Dong Shan

> Location : Shunde, Gaungdong, Mainland China
> Cuisine : Specializing in Lamb
> Tel. # : (86) 0757-28869594
> Website : N/A

Simon, did you quit on Hong Kong reviews? haha. Don't worry! Been visiting Shunde and Guangzhou a lot lately so that's why I have so many reviews from there! This time, I'm writing a review I would say by far one of my favorite restaurant in Shunde! The place is called Dong Shan. The name is actually an island on the southeastern portion of Mainland China. The main purpose of this place is to eat lamb! Yes, another lamb specialty restaurant! This is the place my father was speaking of that is very good if you read my other review. I'll tell you before I even get into this, go to this place! It is a must. Just that good!

Like a lot of the lamb speciality restaurants in Shunde, the primary sauce is a mixture of fermented bean curd, sesame oil and chili. There's a stove in the middle of each table for any lamb dishes that is good by hotpotting. Dong Shan is fairly big with about 15-20 private rooms you can reserve anytime. The environment is bright, clean and the service is good overall. Food wise, there are certain lamb parts that needs to be reserved early if you want to have a chance to eat it! lamb, tail and tongue are amount are some of the few things that needs to be reserved ahead of time.

So what did I had? First up, braised lamb meat with taro. This dish is absolutely amazing. In a semi-thick sauce that has a sweet and somewhat salty taste and topping it off with cilantro garnish, green onions and crushed peanuts. The lamb is so tasty with the sauce and is so tender. The taro is firm which is good for this dish because it is not a pot style dish. What I mean by this is, the taro won't break easily which convolutes the lamb meat which is the highlight of the experience. So hard to say anything else but it's just that good! One of those things that is great with rice definitely.

Dong Shan goat is the next dish. Or the literal translation would mean, eastern mountain goat. As we discussed in the beginning, Dong Shan is an island/place in the southeastern portion of China. As you can guess, the goat meat is directly from Dong Shan. The dish is basically steamed/boiled. There really isn't anything added to it. The main purpose of this dish is to savor the flavor of Dong Shan goat meat. On the side, a soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, cilantro, green onion base sauce is provided for this. The skin texture is a little sticky, the skin is light brown. The meat is a a little chewy yet tender and the dish is served slightly warm. Definitely a good delicacy to try! Recommended.

lamb stomach area meat is next. This course is hotpotted. After letting it boil a little bit, I took a piece, put it in my mouth and guess what? Like the last two dishes, good again! The meat was tender and goes well with the fermented bean curd sauce. The sauce that is cooked in is mildly salty so it is best with the bean curd sauce. Overall, another good dish.

Last but not least, roasted lamb on a wooden skewer. The meat is slightly crispy and tender. The meat is marinaded with "lam yui" fermented bean curd. Due to the nature of this bean curd, the flavor of the meat has a unique hint of sweetness. It is not too salty which is good. Overall, a very simple dish yet done nicely!

For just $10 to $80 R.M.B. for each dish on the menu, with most of the main dishes ranging around $15-30 each, you can tell how cheap it is. That is the greatness of a lot of restaurants in Shunde! Cheap and good. Dong Shan is a great restaurant to visit if you're ever in Shunde. I've been to this place twice and I can tell you, consistently excellent. Sometimes people run into restaurants where a dish can be good one day and bad on the other. With Dong Shan, this is not the case and even if the 'touch' is a little off, I bet it is still considered great to a lot of eaters!

< 4 1/2 out of 5 >

North Garden

> Location : 1-2 F Tung Ning Blg., 249 Des Voeux Rd.,
Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
> Cuisine : Chiu Chow & Canton (Chinese)
> Tel. # : (852) 2739-2338
> Website : N/A

Update (Sep 30) :

I go to North Garden occasionally with family members for lunch. I still have to recommend their lo shui and cold fish. They are consistent everytime and very good! Chicken dishes wise, I tried a few and never came to enjoy any of it. However, I did come to find two new dishes I enjoy very much. The first being spare ribs cooked in fermented bean curd. Note, this isn't the usual fermented bean curd used. Usually, in cantonese, "fu yui" is how we translate fermented bean curd. However, there are actually different ways of making fermented bean curd therefore giving it a different taste. The type i'm talking about is "lam yui." Instead of using it in vegetable or as a dipping sauce like fu yui, lam yui is used usually in meat dishes to give it a unique sweet sensation. The other dish is "lap mei fuan." Lap mei fuan is rice cooked in a pot topped with oil chicken, Chinese sausage (grounded meat), Chinese sausage (grounded intestines), and oil duck thigh, all glazed in oil. It isn't the most healthy dish but it is extremely tasty! Anyhow to end this, a recent photo of a lo shui dish and a new rating...

