a friend mentioned in the morning that how about trying the claypot rice in hong kong?

i googled and found this place chuen moon kee 銓满记 at mongkok which is near to our hotel.

so after returning from cheung chau to central ferry, we walked back the way through IFC Mall & mid-level travelators back to central mtr station, and took the mtr to mongkok station. it was quite easy to locate chuen moon kee 銓满记.

the experienced server pushed the set dinner to us.

he was very skilled, social guy, pushy to get the orders but courteous & responsive, not abusive. very professional service.

i was not particularly keen on set menu, as the objective was to try the hong kong claypot claypot rice 锅仔饭, so i would prefer ala carte. anyhow the server conceded that the HK$480 2pax set menu was good enough for 4pax, and it already included one claypot rice & the 例汤 soup of the day.

chuen moon kee 銓满记 quite popular, most tables taken up at 7pm.

the mala 麻辣preparation for the 螺spicy shells was very good.

i don’t particularly like the taste of these shells, so the mala flavour actually did wonders to the dish, which would otherwise be “siap siap” ie a bit bitter after taste.

dinner started with the 例汤 soup of the day.

some meat & pim & pumpkin & radish.

soup was tasty enough, none too great…

the roast pigeon was good!

but in hong kong where roast goose is so good, so flavourful, roast pigeon always feels like a waste of time for me. 🙂

the server emphasized the 1 in thick fish cakes.

didn’t think it was any special, basically like the fish cake selling at street vendors.

it was very good though very tasty.

& the fried mixed greens were very good too.

vegetables always fresh & good in hong kong. this was simple dish but well done.

& we could chose 1 claypot rice for the set.

we picked the 腊味饭.

the pork & liver sausages were really nice.

& the rice was fragrant, separate grains, fragrant & cooked just right.

& not to forget the garlic steamed abalones & prawns (top photo).

it was very good. fried garlic sauce really well done & flavourful. prawns were great with the garlic sauce. abalones were large. a bit like the australian green lip fresh abalones. never quite as good as dry abalones braised in brown sauce, but very well done as it is for fresh abalones.

so every dish was good really. i would count the soup as the dish that was below par by comparison to the other great dishes.

so the set dinner was actually pretty good. only thing for me is we didn’t get to try the different claypot rice, like they have the unagi rice 白鳝锅仔饭 & a host of others like chicken, roast duck etc.

i will definitely come back here to try more of these claypot rice dishes. 🙂

c.h.e.f andy

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Chuen Moon Kee 銓满记