Video
Read full review
2014-01-18
5996 views
余均益 (Yu Kwen Yick) is arguably one of the food ingredient culture icons of Hong Kong. While it may not be a worldwide recognized brand (like the dreadful Srriracha chili sauce manufactured in Southern California, famous with Vietnamese pho restaurants and alike), it is a vastly superior product and has a very loyal following. Those who are serious chili sauce heads, will have their eyes lit up if you mention 余均益, and they will know that you know your stuff. You can make friends just by talking a
Getting here is pretty easy. The best way for me at least, is to take the "ding ding" tram and get off Eastern Street. Walk up about two blocks (yes quite the uphill battle!) then turn right on 2nd street. It is best to call ahead to make sure they are open before you go, just to be safe. They are closed Mondays and I remember calling on a Tuesday once when nobody answered.
The storefront is very small and is basically a showroom with a cashier. The shelves basically have a few of their standard offerings. In addition to their signature chili sauce, you can also buy a few other varieties of their sauces, including chili oil, and chili oil with chili flakes. There is a sample jar of 蘇梅醬 (plum sauce) that would be fantastic for dipping roast duck or roast goose, but was unavailable for purchase during my visit (the young owner himself recommended that it could be added to claypot rice!).
The younger generation owner is a really cool and helpful guy, and we had a great chat about local food, who also recommended that I go check out 波記. The level of customer service and interaction here from a small family run business, to me is out of this world. They gave me excellent advice in terms of storage, transportation (as I was taking their products back home out of the country), and even suggestions on how to apply some of the sauces for optimal enjoyment. We also spoke at length about how I wished it were possible to have their products imported overseas, but the logistics would not work out.
There are not many restaurants that carry 余均益 but I have had the pleasure of trying some local dishes with it and have gotten some friends addicted to it as well. Lau Sam Kee in Sham Shui Po has large bottles available, so you can squirt a few dollops of the stuff with prawn roe noodles to kick things up a notch. And as Chinese New Year is coming, this stuff would be sexcellent with turnip cake 蘿蔔糕.
You will have to wait until after Chinese New Year before the shop restocks pocket sized and larger sized bottles. In the meantime, the medium sized bottles are $35 each. The larger gift boxes contain two medium sized bottles of the signature chili sauce plus a different kind of chili sauce in a jar.
Post
