Kamcentre Roast Goose @ Hong Kong

Roast goose is a must try in Hong Kong. And there’s the perennial queue for the Michelin-starred Kam’s Roast. And then there’s another one.

The 3rd generation of the Yung Kee family opened up its new roasted goose restaurant in the least likely of places – in a bowling alley. It continues to serve their legacy of traditional roast goose and wide variety or roast meat dishes.

This new restaurant is not well located for a tourist, but is always full. This small restaurant seating about 60 people is a bit noisy if you are not used to people talking loudly around you.

西洋菜陳腎生魚豬踭湯 Double-boiled watercress soup with waxed duck kidney, carp fish and pig shank

The Cantonese really knows how to make a mean soup. I never knew the humble watercress soup can be improved to another lever with modern tools. This double soup made with boiling waxed duck kidney 陳腎, carp fish 生魚 and pig shank 豬踭 over a long period of time, and then processed the watercress using a “magic wand” to produce a Western-style Cantonese-flavoured soup. This was like drinking the cream of watercress soup.

鹵水鵝紅 Goose blood pudding

It was a Monday evening, and many things on the menu were not available, like goose liver. But thankfully they still had one portion of the blood pudding 鵝紅 left. Slightly spicy the braising soup was, and flavourful the blood pudding was too.

甘一刀肥濃叉燒 Gan’s fatty neck charsiew

The char siew is made with the first cut on the pig – the fatty portion right on the neck. The meat is covered with a layer of fragrant oil between the softness. The master burnt the fat and caramelised it slightly. With each bite you can also taste the fragrant and plump taste, that you can only get from eating animal fats and the meat flavour was very strong with this one. It can get quite greasy and we had to ask for steamed plain rice to work through a single piece. But definitely a must order.

鹵水拼盤 掌翼 鵝腸 Braised goose wings, intestines

As with all roast goose restaurants, they would braised the offals and other parts with a Teochew-style braising liquid to produce the braised goods. I always choose the wings and intestines, they are difficult to get right. The wings needed a lot of patience and a great braising liquid; the intestines needed just a quick blanched. The wings were very delicious, but I find the intestines overcooked and turned chewy.

甘牌燒鵝 Signature roast goose

The roast goose is phenomenal. The goose they used is the Qingyuan black-neck goose 清遠烏鬃鵝 from Qingyuan Town, Guangdong Province, the traditional goose of choice for roast goose. to cut out the whole goose. It takes 72 cuts of the knife to divide the entire goose evenly. And with the perfect knife work, the goose was plated back to its original shape for serving.

Before serving, the goose was drizzled with a strong and fragrant secret sauce made from the drippings. I loved it with the rice, but you can also dip it in their signature plum sauce 冰梅醬 to take away some of the greasiness. I prefer it au natural! The skin was crispy and the meat tender and juicy, just the way I remembered Kam’s goose to be.

蒜子陳皮蒸斑頭腩 Steamed giant grouper belly with garlic, wood fungus, preserved mandarin peel

Besides the barbecue items (which many items had ran out that evening), they also served Cantonese stir-fry classics, many of which had disappeared from the menus of many restaurants. Like this steamed grouper belly with deep fried garlic and preserved mandarin peel, this is a combination I had not have for a long time. The fish came from the giant grouper called 龍躉 long dun in Cantonese. They are usually over 10kg each and never served whole.

Tonight we were having the fish belly 斑腩, which IMHO should be the most tender part of the fish. But because these are not wild-caught these days, the flesh can turn out to be lou gou (Teochew for tough meat, but it does not mean it was not fresh) due to their size and raised in captivity. However the flavours were spot on, if only a smaller fish was used.

薑粒炒芥蘭 Sautéed HK Kailan with Ginger

We also ordered a vegetable and when you are in Hong Kong, you have to order kailan from the nearby New Territories. Crispy, sweet and non-fibrous, these were really good kailan and the wokhei was there even though the colour of the dish looked monotonously green.

現磨杏仁茶 Almond Milk

Ended with a bowl of almond milk. Delicious.

Afterthoughts

Good selection of food, but probably advisable to go in a group and pre-order to avoid disappointment. The atmosphere was “hustle and bustle” given its location in a bowling centre. Friendly staff that came mainly from the old Yung Kee, especially if you are an old-timer that knew them from the place. I was always surprised how good their memories were, about the likes and dislikes of individual regulars. One main downside, the seating was not comfortable.

Pricey, but if you want to avoid the queue in a three-day whirlwind visit to Hong Kong, just make a reservation here; you have a better chance with the same familiar taste of the roast goose.

Kamcentre Roast Goose 甘棠燒鵝
88 Caroline Hill Road, Causeway Bay 1/F, South China Athletic Association, Hong Kong
Tel : +852 3580 2938

Visit Mar 2023

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