Hong Kong: an Introduction & Yat Lok Roast Goose Noodles

A slightly wonky panorama taken from the IFC Apple Store

Last weekend I tagged along on one of my Mother’s work trips to Hong Kong with the sole purpose of eating, shopping and relaxing. Considering my jeans felt a little tighter, that I fear the day my Mother receives my credit card statement and that I spent every evening in a bathtub, my “goals” can be deemed successful. A short trip meant a lot of careful meal related decision-making and planning, but it was a fruitful one at that.

Although not every meal was worth documenting, my culinary highlights varied between a bowl of noodles at a street-side coffee shop to Dim Sum lunch at the Four Seasons hotel. I’ve picked out a few of my favorite and more memorable meals to feature in a series of posts to follow.

Yat Lok Roast Goose Noodles

After checking into our hotel, my first course of action was to find a nice afternoon snack. My Mother’s friend suggested a Michelin starred goose noodle shop on Stanley Street, not more than a 5 minute walk from our hotel. I was intrigued as I hadn’t ever tried goose (to my recollection) and just looking forward to inhaling a bowl of noodles.

“Beijing dumpling” noodles with roast goose

The shop was directly on the side of the street, with a line of people pressed up against the neighboring buildings to allow others to walk past. The fact that there was a line at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon was impressive in itself. After a 10-minute wait, we were finally filed into the very cosy eatery and pelted at with menus. I decided to order a “Beijing dumpling” (sui gao/水饺) noodle for myself, and half a roast goose as well as some barbecued pork (char siew/叉燒) and roast pork belly (siew yuk/燒肉) to share.

The noodles that they served were a thick rice noodle (lai fun/濑粉) which in Singapore are most frequently found served with laksa. The chewy texture of the noodles very interestingly contrasted the clear and clean flavors of the broth, not like any typical noodle dish I have had before. The dumplings weren’t anything special but definitely hit the spot after just getting off a plane. However, the roast goose was sumptuous. I have since read very mixed reviews on Yat Lok so it seems quality can be inconsistent, but I very much enjoyed the very flavorful and tender goose meat although tricky to eat using chopsticks. As I’m not a big meat-eater, I didn’t have very much of the char siew or siew yuk, but the few pieces I did try were well done and not too oily as I sometimes find can be the case with siew yuk.

My only gripe with Yat Lok was their service. The lady who served us was a rather grumpy woman with a rather loud and shrill voice as I grew to know over the course of the meal. The meal itself was reasonably priced (it is around $65HKD/$10SGD for a single serving of goose leg in noodles) and pleasant, but the waitresses’ attitude was disconcerting to say the least.

Yat Lok
34-38 Stanley Street, Central
Tel: +852 2524 3882