Ocean Empire Food Shop, Hong Kong 海皇粥店

The shop name in Chinese says it all - Ocean Empire (海皇粥店) is a chain of food shops specializing in congee, along with some other simple foods such as soyabean milk (豆漿), fried doughstick (youtiao, 油條), rice rolls (腸粉) and turnip cakes (蘿蔔糕). 

This shop was recommended by the hotel concierge, as Ms K was craving for some soyabean milk and rice rolls with youtiao. The shop was a 15 minute walk away from our hotel, located near Yau Ma Tei MTR station. 

The shop can be spotted easily, with their purple signage and decor. 

We were lucky to get a table for ourselves, although it was still quite cramp. 

This is the riceroll with youtiao or 炸兩 in Cantonese which Ms K was craving for. It's a very common dim sum dish in Hong Kong, but not so easy to find in Singapore's dim sum restaurant. 

Next came the fish and century egg congee.

This is my favourite - plain rice roll (斋肠粉). If you eat it just like that with the soya sauce, it just tastes normal. You have to add "something" to it to make it special....

And this is the "something" which is actually the condiments on every table. Dip a little of the peanut sauce, sweet sauce, chilli sauce and a sprinkle of sesame seed to the plain rice roll... SUPER! especially peanut sauce is a must have. However, I think this must be another acquired taste of mine, as Ms K and Ms V didn't seem too interested in it. 

The fried noodles are so so, this is the typical type of fried noodles you get at most Hong Kong congee / soyabean milk youtiao cafes. 

Last was the steamed turnip cake (蒸蘿蔔糕) which Ms V ordered. It was very light and fluffy, but it's really a big piece of turnip cake! Luckily we had 3 person to share it, I couldn't imagine one person having to finish it.

Not to forget our hot soyabean milk. You have to add the sugar yourself if you want it sweet. I was expecting the soyabean milk to come in a bowl, like Yonghe doujiang style, but I guess they have made it more convenient for customers to drink it from a cup instead. Actually I still prefer those from a bowl where you drink from a spoon.


As the Chinese saying goes: 吃得平淡也是福 (It's also a blessing to eat simple food). For some simple pleasure of hot soyabean milk, plain rice rolls and fried doughstick, Ocean Empire Food Shop would be a good choice for you. 



Ocean Empire Food Shop 海皇粥店
 
G/F, 479A Nathan Rd, Yau Ma Tei

油 麻 地 彌敦道479A號地下

Open daily: 6am - 1am
Nearest MTR station: Yau Ma Tei exit C

Nathan Congee & Noodle, Hong Kong 佐敦粥麵家

Nathan Congee & Noodle is just located across the road, opposite of our hotel - Novotel Nathan Road. As we only reached back to Hong Kong from Macau close to 10pm at night without having any dinner yet, we decided to just eat nearby our hotel.

It is a simple, small shop selling mainly congee and noodles. As we had enough of noodles in Macau, all of us ordered the congee.  

Their specialty are the 4 items listed on the top of their menu - century egg with jellyfish, steamed rice dumpling, fried pig liver with ginger and spring onions and fried pig kidney and liver with ginger and spring onions. My friends say I have an exotic tastebud, as I love all these items. However, as they don't egg pig intestines, I had to forgo trying out the dish. 

Nevertheless, I still had my cravings satisfied by ordering the kidney, liver, meatballs congee. The shop is very generous with their ingredients and although it was late at night and the shop was closing soon, the pig livers were still very fresh, and just cooked perfectly. 

Ms K ordered the century egg with fish congee. 

As usual, we needed some greens to satisfy our daily dose of fiber and nutrients. 

Overall, the shop serves some high standard congee, with fresh ingredients used. Although located in a small alley, you can find streams of people going in to the shop, whether be it early in the morning or late at night. Do give it a try if you are around the area. 


Nathan Congee & Noodle 佐敦粥麵家

11 Sai Kung Street, Jordan
佐敦西貢街11號
Open daily: 730am - 1130pm
Nearest MTR station - Jordan, exit B1, opposite Novotel Nathan Road

Taipa Cunha Street, Seng Cheong Restaurant, Macau 官也街, 誠昌飯店

Cunha Street (官也街 or Rua do Cunha in Portuguese) is a narrow pedestrian street located in the town centre of Taipa Island, Macau. 

As the shuttle bus from our hotel - Galaxy Macau provides free shuttle bus to the old Taipa Village, which is just at the entrance of Rua do Cunha, we took the shuttle there as we had some time to spare after we checked into the Galaxy.

Shuttle bus stops just in front of Cunha street entrance.  

Koi Kei (鉅記) must be the number 1 most popular shop found almost everywhere in Macau. The first shop you see at Cunha street is Koi Kei. 

