World Foodie Guide

This is the twelth in a series of Postcards from the recent Hong Kong, Macau and Beijing traveleating trip. Rather than writing up each food experience in separate posts, which would have taken me up to Christmas, I thought it would be more fun to outline the trip in diary form, to include travel and sightseeing tips as well as food recommendations.

Days 13 &14 highlights:

• On the T97 from Beijing to Hong Kong
• Two dinners – Xi Yan & Mak’s Noodles

On the T97 from Beijing to Hong Kong:

12.00 – T97 express train from Beijing West / Xizhan to Hung Hom, Kowloon (overnight train)

Back on the non-stop train again! (click here to read about our journey from Hong Kong to Beijing on the T98). Beijing West (Xizhan) has a different checking-in system to that at Hung Hom. We arrived there over two hours before departure, not knowing what the procedure was like. You have to queue outdoors in front of the doors on the ground floor in front of the station (I can’t remember the exact name, but it refers to customs & immigration in English) until they open the doors to let you in for baggage check. Then there is more waiting inside a small waiting room until you’re allowed through to passport control. After this stage though, you can board the train at your leisure, so as in Hung Hom, there was no rush.

Our little compartment and toilet were both just as clean as on the T98, the personnel just as friendly and the food just as good. This time, they had a different vegetarian option, or rather, it was possible to have the broccoli without meat (it also came with a winter melon soup, with bits of pork, and rice, for RMB45). This supplemented our instant noodles which we had bought at Xizhan (Chinese brand this time!). Sleeping was easier travelling back down to Hong Kong, perhaps because we were more tired, and also more used to the movement. The husband also took thousands of photos, of which here are three…

To recap, I thought taking the train one way would have been enough, however the husband’s opinion is that you can never see enough of the views. It is admittedly an amazing experience, especially travelling in your own private deluxe 2 berth compartment. We had no access to the other sections of the train apart from the restaurant car, so I can’t make any comparisons with different classes of accommodation. But it’s far more exciting than flying!

Two dinners – Xi Yan & Mak’s Noodles:

Why did we end up having TWO dinners? Arriving back in Hong Kong at lunchtime, we were unpacking at Lanson Place and sorting things out (me mostly), so that by the time I’d finished, it was too late for lunch. Instead, we decided to have a very early dinner and wandered over to Xi Yan (where we’d had a late lunch a week ago), because we knew what the food was like and had no energy to discover something new.

The food was rather hit-and-miss this time. The vegetarian husband ordered the non-meat Dan Dan noodles (spicy) (HK$52) again, which were as good as before. The grilled eggplant with cheese and soybean sauce (HK$68) arrived with slices of dried pork sausage on top. There was no mention of meat on the menu, so he was a bit upset. I had the pleasure of picking the slices off and they were delicious!

The greenhouse tomatoes in sesame sauce (HK$42) were the highlight of the meal. Served cold without their skins, they were refreshing and unusual (and easy to replicate at home, I hope!). The radish patty in XO sauce (HK$68) arrived with fried egg pieces and crunchy beansprouts. I liked this much more than the recommended crispy tangerine peel spareribs (HK$78), which were over-fried bits of meat and very below standard. After such stunning meals in Beijing, this was expensive and a little disappointing.

Which explains why I had a second dinner about two hours later. Our friend in Beijing, with whom we had stayed, arrived in Hong Kong on business (he left a day after us on the plane!), and as he hadn’t eaten, I seized the opportunity to finally visit Mak’s Noodles (which was on my original restaurant wishlist). There was a branch just round the corner from our hotel in Causeway Bay, which I walked past every day. It’s also open until midnight, which is convenient.

We were comfortably ensconced in a booth at the back for about two hours, while other diners simply ate and left, but we never felt rushed to leave (of course we would have gone if anyone had needed our table) and the staff were really friendly. The menu is in English as well (and Japanese), as Mak’s is in all the guidebooks, and beers can be bought from the 7-11 next door. We ordered:

• wonton noodles (HK$28) – which consists of a very small bowl of thin noodles in a clear soup with just four prawn-filled wontons. They were so delicious and precious! Foodies are right to describe Mak’s wontons as ‘small’, but they were firm and crunchy. The friend ordered the wontons without the noodles for the same price, and got many more wontons. I’ve heard about people ordering the wontons, plus a bowl of noodles separately, so that they can create a bigger portion!

• sui gao (HK$30) – loosely translated as water dumplings, these are like wontons but larger, and filled with pork, prawn and mushroom, again served in a clear soup. I actually didn’t like the taste of these, although the Mak’s version is supposed to be very good. In fact the first one tasted so strange that I asked the friend to try one to see if there was anything wrong with it. Don’t let me put you off, I think it was just me…

• yau choi with oyster sauce, which is choi sum, and very fresh and crunchy

• lo mian with beef tendon, which I didn’t try as I don’t like tendon. But the friend confirmed that it was tasty

As I didn’t get the chance to compare the wontons at Mak’s with those prepared by its competitors, I can only say that these were extremely tasty, and the diner was full of locals (who wouldn’t pay these prices if they didn’t appreciate the food). The five dishes came to HK$136, which I thought was quite reasonable. I’m glad I made it here, and look forward to trying some other wonton places on the next trip!

N.B You’ll find all the China Postcards under Restaurant Reviews – China, and the entire set of food photos on Flickr.

Contact details:

Xi Yan – Tastes (they accept reservations)
2/F (inside GOD)
Leighton Centre
Sharp Street East
Causeway Bay
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2881 6693
www.xiyan.com.hk

Mak’s Noodles (the main branch is at 77 Wellington Street in Central & there’s another branch in Tsim Sha Tsui)
44 Jardine’s Bazaar
Causeway Bay
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2895 5310
Opening hours: 11:00-midnight

Helen Yuet Ling Pang @ World Foodie Guide

Tags: Beijing, China, dining out, food, Hong Kong, Mak's Noodles, restaurant review, restaurants, travel, traveleating, vegetarian, wonton noodles