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2010-10-16
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happy seafood is run by the renowned “king of chef” ah-b (劉嘉麟). at the age of 22, b won an “international culinary art master” medal at les amis d’escoffier society and was the youngest chef to win this award. he was also top of his class at le cordon bleu culinary arts (note: LCB culinary arts is the american franchise that bought LCB brand rights from cointreau, and is a separate entity from the original paris/tokyo LCB). the rebellious b was raised by his mother who owned a successful chinese
we arrived at 6.30pm and picked our seafood at the aquarium outside; at most outlets within lau fau shan, you can pick your seafood anywhere and go to a different restaurant, as they charge the material and cooking separately. here at happy seafood, on the other hand, they do the sai kung way and customers pick their seafood right at the restaurant. the selection was notably narrower than sai kung/po toi o/lee yu mun, but we managed to find most of what we wanted to eat. we moved back to the restaurant after selection and waited patiently. 10min later, the curtains were lifted…
Prawns fried noodles (大蝦炒麵) - this was actually better than i expected. fried noodles at most chinese restaurants are flooded with corn flour paste (“sauce” would be a misnomer…). but here at happy seafood, there was only enough to keep the ingredients moist whereas the deep-fried noodles still maintained its good crispy texture. on the other hand, prawns were okay – flavor was mainly assisted by parsley and chilli.
steamed clams (粉絲蒸扇貝) – it’s one of our must-order at any seafood restaurant. again, i found the raw material pretty bland and most of the flavor actually came from condiments/garlic – lots and lots of garlic. good thing was that the vermicelli was briefly treated with hot oil to prevent sogginess. garlic was also slightly pan-fried for stronger aroma.
sesame mantis shrimp (麻香瀨尿蝦) – another must-eat, but instead of the deep-fried salt-pepper mantis shrimp available at other seafood restaurants, we ordered the sesame mantis shrimp instead, which is a signature dish here at happy. the shell was very fragrant with sesame, sesame oil, and salt pepper, although the flesh inside was more salty than anything else. nonetheless, it tasted pretty different from other traditional mantis shrimps i had before and i actually prefered this more!
clams in black bean sauce (花甲) - nothing particularly noteworthy, except that we ordered 1.5kg and the dish turned out to be more like under 1kg. the clams were over-cooked and there were two pairs shells for every one piece of meat in our order. can someone do the math for us?
sea-salt crabs (油鹽焗奄仔蟹) - this was actually my favorite dish of the night. the crab meat fully absorbed rice wine fragrant and sea-salt outside helped to accentuate the crab roe brine flavor. it was simply addictive and i couldn’t helped but licked the crab shell clean, inside out. crab meat was only ok though – a little mushy and lack of aroma, though very fatty.
vegetables in shrimp paste - excessively oily vegetables in very good shrimp paste.
house fried rice (食神炒飯) – another signature dish at happy seafood. the presentation wasnice – there was crab roe on the surface and each grain of rice was evenly colored. but i only wish it tasted half as good as it looked – the rice was nicely fried, each piece just the right firmness and not too oily, but taste was very bland and there was not enough ham. unsurprisingly, crab roe was second-rated ingredient and did not carry much flavor either. there was more than enough scrambled egg and onion though.
overall the food experience was mixed – cooking style was unique and different from other seafood restaurants, which was nice because we were all well-accustomed to the typical condiments/flavoring used for each ingredient. i loved the mantis shrimps and crabs, both setting good examples of reinventing the classics. however, the quality of raw materials was below average for nearly all dishes. not that they were not fresh, but they seemed to be all raised in ponds and tasted bland, heavily relied on condiments to give flavor to the dishes. and although i did appreciate the innovative approach to cooking seafood, flavor started getting fairly repetitive toward the end - they were all salty, spicy with seasame oil. i didn’t go into the kitchen but i suspect all they needed were coarse salt, table salt, sesame oil, black pepper, soy sauce, garlic, parsley and chilli. another taste bud overload.
service was below average, if not horrendous. the waitress started hinting us to leave after an hour as there were a dozen people waiting outside… i was only glad they did not spit in our food in front of us.
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