Spicing Things Up

The Hubs and I had a visitor over the last five nights, the lovely Ms RiRi. We determined not to swamp her with Hong Kong from the off, and decided to ease into things with dinner at one of Hong Kong's Private Kitchens, Da Ping Huo . Da Ping Huo is a Szechuan husband-wife enterprise. She cooks and, at the end of the evening, sings in Chinese opera style.

I'd managed to get a table for ten, including the Resident Froggie. Her camera skills are vastly superior to mine, and so we left it to her to capture the deliciousness (link here). We were booked in for 9pm, the second service, but only sat down at about half past since the table needed to be turned. When we sat down, we were starving, and a good thing too, since the meal was twelve courses that took till about half eleven. We ordered a Pinot Blanc and a Pinot Gris in that order, and they held up well through the evening, given the spices that ensued. All in, dinner was HK$360 for an excellent dinner and drinks. Suffice to say, it's recommended, and I'll be attempting to take all visitors there going forward.

So, how do you do twelve courses for that value in Hong Kong? Well... lets see.
Courses 1-3 Appetisers
1. Chilled sweet and sour cucumbers
This was slightly strange in that sauce was like a soy sauce that was mixed with fish sauce but then had sugar thrown in. The texture was almost like a thin oyster sauce, but slightly gritty from the sugar. Unexpected but not unpleasant, though not necessarily something I would enjoy repeatedly.

2. What I'm calling Szechuan coleslaw
A shredded vegetable salad in a semi-spicy sauce, slathered with sesame seeds. Very much like achar, and my favourite of the starters.

3. Wide glass noodles with nuts
This was the spiciest of the appetisers and, to my mind, the spiciest dish of all. Even Singaporean me struggled slightly with this one! This had some of the table sputtering and looking around for flame retardants.

Course 4. Chicken pieces
This was a fairly unpopular course with the table, though I did go back for seconds. Possibly thirds. It was a kampong chicken, served cold with skin on and cut through bones. This is one of those things that can be a helluva awkward to eat in public. I, clearly, have no qualms about spitting bones out, and am fairly skilled at skinning a chicken armed with nothing but chopsticks and a soup spoon. More for me!!

Course 5. Chicken soup
An alright soup, I suppose. It was good respite for the tingly-tongue syndrome we were all suffering from, but was just a bit bland after the earlier assault on our tastebuds, sweatglands and blood vessels.

Course 6. Chilli beef
This was far and away the best course of the evening. Full of Asian style collagen, this was a myriad of textures and tastes. Even better, the gravy had a texture I love when on the jasmine rice, previously limited to Thai-curry-on-coconut-rice.

Course 7. Pork rib on sweet potato
Well, they called this pork rib on sweet potato. On the blogs I've seen, this dish is called sticky rice with pumpkin. I'm not sure if I was in a chilli coma at this stage, or possibly got short-changed on my serving. I didn't notice any sticky rice (mine was pretty much all meat and the bone from the rib), though the carbohydrate may well have been pumpkin. From the Froggie's picture, though, it does look like there was rice there. Now I feel cheated.

Course 8. Ma Po Tofu
What we were all waiting for. This was cited as being the spiciest dish, but I was beyond that by now. The tofu in ma po always tempers the spice and I was blissfully tempering.

Course 9. A slightly less redundant soup
This was a vegetable soup with a mystery vegetable that was a bit like a mini kai lan.

Course 10. Szechuan dumpling
I think I really liked this, but by this stage I was so full I couldn't manage the second dumpling and had to abandon it. A tragedy.

Course 11. Tau Hui
This was a fairly standard tau hui , but with a thicker than usual syrup, attap chee and nashi pears.

The End.

BUT WAIT. That's only 11 courses? Now I feel cheated. The internet tells me there was meant to be prawns but we seemed to have missed out on those. Having said that, none of us would have been able to fit it in. We were doggie bagging as it was! All in all, this was a great meal and a great evening. No doubt I'll be back.