The advantage of an establishment inside a conventional market is that customers are free to pick up one or two small bites, or the establishment's specialties while grocery shopping. Unlike foreigners, Hong Kong-ers are daily grocery shoppers, and a restaurant that doubles as a last stop of prepared take-outs is a no-mistake business opportunity. What adds to the success is the reputation -- a longtime favorite plus some positive publicity on the paper and magazines will boost sales way up, and those who have been enjoying these specialties for years will come back...the distance is never a problem when the real craving hits. No wonder foodies all over HK are pouring their wallets out across town for Herbal jelly in Yuen Long, scrambled eggs in Jordan, and ChiuChow delicacies in Sheung Wan.
生潮軒 is a joint that's fluorished in Sai Wan (between Sheung Wan and Kennedy Town) for years. Now that it have relocated to the populous Wan Chai market, serving the market crowd and lunching crowds of Wan Chai. I've been longing for a visit ever since childhood memories of goose in ChiuChow marinade. Fond memories of moist goose breast and spongy marinated tofu that's dark brown on the outside and light brown in the inside, where the spice-laden marinade penetrated cubes of Tofu. With high hopes we visited 生潮軒, only to realize that the my fondness in the memories should just stay there.
Lunching options are scarce here. There are dishes written on the wall, but the staff half-tossed the glass of tea to your table in such challenging stares that dare you to order any of them, in fact if you decide on a la carte they may send you out to the streets because you're only supposed to order the set lunches, unless you are about to spending a lot buying te entire lot of geese hanging at the window. We ordered a set for two ($98) which included a plate of marinated goose lined with tofu, and two hot dishes from a list of 14 choices. We promptly chosen Deep Fried Bombay Duck with pepper-salt, (椒鹽九肚魚) and Stir-Fried rice noodles with Beef (沙嗲牛河). Funnily enough the set didn't include a choice between rice and congee...speaking of lunch options without either...
The goose arrived promptly. The knife-work is decent, as each slice of goose has a thin layer of fat clinging onto it. The meat is moist throughout, unfortunately the marinade the meat's cooked in failed to impress. The sweetness is out-of-proportions, and I'm a person who favours sweetness, but not this way. It resembled caramel sweetness with a dark soy sauce based marinade and the five spice was undetected somehow. The Tofu was sliced so thinly that if you shut your eyes it felt like dish sponge fully soaked in sweet marinade. Not exactly what I had in mind for tofu.
Bombay Duck is surprisingly bite-sized, and the fish itself is nowhere near the same dish created elsewhere. The upside is that the dish came out piping hot, the downsides are its lack of flavour (and where is the pepper-salt?) and the way it's made...the batter was fine but the fish isn't. Each piece should come in slightly bigger than bite-sized and the fish used should be of larger in size...afterall it's the scrumptious richness you're after in Bombay duck. The Rice noodle is satisfactory in a sense that the sauce is nowhere close to gooey and the beef slices are not laden with baking soda. There are certainly a handful of places (in fact, MANY) that make a better fried rice noodle and this one is just ok...
Browsing through the window we could see trays of skinned Grey mullets and boiled scampi cooling on a rack, while marinated geese (headless) and long goose necks and heads hanging from the racks for sale. Below them are arranged trays of tofu, eggs, pork belly, and offals all cooked in the same sweet marinade. I presume they all lack the depth of flavour and tasted of the same sweetness which people turn their noses away from, perhaps the textures of offals would be different from that of pork belly, but the flavour base is essentially the same. A special note to the highly recommended (from the joint) goose livers...supposedly rich like Foie Gras, as the owners boasted, turned out to be slightly bigger than a chicken livers. It has certainly seen better days than being soaked in a layer of fat and the marinade underneath, and the taste, just don't expect it to be remotely foie-gras-like, even though both are from geese...
A disappointing visit of this old-time establishment is certainly a wake-up call for us foodies who have had our favorites over the years. Changes are inevitable through times as our palates have evolved over our experiences. The famed marinade we had before has taken on different tastes though it essentially is supposed to be the same marinade from our childhoods. The tastes of the foods cooked in it has changed, and so have ours, and in time, so will old-time favorite joints'.
Video
