this one. 4. Stir fried bean sprouts HK$88. Very good stir frying and the chicken stock for the stir frying is awesome and making the veggie so fragrant.

5. Siu Mai (pork/shrimp dumpling) HK$45 - another delight. I like the very tiny bit of fat inside of the dumpling making it so aromatic. 6. fried rice in lotus leaf - HK$108. Again, the price looks a bit expensive but the portion of this rice is almost double the size of the others. I took 4 bowls of the rice! So good - not salty at all and I can taste nice fragrance of the lotus leaf.

7. Minced pork, eggplant stewed with rice noodle HK$98. The portion of the stir fried noodle/rice is very big and next time no need to order 2 dishes (for 6 people). I took 3 bowls of this one and still almost half of it left, while the others took 2 bowls. So it turned out it's around HK$130 to 140 for each person for this meal. If we cut out one stir fried dish, it would be around HK$120. However, the food quality is much much worth over HK$300! Highly recommended!

view to Eastern Victoria Harbour, ibis North Point, Hong Kong

Ibis North Point has a panoramic view to the Eastern Victoria Harbour and a partial view to Tsimshatsui/Central if you stick your face closely to the window and turn a 90 degree leftward. So with such a panoramic view, you would think this hotel's room is at least more than HK$1,500, like most others charge for a harbour view room. The answer is it's just HK$500-600. Though the room is a bit small, considering it's a harbour view room and also the North Point subway station is next to the hotel, it's often my highly recommended hotel in Eastern HK island. The below photos were taken by Panasonic L50 (before the anti-shake was launched) and it's one of the first few models Panasonic used Leica lens.

Tsui Yuen Sweet 翠苑甜品, from North Point, Hong Kong

Brought my Taiwanese friends to this local HK dessert as well as some guests from Guang Zhou. Both sides feel that there are indeed quite some original recipes cuisine found in Hong Kong. Friends from Guang Zhou commented that the sweets they can have in Guang Zhou are just "sweet", no more aroma of red bean, black sesame or steamed milk...etc. I simply told him, Guang Zhou is like Central in Hong Kong, if you wanna get some nice local stuff, you need to go to nearby town like Pan Yu or Shun De which are famous as villages for fishes and rices 魚米之鄉. Then friends from Taiwan commented HK people cook food for a long time, such as boiling soup for at least 2-4 hours, sweet for 1-2 hours and some are longer. I replied it's because we treat eating as the top priority among all things and it's the retreat from our hassling days.

1. the shop is quite educational at introducing the five fundamental nuts and herbs medical effects on our bodies. 2. Black sesame paste - HK$10. See how smooth of this one and it's not that sweet. Tsui Yuen is famous for its sesame, almond, cashew nut and walnut pastes. Their first shop has been in North Point for quite many years.

3. This one tastes like Har Foo grass 夏枯草 to me but the mix-and-match of this one is very interesting. The Zhong Kee San HK$11, is good for taking off the cholesterol part of egg while you can take the good parts of the egg. BTW, their lotus seeds are very soft but not mashy. 4. Beancurd sheet sweet HK$7 - this is the one for aromatic beancurd sheet for those who prefer a clearer sweet soup before it gets melted.　

5. The shop is on North Point Road, where the tram gets turned into the Chuen Yueng Street market.

Hong Kong Old Restaurant (香港老飯店) 98 years old

What a contrast of today going backward to a century ago. My Taiwanese friend gave me some cash coupon for consuming in this famous nostalgic Shanghai restaurant. Her father is from Shanghai and she knows lots of Shanghai cuisine. She was surprised with this restaurant and immediately recommend me to try it. So when I walked into this shop, I noticed most of the customers are very senior and that made me like I am a kid in the restaurant. When I checked on the menu, the prices are also very "senior". Those common dishes are either $98 or $128 (like those below). If you want some more delicate dishes, it will be around $250-400 such as those shark's fin wonton soup or hot burnt pig's knuckle. However, their service is pretty good and that told why the shop is still very full. To respect the seniors, I didn't take photos of the restaurant.

1. the crispy peanuts was very crispy and not too salty. 2. deep fried spare ribs - note the spicy salt and sweet/sour sauce were served aside.

3. chicken/veggie stewed with noodle - nice soup base and the noodle is not that soft as this kind of stewed noodle would get the noodle a bit too soft. 4. Don't know why I ordered this one as it's quite Cantonese but it turned out a very nice stir-fried bean sprout. It was used with some very fine yellow wine for the stir-frying. Aromatic without a trace of bitter taste! The conpoy (dried scallop) is very selected. Not salty but very sweet and not too loose.

5. veggie/pork dumpling - wow, the soup base is nice and as I finished the wonton, I stopped the waitress from taking it away and simply told her "I really appreciated the soup left.". 6. I purposely asked for some vinegar and see if they use some fine vinegar. The answer is yes! Nice vinegar is sour to the right level, not to make you feel bitter dry. This is it! (haha... a promo. for MJ subsciously).
7. do you know why I took this one. I couldn't help with this nostalgic yellow mini towel placed on the sink. When is this year?