Menty's: HEE KEE CRAB GENERAL

Canal Road (underneath the bridge), is an iconic place in Hong Kong, and that night I went there for my first experience of 'Chili Crab underneath the bridge' in Hee Kee Crab General, which is one of the oldest and the most famous Chili Crab restaurant. I have not been to other chili crab restaurants in the same area while this one gives me a good impression by its clean and cheerful dining environment once I step into it (actually the restaurant is at the basement). To me, tiny and clean is the first and probably the most important condition when I judge a Chinese restaurant, because I know most of Chinese dishes go through a complicated cooking process including a lot oil, sauces and other materials, which is much more easier to get everywhere a mass comparing to the western ones. Thus, I take the dining environment very seriously.

To start, we are given a set of six Chinese appetizer platter as tradition, and it is a quite wide combination of Chinese cuisine from the east to the southwest, like the pork slices with garlic and soy sauce is much more Shanghaiese, and the black fungus in a spicy way is at least sourced from Sichuan spicy cuisine. My favorite through the six, is Fried Tofu, which has such a crispy thin fried skin and super smooth tofu inside, with the savory pepper and salt dressing at the right heat; you better try it.

This is the only dish quoting the western cuisine. Crab Feet in Black Truffle Sauce and Spinach Soup, the fresh green soup paired with orange crab shell, makes the looking colorful and sharp. The taste mixes the seafood sweet, flavorsome truffle and spinach herb scent. The crab feet is actually quite meaty so that I would prefer the soup to be slightly creamer and stronger.

Before Chili Crab, we had one thoughtful version which takes out the annoying (sometimes) shell and is deeply fried with a thin layer of flour, Signature Chili Crab Feet. The looking, of course, is not as 'woo' as Chili Crab, but it works extremely well on someone is as lazy as me, because it offers the easiest way to have a hot, savory, spicy bite on a plump crab.

Quite Cantonese dish, Fresh Abalone in Soy Sauce with Vegetable, is nice but normal. Sweet sauce and chewy fresh abalone with juicy vegetable (better to be fresher) is a short break between crab-featured dishes.

Don't like the feet, ok, let's do something with shell. Here is Golden Baked Crab Shell. It is much more greasy in fact, because the shell of crab essential with egg yolk contain more fat and cholesterol than protein.

Hee Kee Chili Crab, named by restaurant name normally means 'must-try'. The sharp orange crab crawls on the brown fried garlic and chili 'sand'. It is not the season of crab thus it is not so good as our expectation to be meaty, while I was impressed by the fried garlic underneath. It adds a lot flavor to the whole dish, and tastes very crunchy but as a 'garlic-allergic' foodie, I was not treated by too much garlic aroma, that makes me feel much more comfortable.

Another signature dish (and probably much more popular than their Chili Crab) is this Grilled Beef Ribs. It is grilled in Chinese way with a little bit smoky taste. The surface is quite dry and is covered with a crispy skin connected with glutenous fat (very little). Beef is absolutely tender in texture with right potion of fat to be a little juicy and a little smoked-dry.