Sometimes, the best things in life is just a simple bowl of noodles done well. Ingenious people in Hong Kong used to take very simple ingredients to make a delicious street food – pork crackling noodle 油渣面.
Post-war Hong Kong, things were in short supply, people will buy pork fats to render lard, and the crackling that was left behind would be used as the main ingredient for the pork crackling noodles 油渣面.
The signature dish is their pork crackling noodles 油渣面, even though everyone would be ordering their fried chicken wings and cocktail sausage. Once you enter the store, the waiter would simply ask, “细或着大” (Cantonese for “small or big”), there’s not chance for you to customise the ingredients, etc. The menu consisted of only 3 items – chicken wings, cocktail sausages and blanched vegetable.
The noodles is sprinkled with a liberal amount of fried shallots, scallions and preserved Tianjin cabbage (also knows colloquially as “winter vegetable” 冬菜). The stock is a clear pork bone stock that is enhanced by the the pork dregs and shiitake mushrooms. One small bowl is never enough.
The fried chicken wings is not complex and elaborate like the Korean fried wings. Instead it reminds one of mom’s sweet soy sauce marinated fried chicken wings. And cocktail sausage is just like those from a Tulip canned cocktail. The entire menu consisted of street food, and the blanched vegetable choices are only kang kong and lettuce with choices of preserved tofu or oyster sauce as sauces.
The store is opened only after 7pm. But then the night is still young. We went at 1am, it was still bustling with activities and eaters. By the time we left at 2am, another big group came. This place is great at 2-3am after a night out and when you’re craving something a little more than McDonalds.
Look out for their bright red wordings and yellow background signboard. There are others in the vicinity that claimed to be the authentic one. But this is it.
Ying Kee Noodle 英记油渣面
Wing Shun Building, 4 Lime St, Tai Kok Tsui, Hong Kong
香港九龙大角咀菩提街4號
Tel : +852 2390 7397
Date Visited : Jun 2019
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