Old School Classics

Few months ago I had a chance to check out Hong Kong Cuisine 1983 in Happy Valley and tried some of the exquisite Cantonese dishes by Chef Silas Li. Tugged away in the side street of the quiet Happy Valley neighborhood, the cozy restaurant up on the first floor in a commercial building does have a speakeasy feel to it with classy traditional decor. 

We had a long menu, some taken from their regular tasting menu, some specialty dishes from Shunde that Chef prepared for us specifically. Chef definitely tried to put a fancy touch to some of the common traditional dishes - like the steamed egg white with crab meat dish. Here it's served with hua-diao wine sauce and lily flower root foam on top in the egg shell, plus drips of crab oil for the extra umami flavor. The goose web was another well-executed dish - based on the traditional method of braising in abalone sauce, but then it's stuffed in chicken wings slow-braised in soy sauce, for the double whammy of rich flavor.

Then there were some more stayed to the original version. The Shunde-style Fish Head soup was served with bits of fish meat served in a hearty and comforting soup base, with wood fungus and toasted Indian almonds on top. That's the perfect kind of soup for winter months. I also enjoyed the stuffed dace fish, a crafty dish that involves the fish being deboned with meat minced and whipped into mousse like texture, mixed and stuffed into the fish skin before steamed and pan-fried to cook. Here it's served on a sizzling hot plate so the dish could be kept in perfect temperature. 

I think all at the table agreed that the crispy chicken was the star of the night. We knew how yummy that's going to be with the whole cooked bird shown to us at the table before being carved into serving pieces. The skin got this nice bronze color and you could felt the crispiness just by looking at the shiny skin, and underneath, the meat was super juicy, well-brined with flavor before cooked perfectly with the right texture. 

We finished with two desserts - first the traditional Cantonese "White Sugar Cake" with the nice spongy texture, and then the almond cream with egg white. Interesting wine slection with some unusual bottles.  Like the Japanese Koshu - medium-bodied but rather rounded structure, dry, some unripe citrus and plenty of acidity that worked well with the rich Cantonese-style dishes. 

When? November 2 2023
Where? Hong Kong Cuisine 1983 1/F, Elegance Court, 2-4 Tsoi Tak St, Happy Valley
Menu Highlights? Shunde Style Fish Head Soup
Drinks?
Casata Monfort Blanc de Sers Brut Nature, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy
2019 Lumiere Hikari Koshu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan
2018 Chateau Haut Barrail, Medoc