Hung’s Delicacies – One-Michelin Starred Chiu Chow Braised Meat Specialist in North Point, Hong Kong

Hung’s Delicacies 阿鴻小吃 is a well heralded Chiu Chow braised meat specialist restaurant. It’s probably one of the most praised restaurants that I’ve been to in Hong Kong and has received a Michelin Star three years in a row, which is kind of weird considering you don’t associated Michelin Stars with tiny shop specializing in braised meats, which is very middle class type food. The chef-owner, Ah Hung 阿鴻, was a high-level chef for many years at well-known Cantonese restaurants such as Yung Kee and Maxim and finally decided to strike out on his own to create this restaurant.

The restaurant is located far from the main areas of Hong Kong in North Point, which is a mainly residential area. It’s located on a non-descript street that has a lot of restaurants on it. The restaurant is tiny and probably sits 20-25 people. The restaurant walls are plastered with pictures of Ah Hung with various celebrities and awards he’s won.

The wife works as a server and hostess. I’d heard she was mean, but she was pretty nice to me and was telling me what was good. The menu is completely translated into English and while I didn’t hear any English spoken, I’d assume they can speak at least a little bit of English. Also, they are only open Wednesday through Sunday from 1pm to 10pm (I almost made the mistake of going there on a Tuesday but luckily I called). I got there at 12:55pm and there was already a line of 5-6 people and there was probably a line of 10-12 people when I left.

Here’s what I tried:

Braised Goose (Lu Shui E Pian 鹵水鵝片):

This was the reason I came here. Braised meats are a staple of Chiu Chow cuisine; the braising style is called lu wei 鹵味, but Hong Kong they refer to it as lu shui 鹵水. This technique uses a master stock that is constantly re-used (i.e. they keep filling it up). Ah Hung is famous for his master stock and their menu even shows you some of the main ingredients he uses. It was one of the lightest and cleanest tasting master stocks I’ve ever tried. It’s slightly sweet and salty and has this really excellent flavor to it. The goose meat was good, most of the pieces were nicely tender although I thought a few were a little drier than I would like as goose breast can be a little dry since it’s less fatty than other parts of the goose. The vinegar compliments it well and helps cut the fat from the meat. It also comes with fried tofu which also tasted good in the master stock. Overall, I thought it was very good although I’d give a slight nod to Tak Kee because the meat was more tender, but his master stock deserves its praise. Also, if I went again I’d get a mix of this and “marinated goose chopped in pieces” as that was a fattier cut which looked really good (the table next to me ordered it). 8.75/10

Chua Lam Noodles (Cai Lan Lao Mian 蔡瀾撈麵):

Chua Lam is a celebrity food critic personality in Hong Kong, I think he’s been referred to as the Anthony Bourdain of Hong Kong for his pretty liberal views. Ah Hung named this noodle after him because apparently Chua Lam was one of his early fans. Its thin egg noodles stir fried in a mixture of soy sauce and lard with bean sprouts, sesame seeds and green onions. Clearly not something you’re eating for your health. It wasn’t nearly as oily as it sounds, but still had a lot of flavor. The soy sauce they used was slightly sweet and the lard and wok hay from stir frying gave it a really nice flavor. The noodles were really QQ (springy) and cooked perfectly. It came with a small bowl of soup that was quite good. Overall, this was really nice and I’d definitely recommend ordering this. 8.75/10

Chili Oil:

The chili oil here is amazing. It’s the Chiu Chow style with ground up dried shrimp, but they also added whole tiny fish as well. It’s definitely one of the best chili oils I’ve ever had and was really good with the Chua Lam noodles. 9.25/10

Overall, it was very good although my expectations may have been too high given the amount of praise sung about it. That said this is an excellent restaurant and I’d like to come back to try more dishes as I saw a lot of stuff that I would go back to try and I’d also really love to do that private dinner they offer, which you can see here.

Address:

Shop 4, G/F, Ngan Fai Building, 84-94 Wharf Road, North Point
北角和富道84-94號銀輝大廈地下4號舖

Phone:

2570 1108 https://www.hungsdelicacies.com/indexen.html