Hong Kong and Macau_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 14th Edition) - Andrew Stone [137]
Diamond Hill
Chi Lin Vegetarian (Long Men Lou) Map Vegetarian, Chinese $
3658 9388; Nan Lian Garden, 60 Fung Tak Rd; lunch $85, dinner $110; 11.30am-9pm; MTR Diamond Hill (exit C2)
The location behind a waterfall and tasty vegetarian food, including steamed rice with mixed mushrooms, make dining here a superb way to begin or end your visit to Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian Garden (see the boxed text). The elegant Song Cha Xie (Pavilion of Pine and Tea; 3658 9390; tea leaves $120-300; noon-7.30pm) nearby specialises in the art of Chinese tea drinking.
Lei Yue Mun
One of Hong Kong’s most popular seafood venues, the village of Lei Yue Mun has over a dozen seafood restaurants and seafood stalls lining a winding road overlooking the typhoon shelter.
Once you’ve settled down in a restaurant, go outside and pick your dinner from one of the stalls with live seafood tanks, making sure you know how much you’re paying and for what. The restaurant will take care of the rest.
The more popular restaurants include Lung Mun Seafood Restaurant ( Map; 2717 9886; 20 Hoi Pong Rd C), Lung Yue Restaurant ( Map; 2348 6332; 41 Hoi Pong Rd C) and Sea King Garden Restaurant ( Map; 2348 1408; 39 Hoi Pong Rd C). They open from around noon to 11pm.
To get to Lei Yue Mun from Yau Tong MTR station ( Map), use exit A2 and follow Cha Kwo Ling Rd and Shung Shun St south for 15 minutes or catch green minibus 24M from outside the station. Bus 14C links the Yau Tong Centre halfway down the hill with the Kwun Tong MTR station ( Map).
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NEW TERRITORIES
With very few exceptions, the New Territories is not an area offering a surfeit of culinary surprises. The following recommendations are basically to help you find sustenance along the way.
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TUEN MUN
You’ll find plenty of Chinese restaurants and noodle shops in Tuen Mun town centre, but it’s best to travel out a bit further for something unusual and delicious.
Nang Kee Goose Restaurant Map Cantonese $
2491 0392; 13 Sham Hong Rd, Sun Tsuen, Sham Tseng; roast goose per plate from $80; 10.30am-11pm; 234A or 234B from Tsuen Wan town centre
Sham Tseng has long been famous for roast goose, and this 50-year-old place is the most-visited restaurant in the area. Savour the crispy skin and succulent meat with some beer, and there can be no complaint.
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YUEN LONG
This historical town – known traditionally for three ‘treasures’: rice, grey mullet and oysters (in Lau Fau Shan along the coast) – has a handful of restaurants worth trekking north for. See the Dah Wing Wah boxed text Click here for walled-village cuisine.
Happy Seafood Restaurant Map Cantonese, Seafood $$
2472 3450; 12 Shan Ting St, Lau Fau Shan; meals $250-800; 11am-10pm; K65 or minibus 34 from Yuen Long (East) bus terminus, south of Yuen Long Light Rail station
The innovative seafood dishes here are – would you believe? – the brainchild of a cocky 23-year-old who is the world’s youngest chef to receive a Cordon Bleu medal. Talented Lau Ka-lun is said to have played truant from school at age 11 so he could cook in his mum’s restaurant. Lau’s signature fried rice with crab roe, scallops and ostrich meat ($88) is literally bursting with creativity. He also does wonders with oysters, a Lau Fau Shan speciality.
Pat heung kwun yum temple Map Chinese $
2477 5168, 9077 5393; 87 Pat Heung Upper Village; per basin for 10-12 $838, per basin for 2 $150; 11.30am-2pm; 51 from Nina Tower, Tsuen Wan
The folks here claim their poon choy (or basin feast; see Click here) recipe dates back to the end of the Southern Song dynasty (AD 1127–1279), when the defeated emperor fled from the Mongolians to what is the New Territories today. Apparently, the proof is in the duck, stewed the same way it was 800 years ago. Reservations a must.
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TAI PO & AROUND
Tai Po town centre features decent street food and the many Chinese eateries serve up old-style Hakka dishes hard to come by in more Westernised parts of Hong Kong. Tai Mei Tuk, the springboard