Isn’t this beautiful?
The red-brown of the faux wood table echoing the cognac hue of the chicken slices, complemented by the chipped blue paint on the dish and little green pile of spring onions. Meanwhile the white reflection of the doorway and the white napkin… Wait a minute, they actually gave me a napkin? Incredible!
This dish really is proof positive that culinary artistry doesn’t require fancy ingredients.
The waitress at Lan Fong Yuen on Gage Street in Central called this “chicken noodles.” The Chowhound experts described it as “instant noodle lo mein with scallion/ginger oil and grilled brazilian chicken.” Whatever. It is really, really good.
Those of you not familiar with HK tea shops would probably be surprised to learn that there’s a whole genre of dishes built around instant noodles. When there is a vast array of fresh, semi-fresh, hand-cut, wheat, rice, you-name-it noodles available, why on earth would anyone bother? Well, think back to your last Cup-O-Noodles. They have a distinctive texture and springiness, don’t they? Pretty darn good if you don’t think about how cheap or what’s in em, eh? HK milk tea joints do amazing things with the kind of ingredients you'd find in a bomb shelter.
My noodles at Lan Fong Yuen were perfectly prepared. Not mushy at all. Tender to the tooth, a hair softer than al dente, full of springy life. They were splashed with a light sauce that was subtly sweet and had a hint of five spice or something in the realm of nutmeg. In one corner was a big pile of scallion/ginger oil – the same delicious stuff they serve at your standard HK BBQ meat joint (a distinctive flavor you will cherish if you ever try it) – and in the other corner was a pile of stewed cabbage that abruptly called to mind the Polish food in my old Greenpoint, Brooklyn neighborhood. Or maybe my Hungarian grandmother’s stuffed cabbage. Maybe both. Definitely startling in the context of this dish.
On top of everything was beautifully golden-brown, pan fried (grilled?) chicken slices. My favorite part: dark meat, thigh and drumstick. But get this, it was deboned! Maybe that was the Brazilian part. The chicken didn’t have any strong seasonings. It was just salty and roasty and chickeny. Yum.
Well, almost yum. Here I have to pause because, while this dish may be a miracle of culinary achievement with cheap ingredients, it is also a tragedy of cheap ingredients. Because, while the chicken was deliciously prepared, perfectly moist with slightly crispy skin, the meat itself tasted…cheap. Funky afternotes that made me wonder where these chickens came from and what they ate.
And then I looked down, just beyond my pretty open-toed sandals to see a pretty, cognac-colored cockroach scuttling toward the kitchen.
So I refreshed myself with the awesome iced milk tea in my rubbery blue cup (Lan Fong Yuen takes credit for inventing HK milk tea), and resolved to wear different shoes next time…and see if the ginger milk tea will chase away those ambiguous flavors next time.
I eat this Instant Noodles with Scallion-Ginger oil and Grilled Chicken dish for lunch a lot. So someone described it as Brazilian chicken? haha.. I think in HK, the locals mostly use it to refer to frozen chicken. Since Brazil ships in the cheapest frozen Beef and Chicken/Chicken Wings and most cha chan teng or even restaurants use them.
ReplyDeleteNot sure about pork, may be the same thing! Surprising - most locals think this shop has been hyped up by the media, but to me, its passable. Like their milk tea on some occasions but not others (take away is usually better), but I like this noodles and their Kaya French Toast!