Tuesday, October 19, 2010

North Garden 北園酒家, Central HK

North Garden, as originated from Guang Zhou, among all the other famous Guang Zhou restaurant廣洲酒家, Da San Yuen大三元, Lin Heung蓮香居. North Garden has 2 branches - one in Sheung Wan and the other in Central. Have been to their Sheung Wan branch so many years ago, as referred by our Angel. At that time this restaurant was very busy due to its legacy of history. Last week, I visited their Central branch but at this time only 3 tables were filled, even though the restaurant has some special offer of set menu from HK$398 to 198.

1. Took this offer of 50% discount menu. 2. Well, 50% off means half full glass of water melon juice. :), and kind of reminds me of Le Normandie's same way of water melon juice. Perhaps those waiters serve red wine too often.

3. the shop inside. 4. prawn mango salad. Pretty good but one thing bothering me is that too many waiters and waitresses stand behind or around me. Once I dropped the mango peel, a hand slipped in to take away the plate but I told them "I wanted the fresh veggie.".

5/6. double boiled shark's fin. A very nice one and very sweet chicken stock. Not salty at all.

7. A bit too over cooked of the clam meat. 8. the abalone wasn't rinsed too well, but the duck feet web is nice. Well braised.

7. Japanese noodle. Nice texture and clear soup.

9. red bean cococut chilled cake. 10. double steam milk custard with bird's nest. Pretty nice though there is only 10% genuine bird's nest.

7 comments:

Stella said...

$25 US per person for menu is quite good.
The shark fin and abalone have good portion.
How can you tell the bird nest is only 10% real? What is the other 90% made of?

in the sea said...

Yes, it's a good deal. Genuine bird's nest is very difficult to fake, in terms of texture and taste. Yes, taste. So many people including a no. of so-called professional chefs say bird's nest and shark's fin don't have taste. We need to first differentiate sweet, salty, aroma, flavour. The good way to practise is to take food when it's not added with any sweet or salt...etc. Then we can taste the original flavour of the food. So when it's later added with salt and sugar or other seasoning, we still can check on that flavour, and so we can mix-and-match.

Then on bird's nest, we need to take out the sweet, the milk and coconut flavour. Try to sense the unique "protein" smell and flavour of bird's nest. I would describe it as "egg white with egg's broken shell" smell. Texture-wise, if it's undercooked, it will be a bit softly chewy but not hard. It's not like the "snow" fungus for sure (as most people claimed) because "snow" fungus would have some soft-broken on the outside, but bird's nest is on the whole, from inside-out, very average. If it's cooked well, it's silky smooth and soft but not melty and you can chew it a little bit. When I tried this bird's nest, I can get some like 1 genuine tiny bit out of 7-8 tiny bits. :)

Stella said...

Wow SEA. You are expert of eating bird's nest.
Yes you are right, even Tak Shing Hong(where they sell lots of bird's nest) said they cannot tell whether it is real or fake sometimes.
Thanks for the sharing.

in the sea said...

Quite many years ago, my sister got a good deal in getting bird's nest and so I made that almost every week for a few years. It's like cooking rice for me. Perhaps I double boil bird's nest with just very little rock sugar and a piece of aged dried tangerine peel. So I was trained to tell the unique flavour of bird's nest. Honestly speaking, during those years of bird's nest taking, I seldom get a sneeze, nor stomachache.

Stella said...

Wow it is very "ho" to eat bird nest every week.
No wonder you still look like a college student.

in the sea said...

Back then it's not that expensive and those are natural but now most of them are from farm birds. Those from farm have some tiny cement tiny bits and smell. Gotta open up your eyes and check it if there are some white/grey tiny bits inside. Besides, smell it and see if there are any metallic smell. If so, don't get it.

Stella said...

Thanks SEA.