Szechuanese menu in Hong Kong Part II

Despite of government attempts to regulate or close the secret kitchens in Hong Kong down, some of the best food in Hong Kong can be found in the modest surrounds of secret dining rooms called private kitchens. Existing most private kitchens is unlicensed and offer a fixed price menu. Not all of them are great at worse I suffered a 10 course culinary torture but at best, these offer traditional, home style Chinese food with a purity, integrity and sense of adventure that makes them captivating. I liked the Da Ping Huo as in a chic industrial space; their Szechuanese menu is flaming hot and fabulous. At the end of an enormous meal, a petite Chinese lady swathed in black silk emerges from the kitchen and sings opera. She also doubles as the chef.

Yellow Door also calls itself a private kitchen well they are licensed too where I liked the food and is run by a self taught chef, Chun Lau. It is reached by a rickety lift that stops with a shudder on the sixth floor of a shabby building in Central. Here Lau serves one of Hong Kong’s best duck dishes .i.e. the eight treasure duck which is stuffed with ingredients like chestnuts, glutinous rice, dried shrimp and spices and braised for hours until meltingly tender. My friend said that in a market so driven by trends and labels, private kitchens are wholesome, traditional constant.

If Hong Kong is a town driven by luxury labels, then one is compelled to lap it up. In the last year, Hong Kong has been flooded by the world’s super chefs. Nobu and Pierre Gagnaire, the culinary equivalents of haute couture, have arrived recently along with Geoff Lindsay from one Australia’s best restaurants, Pearl in Melbourne. Few restaurants which I liked are Lindsay’s Pearl on the peak has the pick of the locations, perched on top of Victoria Peak in the newly remodeled Peak Tower. Get to Pearl on the Peak on the vertiginous Peak Tram for dinner and slip into a booth for 270 degree.

Pierre, an Asian outpost for the famed three Michelin starred – chef , Pierre Gagnaire, opened in the redeveloped Mandarin Oriental hotel in October last year. The food is contemporary French.

Nobu, the first in Asia, outside Tokyo is the Japanese restaurant, looking back towards Hong Kong Island, features signature dishes as yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno and toro tartar with caviar.

The most recent arrival is French maestro, Joel Robuchon whose dramatic restaurant and thrilling food is wowing the locals. Book well in advance because there are queues of people jostling to get it.