Roasted Pork Belly, Crispy Roast Duck, BBQ Pork - A Hong Kong BBQ Journey. [BONUS: Amazing Crackling Roasted Suckling Pig!] - Ruby BBQ, Ho Kee, Hop Woo, Sam Woo, New Duong Son BBQ, Lien Hoa BBQ, Noodle Boy, Monterey Palace [Thoughts + Pics]

Something like this? Our health department could go to town with this joint, in Kaohsiung Taiwan.

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Yeah. Our health dept would basically make a face like those people who throw up in their mouth and then swallow their own vomit because theyā€™re too embarrassed that theyā€™re gagging.

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Oh yeah you guys should see how our Sichuan / Tanjia banquet restaurant that is super loved by some of the Chowhounds, how they air dry their ducks for tea smoking or was it Pekingā€¦out in the open by the back entrance leading into the parking lot and dumpster. At least with the Taiwan photo itā€™s out in the open (as they say å…‰ę˜Žę­£å¤§ā€¦)

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Head up to Rose Hills during the annual Qingming Jie (ęø…ę˜ŽčŠ‚) festival, and you will see the cemetery grounds dotted with whole roast pigs.

Charlotte would be saddened.

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Iā€™ll probably end up offending some people by saying thisā€¦but I think Cantonese is generally very lacking in Southern California (and in some cases super appalling) due to a combination of things.

  • Easier to make low quality mass produced food that requires less skill

  • competition on pricing / price wars, resulting in cutting costs, so no need for skilled chefs for anything (how many mediocre seafood dim sum restaurants do we really need at low prices?). In the end the consumer gets screwed with no great choices but a bunch of crappy similar choices

  • the mentality of many non FTC consumers who prefer value over price/taste (probably the older non foodie crowd) and the ones who donā€™t give a duckā€™s butt what they are eating and rather have a plate of $25 pasta or hit up the 626 night market for 3 hour wait expensive thrills so they could 'gram it. Letā€™s face it, who wants to gram a microwaved duck when you can have Fusion Fries, Poke bowls, boba trucks, eggette ice cream sundaes all in one shot?

  • when there are treasures to be unearthed in a restaurant, nobody (except maybe FTCers and those with the right FTC mentality) notices them and puts on their Asian American Yelping hat, orders the equivalent of dim sum type popularity items (then hits the boba shop afterwards)ā€¦could be a millennial thing or parents not exposing the kids enough to whatā€™s out thereā€¦but donā€™t worry, Hong Kong is catching up with millennial attitudes as well, giving traditional won ton noodles the finger and complaining about prices, but have no qualms lining up for $16 tonkatsu ramen. Anyone remember Bon Marche Bistro in Monterey Park? Iā€™ve never been, but one of your local greats, exilekiss, reviewed it fairly extensively circa 2008 or so. Nobody else did Poon Choy like that, and some Hakka Cantonese (well we do have Hakka Restaurant in SF but itā€™s inconsistent)ā€¦and yet they did not surviveā€¦easy to point the finger at lack of appreciation but thatā€™s entirely possible too. When Bon Marche shuttered, even though I have not tried the food, I was like ā€œdamn, thereā€™s no hope for Cantonese in SoCal if the general public canā€™t even treasure something niche like thisā€.

  • whatever great skilled chef you guys had who left HK for LA and may have opened restaurants, probably retired and never took on apprentices (or maybe those who could have apprenticed, decided to learn other cuisines instead of trying to carry on the torch and craft, itā€™s already happening in Hong Kong). Word is that Embassy Kitchen in San Gabriel, the chef that created those great items, has retired or is no longer working there for other reasons (apparently is a friend of a famous ex chef up here), and those in the know noticed that the special dishes donā€™t taste the same as before. Take Seafood Palace Rosemead (with a branch in Monterey Park)ā€¦how many people flock there for the Chiu Chow simmered eats and true Chiu Chow style Cantonese? Look at Yelp and most people are ordering typhoon shelter crabā€¦but in a way they did this to themselves (heck the Chinese name is Typhoon Shelter). Would people even care if the Chiu Chow centric items disappeared from the menu?

