Beef with flat noodles
Pork Blood and Chives

Restaurant Review!

Ngau Kee l Prince Edward l Kowloon

There is a certain echelon of restaurants which may not get written up very often. There’s nothing particularly flashy about them and to the casual diner they may seem even mediocre. The cooking will come off as competent though not particularly daring or exciting. But like some sort of bizarre culinary underworld, these are the restaurants that chefs will actually frequent. Here, the honesty of excellent ingredients, impeccable skill, and unerring consistency allows the most humble and everyday dishes to be elevated to the sublime. Don’t be swayed, it’s the easy things which are hard to do well. There’s just no where to hide your mistakes.

Ngau Kee is what’s known as a “big license business.” These were outdoor restaurants which incidentally had a business licenses which were especially large. They have become synonymous with quick, cheap and easy street cuisine and even though they are no longer outdoors, the name has stuck. And by the way, Ngau Kee is also in that echelon of restaurants I had mentioned earlier as it had come recommended to me by someone who had worked his way up the restaurant business for decades to manage a number of restaurants for Maxim’s; a local restaurant chain.

I hope that you guys aren’t squeamish because some of these dishes may seem fear factorish to some of you. This is a place after all, where the wait staff wears galoshes so they can truck over the often wet floor and across the street to its other locations.

First up, pork blood with chives. Pork blood, once it’s collected, is steamed where it then develops a Jell-O like consistency and is cut into cubes. It is then used in various dishes such as congee. What’s my feeling on it? I’m pretty indifferent. I don’t think it’s the sort of thing I ever really order but I will have it if it’s in front of me. It has a smooth texture but is often a little powdery and gritty the way spinach will leave the dirty sensation on your teeth. Here, it was absolute magic. The anise laced sauce had a slight curry taste to it with that fragrance which only comes from amassing an intricate infusion of spices. The pork blood was tofu smooth and came alive with the sauce. I know it sounds odd but I really can’t describe this dish. It became something otherworldly.

Next up, perfectly steamed free range chicken with scallions and red peppers in a light rice wine soy sauce. Sprinkled generously on top of this was five spice salt. Incredibly juicy and bursting with chicken flavor, I think I ate half the chicken just trying to figure out how such a simple set of ingredients could bring about such an incredible outcome.

And here’s where things get crazy. I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about how you’ll sometimes run across a certain dish which is so far past anything else you ever had that you know that it’s amongst the best of the genre. Every time I’ve run across it, that dish has yet to be surpassed. Crystal Jade’s Xiao Lung Biao, Schubert’s Black Forest Cake, Emmy’s Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Chez Panise’s Polenta are all part of this group. I am now adding Ngau Kee’s beef stir fried with flat noodles.

Bean sprouts, beef, extra slim flat noodles and soy sauce thrown into a blazing hot wok until it develops the “breath of the wok” flavor I mentioned before. The slimmer noodles soaked up all the intense flavors; it was dark without being strong. Beef flavors rang though every morsel with the bean sprouts still crisp and bursting to overcome the richness of the dish. I can’t understate how shocking this is as this is THE ubiquitous Cantonese fried noodle dish. You will find it everywhere you go. It’s like having the best hamburger ever and I don’t mean the let’s use goddamn Kobe beef, foie gras and sliced truffles on a delicate boutique bun until you rip the heart and soul out of the f*cking thing. No, I’m talking about taking a bite out of a burger that tastes like no burger you’ve ever had before and opening up the bun to find nothing more than a patty, lettuce, tomatoes and onions. See, it’s magic.