HKYK Seafood Hot Pot Restaurant 香港英記
I think the quality of food at HKYK varies quite a bit. Many times it got so bad that I swore I would not eat here again, but my parents like to come here for cheap dim sum at $1.99 per dish. I guess that is pretty cheap... My dad ordered steamed shrimp dumplings (蝦餃). He always orders that when we go for dim sum. I don't mind it, but I don't find frozen shrimps stuffed in a glutinous skin very interesting. The dumplings were pretty much flavourless, so I had to eat them with chili oil.
Another of my dad's favourites is the steamed sticky rice (糯米雞). It's pretty much a lump of sticky rice with little bits of meat and diced up veggies and mushrooms inside. The whole thing is wrapped in a big lotus leaf. I tried a bit of it, but I found the rice to be too soft and mushy and wet.
My mom always orders congee. This time she decided to try the sweet potato, taro and spare rib congee (番薯芋頭排骨粥). I didn't try this, but according to her there were only sweet potato and spare rib with no taro at all.
One problem with most dim sum places is that the dessert never comes at the end of the meal. And I end up having to resist eating it before the other food arrives. The name of this dessert is literally translated as chrysanthemum pastries (菊花酥) because each pastry is in the shape of a chrysanthemum flower. There could be a variety of fillings for this pastry including sweet red bean paste, but HKYK chose to use taro paste. I liked this dish quite a bit because the pastry was flaky and nicely layered, and the taro filling was not too sweet. The taro paste was not very smooth, but I liked it that way because smooth pastes require a lot of oil.
Whenever I come to HKYK, I always get the sweet almond tea (生磨杏仁茶) because it's not available in most dim sum places. I wonder why I keep ordering this even though it tastes worse every time. This time was particularly bad... There was some yellowish white stuff floating on top.
Then we had steamed rice rolls with dried shrimp and green onions (蒸蔥花蝦米腸) ($2.50). It was not bad, but there weren't a lot of shrimp and green onions. I didn't like it much because it was so bland.
The last dish we had was the baked BBQ pork bun (菠蘿叉燒包). I know it looks pretty nice, but it must be one of the worst I've had. The bun itself had a really poor texture as if it were made from a dough with very little flour. It tasted slightly damp and gummy, and a bit undercooked. The filling was a few small bits of BBQ pork with a lot of BBQ sauce that had congealed to form a red jelly. It was really disgusting, so I picked out all of the filling and just ate the bun. The only good thing about this dish was that the buns had just come out of the oven and were still piping hot.
So out of the 7 dishes we ordered, I only liked the chrysanthemum pastries. My conclusion is that this is a good place if you want dim sum for a really low price and don't care about the quality. I'm not coming back unless my parents drag me here again, which is probably going to happen eventually.
Another of my dad's favourites is the steamed sticky rice (糯米雞). It's pretty much a lump of sticky rice with little bits of meat and diced up veggies and mushrooms inside. The whole thing is wrapped in a big lotus leaf. I tried a bit of it, but I found the rice to be too soft and mushy and wet.
My mom always orders congee. This time she decided to try the sweet potato, taro and spare rib congee (番薯芋頭排骨粥). I didn't try this, but according to her there were only sweet potato and spare rib with no taro at all.
One problem with most dim sum places is that the dessert never comes at the end of the meal. And I end up having to resist eating it before the other food arrives. The name of this dessert is literally translated as chrysanthemum pastries (菊花酥) because each pastry is in the shape of a chrysanthemum flower. There could be a variety of fillings for this pastry including sweet red bean paste, but HKYK chose to use taro paste. I liked this dish quite a bit because the pastry was flaky and nicely layered, and the taro filling was not too sweet. The taro paste was not very smooth, but I liked it that way because smooth pastes require a lot of oil.
Whenever I come to HKYK, I always get the sweet almond tea (生磨杏仁茶) because it's not available in most dim sum places. I wonder why I keep ordering this even though it tastes worse every time. This time was particularly bad... There was some yellowish white stuff floating on top.
The last dish we had was the baked BBQ pork bun (菠蘿叉燒包). I know it looks pretty nice, but it must be one of the worst I've had. The bun itself had a really poor texture as if it were made from a dough with very little flour. It tasted slightly damp and gummy, and a bit undercooked. The filling was a few small bits of BBQ pork with a lot of BBQ sauce that had congealed to form a red jelly. It was really disgusting, so I picked out all of the filling and just ate the bun. The only good thing about this dish was that the buns had just come out of the oven and were still piping hot.
So out of the 7 dishes we ordered, I only liked the chrysanthemum pastries. My conclusion is that this is a good place if you want dim sum for a really low price and don't care about the quality. I'm not coming back unless my parents drag me here again, which is probably going to happen eventually.
No comments: