After I checked into my awesome hotel, it was roughly 9 pm and I was in need of food before passing out for the night in preparation for my amazing full first day in Hong Kong! Knocking another continent off the list! (I’m up to 4 now.) I went to the front desk and the super friendly guy who checked me in and whose name totally escapes me helped me find a place nearby that was open – though I had that nifty phone with unlimited data and could easily reference Google Maps, I was too tired to wander far.
I went around the corner to this tiny little storefront noodle shop.
I can’t read Chinese, and though someone translated the name of the place for me – I’m not sure how it can be accurate because the place he named is not this place (I know this from seeing the other place, well, elsewhere. In any case, as you can see from the menu, there was a distinct language barrier. There was some English on there, but I misinterpreted what the English meant. I watched other people ordering around me and realized later that I should have added a veggie, but whatever…
After I ordered, this landed on the table in front of me.
Given that my birthday is the 27th and I was there technically for my birthday, I thought this was an excellent sign. I took a picture of it. Then I realized that was my bill.
$27 HKD is roughly $3.38 USD.
Though I’d been told HK is not really a tipping culture, I still tipped. He seemed amused.
Beef brisket noodle soup. I thought I was ordering “ngau lam mein” {beef stew soup, I think?} but this was totally satisfying. I wanted to be able to say this was the best wonton noodle soup I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t. The spring onions were a nice touch, the broth was sufficient, the noodles springy, the beef OK (I definitely did not order their best topping/meat/protein choice)… but overall this bowl hit the exact right spot. I was pretty happy with it, and even tried some of the chili oil in the metal tin that Jinx is leaning on.
Asian chili oil is only recently something I’ve tried consuming. This was an excellent version – roasted chili flakes gave the whole thing that roasty toasty tastiness that I adore, and it was super spicy – a few drops rendered my entire bowl fairly spicy, but added a nice layer of complexity to an otherwise simple dish. I was happy I’d tried it, but even happier I’d waited until I was nearly finished before adding it, lest I rendered it totally inedible for me.
Overall — a great place for what I needed, a quick and inexpensive bite before turning in for the night. I wanted to return on my last night, to get something else and compare my first impression after not eating Asian food for a while, to what I thought after 4-5 days of nonstop eating Asian food… but it was closed when I tried to visit again. Boo… but not meant to be, perhaps.
I would give you location information if I could, but it’s in that pic that I can’t translate for you. If you stay at the Sohotel, exit and make a right out the door, then a right at the corner… it’s across the street.
Off to a good start…
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