An Alternative Hong Kong Kitchen

I have eaten my fair share of Hong Kong style cuisine. If there was such a thing as being a professional consumer of Hong Kong style cuisine, I would be it. But Hong Kong Kitchen in San Gabriel showed me there can still be some things up their sleeves that I have yet to try.

(Vegetarian Jai Lo Mei Sampler)

Their signature dish Jai Lo Mei. I know it's nothing new, and that many Buddhist restaurants have served this dish for many years. But I rarely actually frequent those restaurants since my family's not Buddhist. Nevertheless, eating these marinated tofu skin was of a different, but appealing experience.

They came in four different flavors including tomato, curry and two others that I can't remember anymore. They were very juicy and each one had a distinct flavor. There were three of us so it was the perfect number since there were three of each flavor. Normally I get annoyed with restaurants serving three servings on a plate. I mean you have most of your tables seating four people, but you serve three on a plate. Those restaurants are just trying to force us to get another order, which would result in two left overs. Never mind that, today it did work out in our favor.

None of the flavors were actually very strong, just enough to be distinguishable, since the tofu skins themselves have a subtle taste to it. They were served slightly warm.

(Baked Pork Chop Rice)

I'm a big fan of baked pork chop rice. They are generally served in a tomato paste over the pork chop and the rice. The pork chop themselves were actually really good. They were soft and easy to chew and very flavorful. The tomato sauce was ever so slightly on the sour side, but still a very good one. They used egg fried rice as the rice underneath, which gave the whole dish a wonderful aroma and the rice a nice grainy texture.

(Stir Fried Vegetable)

I can't remember the English name of this vegetable. I have issues with names of vegetables because I learned half of them in Chinese and the other half in English. It's a bit problematic. For the longest time I thought the Chinese name for spinach is the Chinese name for broccoli. Never mind that though. This was a standard fried large dao miu. I would translate it to bean sprout, but I think that's wrong. It was slightly oily, but not to the point of being overbearing. It's good to have some veggies in my system these days.

(Fried Dumplings)

I have to say I hate dumplings that are soaking in sauce. I don't like heavy sause, and I don't like heavy sour sauce. This dish was free, as a gift for spending twenty dollars today. But still, I am not a big fan of dumplings soaking in sauce. I want to taste the juice of the meat, and I prefer that restaurants let me decide how much of that sweet and sour sauce I want on my dumpling and not have that decision be made for me by them. Please, give me the sauce on the side next time. I'm a grown man. I know how to handle my sauces with care. Less is more. I do have to give them a little credit, the sauce wasn't completely unbearable. It was slightly over-powering, but given the fact that the dumplings were soaked in them, I was still able to taste the natural flavors of the insides of the dumplings.

(Pumpkin Fried Rice)

I been to Hong Kong kitchen a few times before and I remember having a fried rice with pumpkin in it. I thought it was the pumpkin fried rice, but I think it was a different dish. I think it was the mixed grain pumpkin fried rice that I was thinking about. This pumpkin fried rice was your normal fried rice with some pumpkin in it. I'm not thrilled about the taste of this dish, as it was slightly on the bland side. But combined with the heavily sauced dumplings and the baked pork chop rice, this was a nice lighter and slightly healthier dish.

Hong Kong kitchen is a departure from the standard Cantonese cafes in the area and is definitely a great alternative whenever I'm sick of having Cantonese cafes (which is hard for me to be). There are definitely some unique dishes here that's worth coming to you won't find anywhere else.