Oysters and goose

The King is passing through Hong Kong on his way to sightseeing in China, and asked to meet up over dinner before boarding his high speed train tomorrow morning. I tried to book a few high-end Cantonese restaurants located in 5-star hotels on the Kowloon side, only to find that the first three I checked were all fully-booked for the evening, even more than a week out! After some discussion with our visitors, I decided to take them to our new favorite Chiuchow place Noble Imperial (尚御潮滷居). This seems fitting since I last saw the King at Sheung Hing Chiu Chow Restaurant (尚興潮州飯店) just days before its closing.

This would now be our fourth visit in the last 3 months or so, and Foursheets is now on familiar terms with boss lady so that dishes are being pre-ordered via messaging...

Marinated goose webs (滷水鵝掌) - very nice flavors of master stock (滷水).

Oyster omelette (酥炸蠔餅) - our visitors were astonished at the size of this. It was about as tasty as the previous times I've had it, with big ass oysters wrapped in crispy deep-fried batter.

Goose liver marinated in Chinese wine (極品酒香鵝肝) - as silky smooth as silken tofu... and with the lovely fragrance of Huadiao wine.

Trio of cuttlefish (滷水墨魚), marinated pig's neck (滷水豬頸肉), and white marinated chicken (鹽香雞) - these are the dishes marinated in master stock, and in particular the pork neck was very, very good.

Flower crab (深海大紅蟹) - I had expected a bigger crab when we pre-ordered it, and I did a double-take when this showed up. I guess since there were only 3 of us eating the crab, this wasn't too bad... I know my guests would have wanted a really nice and big one, but at least the flesh was sweet and there was plenty of it inside the shell. When we paid for the bill at the end of the meal, the price ended up being half of what was initially quoted, so... OK lah!

Oyster porredge (砂鍋蠔仔粥) - the King wanted this instead of fried rice, and porridge it is! As it turns out, it was pretty tasty! And there were lots of big, juicy oysters in the pot!

Since we took the first seating, dinner finished pretty early for us. I didn't bring any wine to drink at the restaurant and we kinda felt like we needed to hang out a little more, so we went to Woobar at the W Hong Kong for a nightcap.

Yuzu Surprise - anyone who knows me well knows there are obligatory girlie drinks that need to be ordered. This was totally up my alley, and even got that alcohol-soaked (I thought perhaps Brandy) maraschino cherry on top!

Really happy to see my friends in town, and look forward to catching up again, or perhaps even travel together again! The last time we did that together was more than a decade ago!