Cafe Hunan – Sai Ying Pun.

I am never eating Northern Chinese spicy food every again.  The end result is always the same, Ring of FIre.  I only ordered 2 dishes as anything more can be no guarantee that my stomach could handle it.  I was right.  It’s a low priced Michelin star restaurant.  Bring patience as you will have to wait a while for the food.

First dish – tofu with pork.  This dish is spicy.  It’s not the numbing spice but it arrives laden with oil and hot oil will burn.

fried tofu at cafe hunan.

Second dish – pork belly.  Do not order pork belly unless you are dining in a big group, it’s too much fat to consume in one sitting.  You have to eat the fat as it provides all the flavour.

$98 pork belly at cafe hunan

Generous portions and affordable pricing.  I would go back but my stomach can’t handle the heat.  I am getting too old to handle spicy foods.

Soup, all day every day in Sai Wan district

I have put this restaurant on my list of regular spots solely for one reason, soup.  They are the only restaurant to have a constant and ample supply of soup throughout the whole day.  In speaking with the owners, they start the soup making process everyday at 8am in two batches.  One batch for the wonton noodle soup and the other for the soup of the day.  Zero msg, pork and chicken bones and lots of vegetables.  It’s simple and easy to make but the difference will be the devotion to the time.  They start the fire at 8am and brew throughout the day, by lunch the soup will have all the flavour one would expect and by dinner everything will have melted into the soup.  The soup is the best during and after dinner when everything melts in your mouth.  There are no more veggies to be eaten as all the nutrients have leached into the soup.

The restaurant is located on Centre Street inbetween Des Voeux Road West and Queens Road West in Sai Ying Pun District.  If you’re trendy, you would fancy the restaurants on Centre Street and Third Street (3 blocks up the hill from this establishment), home to the likes of Jaspas, Metropolitan and other non-local joints.  Centre Street inbetween Des Voeux Road and Queens Road West is block devoted to all things food.

Each bowl of their daily soup is $5

Another batch

As they make soup the proper way, their congee is made in similar fashion – Time.  End of the day batch, look at the overall cleanliness of the counter.

They make a HK style club sandwhich with more meat that you can imagine, $28.  3 slices of bread, scrambled egg, hot dog, spam, corn beef and tomato.

One of their niches is their take on Shanghai cuisine for the HK clientele.  Shanghai noodles in a peanut spicy sauce and wontons.  It lacks the spice one expects for Northern China cuisine but it allows one to taste the peanut sauce.  The noodles arrived in soup vs. authentic version where the noodles arrive with very little soup. $30

Lunch specials revolve around 6 menu items that change daily.  They had two different varieties of fish on the menu so we ordered both – steamed $36 and fried $34.

No meal would be complete without dessert.  As I get older I have found sugar makes me feel good.  The more sugar I eat the better I feel.  It might be time go forgo the workouts and the adrenaline rush to get my high through ingesting.  Tofu dessert $10