@Chowseeker1999 if you’re ever out by Oakland, check out Phở Gà Hương Quê Cafe for …Phở Gà. It was my regular breakfast spot upon arriving at OAK. It’s been a few years but I recollect their Pho Ga was superior to anything I had in LA.
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Thanks @Sgee. Wow, this place looks wonderful. Very clear broth. And they serve their Pho Ga with Chicken Intestines(?!) and Young Eggs?! 
I didn’t know Chicken Intestines were a thing. @Ns1 @attran99 @hppzz ! 
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The young eggs and intestines used to be a fairly common thing in pho ga joints years back—not sure why it stopped but now we can’t even find it on menus anywhere and the fresh chicken purveyors stopped carrying too.
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“In the old days” they would just ask you by default if you wanted them or not - not an upcharge. Guess times have changed.
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That’s how I remember old school pho ga. Haven’t seen if offered that way in ages. My Mom used to love all the offal…and if cleaned right, if was delicious.
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@beefnoguy excellent canto bbq that sgv simply can’t match
love the classic cha chaan teng plastic cup
pork neck char siu & soy sauce chicken rice plate
chicken skin is flavorful, elastic and sleek aka 爽
supple and juicy
even the breast meat is only slightly dry
my “half fat and half skinny” pork neck char siu turned out to be all meat but it’s quite flavorful, tender and a bit on the sweet side. it’s definitely the most competent version of the low cost char siu i’ve had stateside
half roasted duck
unfortunately, ming kee doesn’t carry any plum sauce which is essential to such a rich and fatty roasted duck to tone down the heaviness
it’s a little salty, quite bony, but very juicy with slightly crispy skin. overall, a very high quality product
$22.75 total pre-tip is a steal for the massive amount of food we got
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Glad you guys enjoyed it!!
I agree, Ming Kee’s soy sauce chicken, the skin is freakin amazing. It’s the barrier that absorbs the blunt of the marinade but yet it perfectly flavors the rest of the chicken without overpowering it. The balance is incredible with great umami notes and not too sour not too sweet. So much complexity. R&G Lounge has a respectable version for a sit down restaurant that’s not roasties centric, but their soy sauce marinade is a lot sweeter.
I guess you can try fei cha next time if you want. Half lean half fatty can be a bit inconsistent, but if you look closely at the pork shoulder cut they use, it kind of looks like that fatty BBQ Brisket Bourdain had at Franklin BBQ where you see the fatty juices in the pattern of the meat grains.
Duck has never been consistent at Ming Kee. Lam Hoa Thuan on Irving does it better by a few hairs and more meaty, but they’re Vietnamese Chinese. The skin is solid but it’s like they’re using free range ducks, and at times even bonier than their empress range chicken.
MK is such an excellent neigborhood spot, you’ll rarely see non Cantonese in here (let alone out of towners). Finding a master butcher/roaster who is of Hong Kong extraction is even rarer in this area.
Perhaps there are better or more competent roasties at the higher end seafood restaurants in SGV/SoCal? To be fair and to the disadvantage of MK, MK no longer offers crispy skin roast pork (siu yuk)… they suffered a fire at the current location a few years ago then moved to Irving and then back to the original location…since then I think they were never able to get a consistent roast pork so they scrapped it.
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haven’t experienced it since i’ve only had them at capital seafood and tang gong for dinner. the expensive iberico char siu at mott 32 in vegas is excellent though but i haven’t had their yiu suk.
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Hi @moonboy403,
Glad you had a good visit to Ming Kee! We love that place. Looks like you got all 3 essential HK BBQ items there. Definitely nice Soy Sauce Chicken. The Roast Duck, glad you also had the slightly crisped skin, and the BBQ Pork Neck. Interestingly (probably luck of the draw), the ~4 times we’ve been there our BBQ Pork Neck Charsiu has always had some fat to go with the lean. Maybe try it again next time?
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Hi @beefnoguy,
I think we were lucky enough to try most of them locally (thanks to our friends in the SGV and just various visits over the years). The only thing I think So Cal does great and standout is the Roast Pork Belly / Roast Suckling Pig (you’ve seen the pics). 
If you have recommendations for SF ones that are just as good or better, please let me know. 
your pork neck looks a lot better and the total opposite of the one i got which was like 80% fat. i’ll have to try it again.
a bit off topic but here’s a “8 treasure duck” i had at ocean bo in la. it’s rare to find it in hong kong nowadays because its very labor intensive and it’s my first time having this. unfortunately, i could only account for 6 “treasures” (shiitake, lotus seed, pork, salted egg yolk, pearl barley, lily bulb). have you had it in sf @beefnoguy?
i was gonna try this in hong kong’s spring moon (嘉麟樓), where the chef was the ec at fook lam moon (福臨門) for decades, but then i had to cancel my reservation there after i got sick. his version of the 8 treasures consist of shiitake, lotus seed, jinhua ham, salted egg yolk, pearl barley, lily bulb, corn, and chestnut along with a sauce made from 100 braised abalone 
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you made the mistake of ordering in english which outted you as a foreign rube
on another note, it’s much better than ricebox if that tells you anything
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I’ll make sure to order in spanish next time
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Last time I had 8 treasures stuffed duck was Yum’s Bistro I think with the now retired original chef…not a huge fan of this prep though.
There may be some Taiwanese Chinese chefs that do a slightly different interpretation of it in varying degrees, but nothing I know of so far that I could easily recommend. I can ask around. Some people are enamored with Royal Feast (Millbrae) as the chef that does mostly Sichuan cuisine, has a background in Tan cuisine (Tan Jia Cai), and a couple friends love their banquet food if you preorder certain dishes. So perhaps RF has a version of that, I’ll have to verify.
i suppose the soft texture resulting from long cook time was the biggest impediment? the one from spring moon is suppose to be different and takes proper cook time into consideration to get the skin and meat texture just right
Maybe it’s too many ingredients together.
I’d much rather have braised duck and taro claypot, or the multi layered pressed duck with a puffy crispy exterior that resembles taro dumplings/wu gok on the outside (that’s more my jam). Same chef did these and I felt were far more splendid than the 8 treasures.
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How are they doing since? Offering takeout?
They have been closed at least three weeks or more. Nobody picked up when I called yesterday but a friend updated me. I am keeping hope they will reopen! Hard to social distance in there for sure.
Lam Hoa Thuan on Irving had a huge line a couple days ago.
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