Shun Keng 顺景食店 @ Hong Kong

Beef brisket is usually something that you get from noodle stores. But this 30 year-old store in Kennedy Town serves them as a stock base for their hotpot.

This is a very local restaurant situated inside Smithfield Municipal Services Building aka wet market in Kennedy Town at the western end of Hong Kong island. You know it’s good the moment you enter that Christmas eve. There were at least three hotpot stores on this floor, but Shun Keng 顺景食店 was the only one crowded.

新鮮熟牛脷 Cooked beef tongue was stewed in the same beef bone stock. They were nice thick cuts of the tongue, cooked to right tenderness and seeped in all the bovine flavours.

清湯蘿蔔牛腩煲 Clear broth beef brisket and radish hotpot soup base was what the place was clamouring for. While it was not as clear as Sister Wah’s clear broth, but the flavour of the soup base made a very tasty hotpot. As part of the base, it came with all parts of the brisket.

新鮮手切肥牛 Hand cut local beef sirloin uses fresh locally slaughtered beef for that tender and tasty hand sliced beef. Because they are hand sliced, they cannot be sliced as thin as machine cut beef sirloin.

生雞件 Fresh local free range chicken is from a local organic farmer in NT. The chicken was very tasty in the hotpot and reminds me of the good old days when chicken tasted like chicken. While the flesh was chewier than the commercial farmed variety, the overall taste and texture were exceptional.

鵝腸 Goose intestines came already pre-blanched, so all you need was to warm them to edible temperature.

Seafood items need to be preordered to ensure their availability. They are charged market rates, and the Catch-22 is that you wouldn’t know when you placed the order. You just have to trust the restaurant that they will not be overcharging. This was the only time outside of Guangdong that I got to eat marsh prawns. Oh, how much I missed them!

Condiments for Hong Kong hotpot were very simple – chilli oil, soy sauce, sriracha and chopped chilli. This was kind of underwhelming these as we were all pampered by those hotpot restaurants.

The beef brisket hotpot has one downside though – the more it boils, the oilier it gets because all the fats in the briskets start to render into the stock. So if you want to enjoy the clear broth, have it at the beginning of the meal. But the more it boils, the better the radish tastes.

Because they were hand cut, the sirloin took a little longer time in the hotpot soaking up all the sweetness of the stock. Also they were cut crossed grain, you can chew through it without any problem even if you overcooked them.

To the Hong Kongers there are three types of beef briskets – 爽腩 crunchy brisket, 坑腩 pit brisket and 崩沙腩 sandy brisket. The hotpot base came with all three types of briskets.

• 坑腩 Pit brisket is the meat between the ribs of the beef and has a strong flavour. Pit brisket is a more common type of beef brisket. It is more affordable than sandy brisket, which can be said to be the best choice for briskets.

• 崩沙腩 Sandy brisket is the most sought after in beef brisket universe. It is the diaphragm of a cow. There is a layer of diaphragm connected to the brisket meat on the surface. The fascia is soft and fragrant, and the fat and thin are just right. It can be said to be the best in the beef brisket.
• 爽腩 Crunchy brisket is also called the white brisket. It is located directly below the abdomen of the cow and is connected to the brisket. Its flesh is connected to the fascia, and its texture is slight chewing. The surface is attached to a thin layer of soft collagen, and the marbling is very obvious.

I highly recommend this place if you are gourmand looking for excellent clear broth beef brisket 清湯腩 in a hotpot. The beef briskets were all so tender and juicy, and the broth tasted amazing.

順景食店
西環堅尼地城士美菲路12K號士美菲路市政大廈2樓熟食中心
Cooked Food Centre, 2/F, Smithfield Municipal Services Building, 12K Smithfield, Kennedy Town, Western District
Tel : +852 6339 8481

Visited Dec 2023

#本地美食 #火鍋 #清湯牛腩 #牛腩煲