< 4 out of 5 >


Original Review (Aug 16) :

North garden is located in the heart of sheung wan (close to central) very close to the wing on department store. the restaurant has a few floors. the first floor is to wait for seating, second floor is for ordering food by menu and third floor is for dim sum during lunch time. north garden serves both chiu chow and canton style cooking. the main purpose to me is really trying the chiu chow food here =) before i dive into terms and definitions and history, i want to comment on the service quickly. the people working there are all very responsive and polite. like i said many times, doing chinese restaurant style business here in hong kong are all about customer service to getting to know your "clients." if you make them feel like "home," they will surely come back and spend more money!

chiu chow cuisine or chao zhou if you want to pronounce it in mandarin is famous for many delicate dishes. from bird's nest to shark fin to goose to pigeon to cold fish to lo shui dishes. yes, chiu chow cuisine has a lot to offer! it isn't as popular as canton or shanghainese cuisines here in hong kong but it's definitely very unique among the others and deserves a lot of attention. so out of all those things i listed, i bet most of you are scratchin' your head with the chinese term "lo shui." it is somewhat similar to the term braised yet different by far. when you translate the two chinese words, it literally means "old water." so what is this all about? lo shui is a sauce soy based marinade used to cook various types of food . in chiu chow cuisine, it is used to cook tofu, eggs, goose meat, goose liver, goose intestine, and other things. wait, i'm not done yet! of course it is not just soy sauce, but soy sauce based marinade that is boiled daily (using the same source everyday). by boiling the same pot everyday, it helps the marinade built a more define taste to it. so therefore the more you boil, the better it taste! don't worry, i know what you're thinkin' about, but reboiling it everyday keeps it from spoiling. it is a weird concept to hear about but tasting it is a different story =) most household lo shui cooking are more short term base (a few days of reboiling) so it isn't as good as long term lo shui which are used in specialized restaurants. so in the end, a good chiu chow lo shui depends on the soy sauce base plus other special ingredients the chef added plus most importantly how old it is.

now you know what lo shui is all about, i would like to share what kind of lo shui food i had in this restaurant. ranging about high 40's to 70 so hkd per lo shui dish (every dish comes with tofu base), these dishes usually comes with a pair of different type of food. from tofu, eggs, goose meat (with bone) or slices of goose meat, goose liver, and goose intestine. you can even tell them to give you a combination of everything to make your life easier if you wanna try everything out! lo shui dishes in chiu chow style usually comes with a garlic and vinegar sauce. you'll taste vinegar for the most part. it balances out the salty/sweet flavor of the lo shui giving it a very distinctive taste. i would recommend gettin' goose meat instead of the slices because it tastes just as good and overall you get more for your money! plus, there isn't a lot of bones anyways. due to the long hours of cooking, the lo shui really sinks into the food giving it a strong lo shui taste plus making the meats nice and tender. lo shui is definitely a delicacy worth trying!

so what's next? chiu chow cold fish! most might think this is kind of odd. when we think of chinese and fish, we are reminded of steamed fish served with fish sauce and how well it goes with white rice, haha. however, a famous way of serving fish in chiu chow is by serving it cold! how is it done? well, it is quite simple. you marinade the fish only with simple ingredients such as salt and pepper if you would like. make sure the fish is as dry as possible at least from the outside and steam the fish using something that will have ventillation such as a bamboo steam basket. when it is fully cooked, let the fish sit and cool down (don't refridgirated) until it is dry and cold. since there's no sauce used to cook this dish, certainly there's something to dip with. a bean paste sauce is traditionally used to dip the cold fish. bean paste usually refers to fermented yellow beans. it tends to be very salty which compliments the lack of taste from the cold fish. various fishes are used for this type of cooking. most of the time mullets are used for cooking cold fish. the lack of sauces cooked with the fish and how it is cool down allows the eater to really taste the flavor of the respective fish. in the end, this is another one of those delicacy that is certainly weird but very good!

lastly, pigeon meat with bamboo shoots and mushrooms. the dish is decorated with the pigeon head fried and its wings fried. pigeon meat is usually famous among chinese people for roasting them. usually, baby pigeons are used because they tend to be tastier. in this specific case, the pigeon meat was stir fried with bamboo shoots and mushrooms. i found this dish lacking in taste and i do not believe it is intended to be this way. the fried decorations were not eatable for your information. there isn't anything special to talk about in this dish. it is an average dish and deserves a try if you love pigeon meat. overall, i would rather go to a place for some roasted baby pigeons!

anyhow, that last dish really killed my excitement with north garden. but take nothing away from the first two because they were a pair of unique delicacy. there are other chiu chow restaurants i have to try in order to have a better understanding of the other famous dishes and the taste difference of different lo shui. the first two dishes alone i would give between 4 to 4.5 points. however, the pigeon dish tanked the score for north garden. before i give out the score, i must point out about the rice they serve in this place. each bowl of rice is individually and freshly steamed in a bowl making every order very very hot! anyhow...

< 3 1/2 out of 5 >