Chic cuisine even my grand-aunt can love

I’m often irked by reports in the Western media that trot out examples of new Chinese restaurants opening in Hong Kong to demonstrate a “trend” that post-Chinese handover food has become “more Chinese.”

For as long as edible creatures have existed in the South China Sea, Hong Kongers have fished them out and made them into Chinese food. And as long as there have been migrants and refugees from the rest of greater China — which is about as long as fish have swum in the sea — this city has been a meeting place for the cuisine’s regional variations, from Shanghai dumplings to Yunnan ham and Taiwan street-food.

What’s new is the elevation of old-fashioned, home-grown regional dishes into a higher cuisine that is paired with fine wines, polite service, elegant dining rooms and other comforts usually associated with pricey Western food. Even the decor has changed. In the past, traditional Chinese food could be had either in holes-in-the-wall, or gaudy restaurants with red fabric walls and faux gold dragons. Now, what’s new is the very old — antique wooden doors, screens and rickshaws make you feel like you’re being served beggar’s chicken in the Shanghai Tang foyer. And everything from Cantonese to Hunan, Sichuan to Manchurian, is available even in chic quarters like Soho.

One local company that got the formula right is Aqua. They are like the indie-label of restaurant groups — their offerings are nicer than street-side joints, but they are not an enormous commercial enterprise like Maxim’s either. They have four Chinese eateries matching traditional dishes with pretty interiors, each with its own character: Water Margin in Causeway Bay (Beijing, Shanghai and Sichuan dishes), Yun Fu in Central (Manchurian), Hutong in Tsim Sha Tsui (Northern Chinese) and Shui Hu Ju in Soho (Sichuan and other southwestern Chinese cuisines).

Water Margin, despite its location upstairs in one of the city’s ubiquitous towers, is undeniably elegant. But is its regional Chinese food authentic? I went to eat with critics far more discerning than myself: My mother, father, aunt and great-aunt, who is the kind of lady who still lunches in a silk cheongsam.

We started with the soup of the day, which was a clear fish broth. It was followed by three cold starters (chicken salad, sliced jellyfish and vegetable rolls) and then three types of hot dumplings (duck, shrimp and vegetarian). There was a selection of entrees, and we chose to share tender pork neck slices stir-fried with coriander; firm white fish fillets heaped with sauteed onions; a mountain of delicate water spinach leaves; and flash-fried chicken nuggets dabbed in sweet-and-sour sauce. (Yes, Chinese food purists do eat sweet-and-sour, just not the syrupy variety served overseas). On the side was a choice of salted vegetable rice or dan dan mian, noodles in Sichuan chili oil.

Our party was impressed — with the authenticity of the dishes and the fine, light-handed preparation that showed off the freshness of the ingredients. They even found all the little wooden trinkets and antique puppets cute instead of twee. Best yet, everything we had was covered in a lunch set for H.K. $88 (U.S. $11) per person. The bill for five, including tea and service charge, was an even H.K. $500.

On a subsequent visit, we tried the beggar’s chicken, a Northern Chinese dish that is served only at dinner and must be ordered in advance. The tale is that it was invented by vagabonds who would steal chickens from the rich and — lacking a kitchen — encase the bird in mud before throwing it in an open fire. Water Margin’s is considerably nicer, stuffed with pork and Beijing pickled vegetables, and wrapped layers of fragrant lotus leaves. In a somewhat gimmicky presentation, the customer is given a wooden mallet with which the hard outer clay shell is broken. If the customer is as incompetent as I, the nice restaurant manager will take the dish away so it can be finished in the kitchen.

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I had dinner at another very different Aqua restaurant under different circumstances.
“I thought it was a car park,” my dinner companion said of the entrance of Yun Fu, which, like many hipper-than-thou establishments, almost seems to make an effort to be obscurely placed.
It’s a dark wooden doorway on Wyndham Street, with no English sign, leading down into a basement. On top were what I can only describe as shredded colored banners. My other dining companion said, “Maybe they are those Northern Chinese flag things.” (We self-centered Hong Kongers consider anything “ethnic,” “rural,” “regional” or “further away than Guangzhou” to be “Northern Chinese.”)
A young woman dressed in black asked for our reservation and led us down quite a few stairs, lined with what look like small terracotta statuettes. (I could be wrong; it was very dim).
The design was modern, minimalist and very Chinese, with lots of ornately carved dark wood. We went through a heavy door, left ajar just-so, and entered an oval bar, where flashing video-art images of China lit up the crowd of cocktail-sipping fashionistas and young businessmen — definitely not my great-aunt’s scene.
We went down another hallway that was bathed in an eerie blood-red glow, like a futuristic vision from Wong Kar-wai’s “2047.” Finally, we emerged in a dining room with a big Buddha statue lit up with a spotlight. It’s a long journey, and if you ever need to leave this dining room — for example, to use the bathroom — you may need staff assistance.
Despite its outward pretensions, Yun Fu had all the real-ness of Water Margin. Waiters brought good, hot tea without being asked, along with a small plate of starters — cooked peanuts and lotus root slices. True to Hong Kong form, when a lady complains about the freezing air con, a waiter whips out a shawl and drapes it over her shoulders.
As for worries that the food would be toned down to suit Western tastes, suffice it to say that the first item on the menu was “jellyfish heads.”
The various steamed dumplings were great — we ate them all, ordered seconds, and ate all those, too. Same for the crispy chicken in a mountain of fried garlic and chili. And one of the house specialties, rightly so, are tender deboned lamb ribs.
There were some dishes that were just fine, like thick noodles or stir-fried veg. The only disappointment were the duck wings in soy sauce which — and you can’t blame this eatery for not being authentic to a fault — were actually the bony webbed feet. And let’s just say that desserts are not a Chinese forte.
Once in a while, you have an outstanding dish, the kind you remember and go back specifically for, the kind you blog home about. This was a starter of smoked duck breast slices rolled in a crisp egg wrapping and served with a spicy dipping sauce. I’ve never had anything like it.
Dinner was expensive for Chinese food in Hong Kong — about $H.K. 3,000, or U.S. $380, for three people. That said, we had two bottles of Chianti between us.
Let’s just say that navigating back out again was a bit of an adventure.