The smell of bbq meat whiffs over once you approach Koi Kei. Their bbq meats is also one of the popular items for souvenirs. Their variety of bbq meats is even more than Bee Cheng Hiang!

The lineup of shops along Cunha street consists mostly of restaurants, cafes and local snacks. Gelatina Mok Yi Kei seems famous for their durian ice-cream, but we were not in the mood for ice-cream at that time. 

Fong Kei Bakery was also recommended in many of the Macau guidebooks. There were many newspaper clippings of the shop pasted on the walls. Fong Kei is famous for their 肉切酥, or meat filling biscuits, not sure if it is the correct English translation for it.

Their packaging is not as nice as Koi Kei, as it is wrapped in a plastic roll. The boss will put your orders into the yellow box. I bought two 肉切酥 and two 杏粒杏仁餅 (Almond biscuit). 肉切酥 is very crispy, mum loves it. No wonder it is Fong Kei's best selling item. As for the almond biscuit, it's a tad too hard, still prefer Koi Kei's almond biscuit.

As we did not have lunch and it was already 5 plus in the evening, we decided to dine at Seng Cheong Restaurant 誠昌飯店 which is famous for their crab porridge 驰名水蟹粥.

Recommendation of some of their popular dishes.  

We ordered the crispy fried fish balls 酥炸鯪魚球. The fried balls were huge - almost the size of a ping pong ball. 鯪魚 is also known as mud carp and can be found along the Pearl River. This fish is usually made into fish balls. 

As usual, we needed vegetables in our diet, so we ordered the lettuce with dried scallops 瑤柱扒生菜. The broiled lettuce was covered in shredded dried scallops. Should be an easy dish to try at home.

Last came the star of the meal - crab porridge 水蟹粥. The portion was quite large even when we only ordered the small size. We had quite high expectations for the porridge, being the no.1 popular dish of the restaurant, but the porridge was too dilute, not like the cantonese style congee. Maybe locals like this type of flavour, as the lady next to our table came in to order this dish only, and managed to finish the whole big bowl by herself. Incredible!

Casa de Pasto Seng Choeng  誠昌飯店  

28-30 Rua do Cunha, Vila de Taipa

澳门氹仔舊城區官也街28-30號 

Opening hours: 12 noon - 12 midnight

Wong Chi Kei Noodle & Congee House, Macau 黃枝記

Wong Chi Kei (黃枝記) is a noodle and congee restaurant located at Senado Square, Macau which has a long history since opening in 1946 and has established themselves as one of the popular noodle shops in Macau. They also have another 3 branches, one in Macau (old shop) and the other two in Hong Kong, at Central and Hong Kong International Airport. 

Wong Chi Kei is located on the left side of Senado Square. 

Wong Chi Kei shop exterior

Besides the popular noodles in soup, they have an extensive menu of braised noodles, fried noodles, congee, rice and other specialities. 

We ordered a variety of food from their menu - Ms K had wanted to try the braised noodle with shrimp eggs, one of Macau's popular noodle dishes, I suggested to order it with the wanton, to try out Wong Chi Kei's wantons. (雲吞蝦子撈麵). The dark red powder on the noodles is not chilli flakes, it is actually the shrimp (蝦子) which makes this dish so popular. 

Next came the congee - 艇仔粥. It had cuttlefish, fish slices, jellyfish, roasted peanuts. 

Cow flank rice noodle soup - 牛腩河. Cow flank was what was written on the menu - it's actually beef brisket.  As we had too much noodles these few days, we decided to go with rice noodles instead. 

Deep fried wanton - 酥炸雲吞. I had tried this the previous time I came to Wong Chi Kei and I just love their crispy wanton skins with the eggy flavour. The wantons are huge, and also comes with a sweet dipping sauce. 

Needed some vegetable input into our body, so we added another vegetable dish - kailan with oyster sauce 蠔油芥蘭. The kailan in Hong Kong and Macau is slightly different from those we have in Singapore, their stems are huge, but crunchy as well. Oyster sauce kailan is a very popular vegetable dishes which can be found in most noodle and congee shops. They just blanch the vegetables in hot water and drizzle some oyster sauce over it. Simple yet delicious. 

Total bill came out to be MOP145 which is around SGD24. Cheap for 3 persons. The most expensive dish was the shrimp noodles with wanton (MOP43 / SGD7) - I guess the shrimp is the costly part of the dish. 

Even ex Hong Kong governor Chris Patten also came to support!

Wong Chi Kei 黃枝記

17 Largo do Senado, Macau 
澳門議事亭前地17號
Open daily: 8am - 12midnight














*Note on currency in Macau: You can use Hong Kong dollar in Macau - all shops big or small do accept. However, some of them will return you change in Macau dollars, so be careful to check and make sure you spend away them before going back to Hong Kong.