Description: Hong Kong – 10/12/09Even as soon as I ticked off my
Chinese meal in January I came under attack from friends: how could I class China, with its incredible size and radically different cuisines as just one nation? Really, I was told, I should have split the country up and had separate meals for Cantonese, Szechuan, Hunan, Beijing and so forth. I had never been satisfied with the argument – though I did of course make an exception in the case of Chinese-occupied
Tibet. However, being well into December and running out of options I finally compromised and decided to allow the semi-autonomous
Hong Kong to represent a separate meal.
Mainly this was because I only had a brief gap between arriving home from work and leaving for the theatre. So I decided that I would patronise the
New Hong Kong takeaway just down the road from mine. I supplied Paul with a menu in advance, and then phoned in the order to pick up at 5.30.
Where possible I tried to order dishes that were specifically Hong Kong-ese – or at least Cantonese. Which shouldn’t have been hard, as due to to the British link with Hong Kong most Chinese catering establishments in the UK are Cantonese owned and run (though there are places in Manchester specialising in the cuisines of Szechuan, Hunan etc). As ever I let
Wikipedia be my guide. The complete order was for a won ton soup to share (£2.20), steamed prawn dumplings (£2.80), Hong Kong style Sweet & Sour Pork (£3.60) with crispy noodles (£2.20), and Chicken and Green pepper in Blackbean Sauce (£3.60) with plain boiled rice (£1.40) - £15.80 in total. As it was over £12.00 we were also given a free bag of prawn crackers. I’m not really a big fan of prawn crackers – they inevitably feel greasy and taste very artificial, but I would never look a gift course in the mouth, so I took them. There were actually quite a lot there, and we didn’t manage to finish them off.
The
won ton soup was enough to serve two once decanted into bowls. This was a clear-ish broth with Chinese leaf and irregular brain-shaped wonton dumplings floating in it. It was tasty, and at £2.20 great value. To coplete our dim sum course we had
har kau, steamed prawn dumplings. These were six slightly translucent, the pink prawn and green scallion inside being slightly visible. With soy sauce for dipping in and chopsticks for dropping with these were another great value addition to the meal.
My main course was
sweet and sour pork. I tend to steer clear of sweet and sour dishes as I find the taste overpowering, but I thought I ought to become re-acquainted. Not only is sweet and sour pork known as a Cantonese dish, but the takeaway menu even helpfully stated that it was served ‘Hong Kong style’. I’m not sure how this was more traditionally Hong Kong than any other sweet and sour dish, as it seemed pretty similar to me – pork, onions, peppers, pineapple, sticky sauce. The sauce tasted very salty, which was an issue as my noodles were also very salty. I had ordered crispy noodles just to see what they were. I should have guessed – cooked noodles then fried so that they were hard and brittle. They were not ideal as an accompaniment to a dish though as they were hard to get in the mouth with chopsticks. As a side to munch on – much like crisps – they would be fine.
Paul’s Chicken and blackbean sauce was fine. It was my error that got him this. He had asked for the new Chilli in Blackbean Sauce dish on the menu, but I think I gave the lady the wrong number over the phone. So he ended up with green pepper instead of chilli pepper. Obviously the resulting dish was not as hot as he would have liked.
As a takeaway goes, I’m not sure the New Hong Kong has anything to make it stand out from the crowd. Prices are reasonable however, certainly for the soup and har kau. Price and convenience are always the key factors in the takeaway market. And as to how ‘Hong Kong’ the dishes were – well, Hong Kong has always been a melting pot of various influences. I’m sure that everything we ordered could easily be found in Hong Kong.
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