HK2: Yung Kee with Friends

Everybody knows Yung Kee in Hong Kong. On our first day in Hong Kong, we had the pleasure of catching up with some wonderful friends there for dinner. We were quite lucky to even get a table, as it was nearing Chinese New Year, but my friend Katie knew the folks there.



Here are the famous century eggs - so beautiful and tasty. I can fully understand why some people go to great lengths to bring some home by air.



Gorgeous braised pork belly. The picture says it all. It's as delicious as you can imagine!



Yung Kee is famous for its signature roast goose, but that's not what we had. We decided to try something else, which also came recommended. A claypot stewed goose with goose blood (at first I thought it was pig's blood). Robustly flavoured but not too gamey. First time I've ever had goose blood too - it was quite unusual.



We had these on the side, which made great palate cleansers. Some variant of cured melon strips, I think.



And another first for me - sea cucumber innards! These longish intestines were fried and salted like calamari. I can't quite describe the taste, but the texture is amazing - both chewy and crunchy. Whoever first ate these must have been brave. Sure proves that the Chinese won't waste anything. I think the Japanese eat these too (konowata).

It's amazing that sea cucumbers can expel their intestines when they feel threatened, and grow a totally new set in 50 days. But I don't think that's how they are harvested.



And on to more normal fare - some very good lap cheong (Chinese sausages).



Eggs, softly scrambled with large juicy prawns and chopped scallions. So delicious and comforting.



Beef with Kailan - probably our only vegetable appearance. They use tenderizer as with most Chinese restaurants, but it's still very tasty.



Some nice crab claws to round up the meal.



We had an assortment of desserts. I loved this red bean jelly.



Mini egg tarts. I thought these were even better than Tai Cheong's (although they have different crusts).



This red bean soup is fragrantly perfumed with dried orange peel (I normally don't like orange peel, but it was so good here). It's the best red bean soup I've ever had.



We had such a fun evening catching up. I'd met up with Katie when she was in Singapore earlier, and this time, we managed to round up more people whom I had not seen in almost 20 years, since the good old days of school. Nice to see that they have all done well for themselves and are such lovely, happy people.

Thank you, guys, for the wonderful dinner! And by the way, happy birthday, Katie! Just a coincidence I decided to publish this today and then I found out it's your birthday!


YUNG KEE
32-40 Wellington Street
Central, Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2522 1624
Open daily 11.00am - 11.30pm