Tag Archives: Chinese cuisine

Tsui Hang Village 40th anniversary dim sum review – there ain’t no school like the old-school

tsui hang village hong kong char siu

Sometimes, there ain’t no school like the old-school – so long-standing Canto restaurant Tsui Hang Village is making like Kylie and stepping back in time to celebrate their 40th anniversary in the best possible way… with delicious retro Hong Kong dim sum! Now I can’t claim to remember all of these nostalgic classics from the first time round – but what I can attest to is that most of them are downright delicious!

tsui hang village hong kong 40th anniversary

I’ve been to Tsui Hang Village before for dim sum and have to say that they really do nail it here; unlike many of the other chains in Hong Kong (THV is owned by dining empire The Miramar Group), all their dim sum is prepared in-house, by hand and fresh-to-order – and it totally shows. There’s a certain lightness of touch to even the heaviest of dumplings here – you don’t leave feeling like a char siu bao boulder has plummeted to your stomach, nor do you feel the need to glug down litres of water to combat MSG overload.

Having said that, it soon became clear why this old-school dim sum might have fallen out of fashion over the years… lots of these dishes are pure heart attacks in dumpling form! Oh well, the most delicious food often is (she says, scoffing piles of bacon followed by deep-fried ice-cream), right?!

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Red Pepper restaurant review – the spice of life

Ask my boyfriend what his favourite restaurant in Hong Kong is and his answer may well be Red Pepper.

Red Pepper has been a staple of Hong Kong’s dining scene for years. It’s the kind of place that old-timers in HK for flying visits make a point of visiting, the kind of place businessmen take clients for impressive banquets and the kind of place that tourists get told to try. Consequently, some of my local friends shake their heads and complain it’s only for ‘gweilos and expats’, with its Sichuan dishes geared towards Western tastes. Oh well, leave it to the gweilos and expats then, as that means more prawns for us!

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Grand Cuisine Shanghai Kitchen restaurant review – bao down for the best xiao long bao in Hong Kong!

Now for a blog that’s short on pictures but long on love… a review of one of my favourite restaurants in Hong Kong, Grand Cuisine Shanghai Kitchen.

My boyfriend has a stock list of restaurants he suggests whenever I ask where we should go for lunch: McDonalds, Subway, Burger King, Express Teppanyaki and instant noodles from 7-Eleven. Yup, he’s a classy sort. So imagine my surprise when one day, having been dating him and asking this same question for at least 18 months, he suddenly threw ‘Shanghainese’ into the mix.

Which Shanghainese did he mean? Hong Kong has its fair share of good but now overrated Shanghainese joints – the New York Times apparently reckons that the Michelin-starred Din Tai Fung is one of the ten best restaurants in the world (I can think of ten better in Hong Kong!) and it regularly features on blogs battling for the title of ‘best xiao long bao in HK’ with another Shanghainese called Crystal Jade (curiously neither actually originate from China). In fact, he meant neither of these places and his choice of Grand Cuisine, tucked away near his old work place in Quarry Bay, has xiao long bao that blow those two out of the water.

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