Last but not least, I would venture a guess and say there is a general lack of skill (and care) in the execution, and the lack of skilled chefs from Hong Kong around in general who knows what the true flavors are. I firmly believe that once people experience them, even the younger 626 night market gram type crowd, they will become believers (maybe not apprentices to the craft).

Noodle Boy for Southern California otherwise looks very promising, even though itā€™s still not quite the real deal, but the impression I get from photos is that it is for sure notches above average and looks far tastier than say Honā€™s Wun Tun Noodle in SF Chinatown (the irony: Honā€™s makes and sells fresh rice rolls for steaming or plain cheung fun, but when you dine in at the restaurant itā€™s microwaved so it comes out dry and humorously a touch al dente, and it tastes nothing like dim sum cheung fun with the smooth slippery skins).

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I do plan on a visit to Seafood Palace soon!!

And maybe not enough HK people are immigrating when compared with Mainlanders

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Hong Kong style Ja Jeung Meen, much like the highly beloved macaroni cheese, is subject to a number of interpretations. However the flavor profile focuses around sweet, sour, spicy, and sometimes other subtle flavors, along with julienne pork strips (being the more traditional pork prep of choice) or for the lazy shortcutters, ground pork. The more common interpretation is a ketchup and chili sauce (e.g. doubanjiang) base stir fried with julienne strips of pork (sometimes with onions) then placed on top of ideally bamboo pole kneaded egg noodles (broth on the side) where this would essentially be what I call ā€œCantonese pasta bolognese al denteā€ (more so if the shorcutter ground pork is used).

Even in Hong Kong, at whatever traditional won ton noodle shops remain, the ja jeung sauce recipe could vary to achieve different textures (and in some cases profiles)

KCč³žå‘³éšØē­†: č™Ÿå¤–ļ¼šē‚ø醬éŗµć®ę­Œļ¼ˆå„½ę—ŗ角ā€§ę°øčÆā€§å„½åˆ°åŗ•ā€§ē¾…åƌčؘā€§å½Œę•¦ā€§é¾čؘļ¼‰ (example blog post of several of the authorā€™s top favorites in Hong Kong)

  • the authorā€™s top favorite ja jeung, the sauce is not ketchup, but hoisinā€¦hence a darker shade.

  • in the second restaurant (which is Wing Wah in Wanchai, going to shutter for good before the end of the month), the sauce is quite refined. No visible signs of ketchup, and the addition of shitake slivers adds some umami and texture.

  • the third one sounds rather legendary, that despite the ketchup addition, the chili oil brings out a balance that mutes the sweetness from the ketchup. Deceivingly simple but yet steadfast and traditional

One last variant not mentioned, is by using some of the best traditional artisan chili sauce to create the ja jeung mix (e.g. Yu Kwen Yick @Ns1 knows what Iā€™m talking about, which adds a wonderfully balanced complexity and sweet/sour/spicy balance from the fermented sweet potatoes, not to mention the wonderful acidity). YKY seems to have started off being the de facto chili sauce back in the heyday at won ton noodle shops, but eventually restaurant owners phased them out due to very high costs. Iā€™ve used Yu Kwen Yick also in spicy tuna handrolls (cheap Ahi tuna of course) with killer results, and you could also add it to pasta. Hong Kong now has a craft beer and cocktails using Yu Kwen Yick too. Too bad this stuff is not exported, but is one of the absolute must buys as a food souvenir for chili sauce fans.

Without knowing anything more about Noodle Boyā€™s JJM and only looking at the picture, itā€™s otherwise a good looking ā€œsweet and sour porkā€ over noodles dish. If the sweet/sour/spicy balance is good, then we have a winner. @Chowseeker1999 we need your review and pictures on this!

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The Embassy Kitchen chef retired? Perhaps that explains why our last meal there was the usual great dinner, but my friend who went back a few weeks later was terribly disappointed.

I think your points are very good observations
In fact, the general outline of your points applies to so much of what goes on with more and more immigrant cuisines and the eateries that represent them here and in other countries.

