David Greenberg, Favorite Food 2020
Fighting the covid riptide, I still managed some tasty nibbles this year. The wide mung bean noodles with pork belly at Wing Lai Yuen. The sous-vide smoked duck at Sichuan Lab. The baby cucumbers in spicy sauce at Liao Za Lie. The Peking Duck at Lao Zhang Gui Dongbei. The dry hotpot at Twelve Flavors. The miso cod and five spice duck fritters at Brut! The lamb ribs at 121BC. The tandoori lamb chops at New Punjab Club. The triple-fried frites (in olive oil, no less) and blue-cheese cheesecake at Rubia. The country terrine at Jean May. The Chilean sea bass at LPM. The everything pizza at Dough Bros. The sourdough egg tart and Sichuan fried chicken at Bakehouse.
But my tiptop meal of 2020 was a recent lunch at Café Hunan. Their menu includes wild turtle (not domesticated, mind you). I was shell shocked. Their food is target-rich in peppers, both fresh and dry. Yet, Hunan cuisine’s reputation for biting heat is overrated. Simply dodging a pepper here or there defangs it. Strewn with whole garlic cloves and scallions, most dishes were unique and stunningly delicious. My three favorites were 1/Spicy Shrimp with Tea Leaf. Pudgy, deveined shrimp fried so hot that the peels and tail crisped like potato chips as delicious as the pristine shrimp within. Tossed with deep-fried tea leaves. 2/ Stir-fried Sauteed Preserved Pork with Dried Radish. The salty pork was almost a jerky contrasting delightfully with the chewy-crunchy dried radish. 3/ Stir Fried Smoked Hunan Style Beef. Its flavor was so intense that I suspect the beef was preserved like a bresaola. It had the comforting scent of campfire smoke. Hunan Café is cheap and honorably scuffed by hard use. Service is brusque. So what.
Café Hunan Spicy Shrimp with Tea Leaf
Also, I just ate my favorite 2020 dessert at the bottom of the culinary swamps: a hospital cafeteria. No joke. Sanatorium Hospital in Happy Valley. It was a Mont Blanc (what they call a “chestnut meringue tart”), a pastry disk with a haystack of sweetened chestnut strands on top. My wife was in for knee surgery for a few days and I stayed with her. I ordered it three times. Topped with a marron glacée (candied chestnut) that was actually gilded in gold leaf, dotted with meringue (to represent the snow of Mont Blanc), a layer of custard within (brilliant move), it was better than the one I had at the Musee D’Orsay restaurant in Paris. My Lord, other hospitals serve Jello and Sanatorium Hospital has a Mont Blanc! Bravo, chef! Shine on you crazy diamond! And it only cost 70 HKD! It’s like finding out that your local sandwich shop is selling slices of homemade truffled duck galantine in aspic for 70 HKD. If you love chestnuts, those bewitching condensates of autumn forest, come here. If you can’t get in because you don’t have current Covid test results, just clamber up the façade of the building. The cafeteria’s on the fourth floor. I think I saw an open window. Now if only I could find a place to get marron glacée gelato. There used to be a shop at the IFC mall, but it’s gone. If anyone knows, please send word.
Sanatorium Hospital Mont Blanc