Deep fried butter chicken wings

Restaurant Review!

Green Village l Causeway Bay l Hong Kong

Caroline and I were planning on hitting a sushi spot but the preposterous 3 hour wait on a Friday night had us angling to a Vietnamese restaurant instead. Green Village is a cramped and busy restaurant with tables so tightly packed that at times I felt like a boat person. However, the sheer turnover of the place left me with the possibility of some seriously delicious food.

Although the menu was massive, I had trouble finding items that seemed especially authentic. Caroline attributed my long decision time to late onset retardation and helped us pick out the butter fried chicken wings, curried beef with vermicelli and lettuce with chili peppers. The curried beef with vermicelli was decent with a mild curry soup and beef but it made me think of Au Petit in Vancouver and their outstanding beef stew with rice. The butter fried chicken wings were the best things on the menu were comparable to the wings at Phnom Pen. Both are incredibly juicy with a nice crisp coating but the ones here lacked that delicious dipping sauce. The lettuce dish was blatantly Cantonese in origin.

My mind wandered to the escargot soup and prawn fritters at Minh’s in San Francisco, the butter beef at Phnom Phen, and the sandwiches at Au Petit. I asked Caroline about the possibility of Vietnamese Subs but got nothing more than a glare and a shake of the head.

Decades ago, desperate people fled from Southeast Asia for fear for their lives, yet faced discrimination throughout the region. Many countries turned away refugees by the thousands for fear of being overwhelmed. Many refugees spent years in camps before being able to find countries willing to take them in. Hong Kong was particularly effective at turning back boats and removing refugees. Their loss, our gain.