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Hi @Sgee,

Thank you again for the great recommendation on Noodle Boy! :slight_smile: I know our board mustā€™ve talked about it in the past, but I was silly in thinking it was something else (Noodle Planet related restaurant). :frowning:

Chili Sauce?! :open_mouth: No I didnā€™t try it. Should I have used it on the Wonton Noodle Soup? Iā€™ll give it a try next time, thanks.

And wow, I had no idea Noodle Boyā€™s Sergio left the building. Whatā€™s crazy is that even now (if Sergio left), Noodle Boyā€™s Wonton Noodle Soup is so much better than all of the other places we tried this at recently. I canā€™t imagine how much better it used to be then.

I hope you get a chance to try Ruby BBQ and Monterey Palace for the Roast Pork (and Suckling Pig!). :slight_smile:

Hong Kong? Yes, I was lucky enough to travel there, but years ago. That was just when I was learning about good food (and Iā€™m still learning to this day). :sweat_smile: The Dim Sum we had in Hong Kong really blew away (and still blows away) everything we had here except some stand out dishes from Dragon Beaux.

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Hi @J_L,

Oh thanks for the tip! I think we drove on Pontius but couldnā€™t find anything, but we didnā€™t drive in from Pico, so maybe there might be more spots towards there.

I canā€™t speak for roast duck Cantonese, but for roast goose the ideal preparation is pretty much exactly as you describedā€¦rub the marinade, pump air into the duck through the neck into the body to inflate (it helps loosen the skin from the meat), then the goose is boiled. To enhance the crispiness of the skin, it is said that a mixture of white vinegar and molasses (reduced to a solution) is splashed onto the goose, covering as much of the skin, before air drying (apparently without the assist of fans) is how the old masters do it. Charcoal roasting would be the most ideal not because of the aroma, but more so for temperature control (more natural and gradual bringing down of temperature) thus reducing the risk of over roasting or flash roasting too quickly, and allowing the fat and juices to be retained within. At least thatā€™s what the hardcore traditionalists believe makes a goose great.

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Hi @bulavinaka,

Oh nice! Glad you liked Ruby BBQ. Did you try both the Roasted Pork Belly and the Roast Duck? :slight_smile:

If you do get the Suckling Pig at Monterey Palace let us know how it went. :wink:

Finding parking on Pontius gets easier after the work crowd starts to leave and the businesses along the street close. Weekends are usually not an issue.

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Yes - enjoyed both. The pork belly was just as you described. The duck not as much so. But we were there later in the day. Also, transporting it back to the Westside didnā€™t help. Still - head and shoulders above the usual suspects.

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Hi @ipsedixit,

Very informative, thanks. I guess that explains why there was almost no Cantonese Roast Duck that had any crispness in the skin. :frowning: I remember reading all of the posts here and on our old board about the sad state of Peking Duck as well. Iā€™m guessing itā€™s also a similar problem / challenge (in trying to properly prepare the duck)? Kinda sad.

Meh.

Donā€™t overthink it. Itā€™s just cuz Cantonese food isnā€™t very good ā€¦

Itā€™s a food board, thatā€™s what we do.

And @beefnoguy built a logical argument for his opinion. You are simply being dismissive, without giving us any explanation for your assertion:

Itā€™s just cuz Cantonese food isnā€™t very good ā€¦

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Those are fighting words!!

Haha for those who have been with us and CH long enough should know ipse well enough to get his sarcasm and style.

For someone who doesnā€™t like Cantonese food (or claims to), certainly has no qualms mentioning a few favorites about the dinners at Sea Harbor involvingā€¦gaspā€¦Cantonese style live seafood :slight_smile: butā€¦in a restaurant that focuses on dim sum during lunch :laughing:, or the boss fried rice at Dragon Beaux in SF (another dim sum restaurant, but Cantonese nonetheless) :wink:. Donā€™t worry, your secret is safe with us!

Itā€™s all good. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and a little verbal sparing or jest is fun sometimes. You have to have skin as thick as his grandmaā€™s dumplings to not be offended and get it :sweat_smile:.

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