Canton Deli 廣東茶居, Harbour City, Tsimshatsui, Kowloon

Canton Deli (廣東茶居), a subsidiary of the ChefMaster (尚膳) Chiu Chow restaurant founded in Tai Koo Shing quite many years ago. Chef Master then got a name and expanded their business. Interesting there are indeed quite a no. of restaurants originating in Taikooshing expand their business, e.g. Crystal Jade, UCC Cafe.

I visited this Canton Deli quite a few times and brought my KL old friend who loves Cantonese food a lot. Then when she comes back to HK for business, she would ask me to bring her to this restaurant. She also asked me to recommend this restaurant to her New York boss who is addicted to Chinese food.

I told my KL friend how I get lingered with this nostalgic tea room term in Chinese 茶居. That reminded me of my first BBQ pork rice I tried in a tea room called 新新茶居 (now where the MacDonad's is at the roundabout of the tram final stop at Shaukiwan). I told myself in my brain "wow - there is something so nice in this World like this red burnt sweet pork! That motivated my curiosity about cooking and I often stood behind my uncle, my aunt, my mother and my grand mom in the kitchen.

1. Chrysanthemun tea is my favourite drink and I wouldn't get sleepless. Check the tea pot - doesn't it remind you of your childhood? 2. Deep fried squid HK$38 - not too impressive. When it was put on the table, I simply told my friend that you would be disappointed with this one as I can tell from the look. I pointed at the greasy oil inside the coating. Like I often told, the final step of deep frying is really important. This one failed.

3. crab and sweet corn soup - quite average. 4. stir fried Kai Lan with beef. Quite impressive and it simply tells the technique of quick stir-frying. In fact, Cantonese cooking for stir frying is to quickly stir fry all the ingredients at high heat and then seal it in a light sauce - light enough to just coat it and not to make any gravy. I was asked by a foreigner for not using corn starch much as she noticed the heavy gravy in most Chinese food. I then explained to her the half pound corn starch in my kitchen (when I used to cook very often in the family for 2 meals a day) could last for a few months. She got puzzled. I told her most of the stir-fried dishes seem to be mistakenly made and identified as a dish with heavy gravy - like the most renowned sweet and sour pork. Stir-frying shouldn't be with heavy gravy. The essence of stir-fried dishes is to quckly cook the food and seal the juice of the food inside. If some people prefer gravy dishes, they should choose those stewed dishes. Even for the stewed dishes, we would make use of the ingredients to create its natural gravy and thicken it by itself. It's not that often we would use corn starch to thicken the sauce.

5. Chicken in red onion fragrant oil (蔥油鷄) - pretty good as the aroma of the red onion soaked in the chicken meat. 6. Tofu Garoupa casserole (山根豆腐斑腩) - this one is nice and sizzling hot when it was served on the table. The Chef put some dried shrip roe (蝦子) and made the whole casserole so aromatic.

7. coconut chill cake - pretty nice and it's complimentary after the meal. 8. Another signature thing in a Tea Room in the old time - quite a no. of customers would bring their loved birds in a cage.