Hong Kong Old Restaurant

Eating Shanghainese food is something we do when we’re in Hong Kong because my family is originally from Shanghai. This restaurant has a long history and it is also a favorite of my dad and his friends. To give you an idea as to how long it’s been around and what that history entails — one of the owners has known my dad and his friends for 4 decades when he was still a head server at one of the Shanghai Residents’ Associations. On this particular visit, Mr Leung hurries over to our table when he sees my dad and his friends to say hello.
The food here is my childhood comfort food. Mo leh dou or Ma Lan Tou in Mandarin 馬蘭頭 is a cold dish comprising finely diced dried beancurd and a vegetable called Indian Aster. It is then tossed in either salt or soy sauce (or both) and sesame oil. It is one of my favorite dishes when it comes to Shanghainese cuisine.
Hot Mock Goose is incredible here, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside stuffed with a variety of mushrooms.
Jellyfish «heads» with lettuce stem is another favorite.
Definitely do not miss the sauteed river prawns which is eaten with some of the accompanying dark vinegar.
The scallion sesame bread is light as air on the inside with a beautiful crispy exterior — not to be missed.

The name says it all Hong Kong «Old» Restaurant.
This is an upscale old school restaurant with a classic Shanghainese menu. This is the Shanghainese food equivalent of an American old fashioned steak house, comfortable, but not necessarily exciting.
The service is attentive, the décor traditional chinese, and while the food was good, it was on the boring end of the spectrum for my tastes.

This is one of the very few upscale Shanghainese restaurants left in HK that is still thrives on food and service. As the name implies, this place has been around for decades and moved to the currently location a few years ago. When they first opened their goal was to cater to the first group of rich settlers from Shanghai, as the older generation of Shanghainese decreased in numbers so were the traditional good old restaurants.
With a luxury of a 3-​hour lunch this restaurant was a very smart decision. Food was as good as it could get — wholesome flavor is from the freshness of the food and the mastering of the proper seasoning themselves — not from the added MSG like it’s done in other restaurants. All these come with a relatively high price tag.
If you are celebrating a special occasion and want to treat yourself or others, this is the place. If you are visiting Hong Kong and decided to try all the best food available, this is the place. If you are writing up your bucket list on restaurants, please do include this place. Let’s just hope it will not be driven out of business by the sky rocketing rent in this city.

Ah, Hong Kong Old Restaurant, what else can I say that hasn’t been said? It is hands down the BEST fancy Shanghainese restaurant in Hong Kong, better than most Shanghai restaurants IN Shanghai even. It has been a family favourite for years and I still remember having big family gatherings there whenever we visit.
It used to be in the Miramar mall before the renovation forced them out, now they have relocated to the former spot which used to house the shitty Big Shanghai restaurant. (Big Shanghai SUCKED, and the wait staff was mean and used to yell at me and my cousins/​siblings for playing on the stairs. The food there was SHITE, I am very happy that it went the way of the dodo, good fuckin’ riddance).
The sharks fin soup at Old Restaurant is something else, they use a very generous amount of Shanghai style ham (which is a salted and sun dried ham much like Virginia ham and some of the more expensive Spanish ham) together with farm raised NON-​hormone injected chicken for the soup base and the resulting concoction is out of this world. It is expensive but worth every penny! ($ 5800 HK, i.e. about $ 750 U.S. for 10 = only about $ 75 U.S. per person) I love eating this «Aunt Lee» style (named after the matriarch of the Lee Kum Kee sauce empire) which is with a dash of mustard on the sharks fin. Just the mere thought of this soup makes me salivate and the actual taste of it induces a sensation much like multiple breath-​taking ORGASMS!
The Shanghai style shrimp is also the BEST in Hong Kong, they correctly use the RIVER shrimp instead of SEA/​OCEAN shrimp, these fresh water shrimps are much smaller in size than their brethren from the ocean and the texture is more tender and elegant. I pity the people who don’t have the good fortune of tasting this AMAZING dish as they are truly missing something in life. This would definitely be among one of the many dishes of what I would like to have as my last meal on earth before I die.
Another worthy specialty here is the tea leaves roasted duck (樟茶鸭) which is also incredible, with deliciously crispy skin and just the right amount of FAT between the crunch goodness and savoury and wonderfully moist MEAT, it is as close to perfection as it can get. I find it an impossible task to decide whether this or my mom’s onion duck is the better dish.
Other standouts include the standard Shanghainese appetizers/​dim sum such as the pork jelly, soy marinated tofu (Kor Fu), Xiao Long Bao (steamed pork dumplings with soup inside the wrapping), bamboo shoots in soy marinade, drunken chicken, fake crab… etc.
Of course the standard dishes such as Lion’s Head (2 giant pork meat balls) kick ass too! But it really is pretty hard to top the first 2 fine dishes I mentioned. Okay, the prices are high, but you get what you pay for. This restaurant KICKS ASS. PERIOD.

For years, the Hong Kong Old Restaurant was located above Nathan Road, the main tourist road in all of Hong Kong. But it didn’t appear in guide books, so tourists didn’t go there. When my wife and I visited, I was the only non-​Chinese person in a restaurant that probably seated 300 people.
I ordered a roasted pigeon smoked in tea leaves. It was the most fantastic meal I’ve ever had. It was wonderful. It’s worth the trip to Hong Kong alone.
Hong Kong restaurants are very user friendly for English speakers. Most either have someone on staff who speaks English or they have picture menus that allow diners to pick out what they like by the photos.
Waiters and waitresses, however, are not there to be your new best friend. They’re there to take your order, bring your food and leave you alone. Because of the small size of most Hong Kong homes, families do their entertaining at restaurants. Unlike American restaurants, where they want you to finish your meal so someone else can be server, in Hong Kong you stay as long as you want. You have to wave at a waiter to let them know you’re ready for your bill. Otherwise, they feel like they’re being pushy if they bring the bill before that.