But I digress. Anyway, Hong Kong (in Chinese it’s called 茶水攤) is my favorite Cantonese restaurant in Taipei, though sadly, they don’t seem to serve xi fan. Bummer. But, there’s still a ton of other fantastic dishes on the menu, like this rice and meat combo that my husband always orders. It’s this mishmash of fried ham and fried pork chop topped with an over easy egg (hmm, I guess if you have heart problems you should avoid this dish) served with some rice and vegetables.
I myself like to order the he fen, which are wide rice noodles served with beef (you can also get it with pork.) The beef is tender and well seasoned, and the noodles are nice and firm. Add a dash of hot sauce, and it’s perfect.
HK also serves up a variety of “小吃,” where you’ll find all the typical dim sum favorites. Definitely try their buo lo mian bao, which I actually haven’t seen at any other Cantonese places. This “pineapple bread” is their specialty, and it is scrumptious indeed. So simple, but so good! All it is is a piece of buo lo mian bao, lightly toasted – and this is the key part – with a slice of cold butter inside. The cold butter is genius, because it melts as you eat it, so that your bread doesn’t get all soggy before it comes to your table. Even though we’ve only eaten this during dinner, I actually think that this would be a perfect breakfast food.
Here is a curry squid ball/other unidentifiable foods dish that was NOT good. Do not order this. My husband decided that because there was a picture of it on the menu, it must be good, but alas, it was not. It was the equivalent of eating a sponge soaked in curry.
However, everything else we’ve ordered we’ve usually been satisfied with. The desserts are also really good. I’m not sure why, but I seem to have forgotten to take pictures of the desserts. Probably because I was too busy shoveling them into my mouth. The prices here are really reasonable as well – we usually spend no more than NT800**, and that’s because we order a lot of food. This is definitely one of those places where you can eat really well for just a few hundred NT. But before you all rush out to try this place, though, be forewarned that there is almost always at least a 15 minute wait, and they don’t take reservations. Also, the menu is entirely in Chinese. My husband and I aren’t fluent readers by any means, but between the two of us we can cobble together a decent understanding. There are some pictures that you can point to, but for the most part, if you don’t speak or read Chinese at all, it might help to bring someone who does.
(By the way, this place is in the same alley as the jin bing/beef noodle place I reviewed in a previous post, so if the wait is too much for you, you can just pop over there instead.)
Here’s a picture of the outside of the restaurant. You can see all the people waiting. That’s me in the gray tank with the bad posture, trying to use my laser eyes to burn into the minds of the people inside to hurry up and finish eating.
EDIT: *My husband read this, and he says that what I mean is actually "zhou." He says that "xi fan" is just the plain white rice congee, and that zhou is the Cantonese style one with the duck egg, pork, etc. added. But in our house it was always the other way around. Anyone care to clear this up?
**Apparently I just wrote everything in this blog wrong. Again, my husband read this and then very adamantly burst out with, "We have NEVER spent NT800 there! Never never NEVER! The MOST we've spent is 500!" Ok there. I guess I take back what I said, and the most we've spent at HK is NT500.
Hong Kong 茶水攤
Yangji Street, Alley 136, No. 6-2
(02) 2772-5252
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