Yung Kee
32-40 Wellington Street
Central
Hong Kong

Cantonese cuisine is well known for roasted meats.  Picture that roasted duck or hunk of roasted pork hanging in your local Chinese BBQ shop.  Now picture the same thing, but marked up by $$$$ and with attentive table service and polite waiters.  Welcome to Yung Kee!  Just kidding.  I don’t mean to suggest Yung Kee is anywhere in the same class as Sam Woo or the like.  Obviously, Yung Kee has been serving some of Hong Kong’s best roasted meats to earn itself a Michelin star at one point.  They are not shy about letting you know they are an award winning restaurant with their menu containing a few pages of accolades earned.

Thousand Year Old Egg pickled ginger
I let The Annoyer have at it with this one.  He didn’t seem terribly impressed.  Pretty standard fare.

Chinese Ham
Quite the striking sight, a row of hanging ham legs.  Sold by the leg, this was not a treasure we were able to try for our lonely party of 2.

Roasted Suckling Pig
Signature Charcoal Roasted Goose
We went pretty light, getting a small combo of some of their signature roasted meats.  The suckling pig had some of the crispy well rendered skin I’ve ever tasted.  The goose was a huge disappointment.  The meat was tender, but the texture was not my favorite.  Hard to put into words.  The skin wasn’t crispy, but I don’t think that’s the intention.  The sauces were probably the best hoisin and plum sauce ever.  Hong Kong does sauces and condiments well!  Still, for being close to $40, I’m gonna have to give it a thumbs down.

Deep Fried Bean Curd with Special Sauce
It was hard to pick another dish to round things out.  This wasn’t really what I was expecting by the English description.  Surprisingly, it was really delicious.  It was lightly fried on the outside, but kind of juicy on the inside.  I guess the special was somehow imbued into the tofu instead of being separately served on top.  YUMS!

Yung Kee wasn’t bad by any means, but it’s not really a place I would run back to.  The meat is good, but highly overrated.  That steep price tag is totally unwarranted.  I suppose I knew this going in because The Annoyer had been here before.  But Yung Kee is just one of those “famous” restaurants that’s good to try once.  There are probably better and more affordable roasted meat places.

10 – You NEED to eat here
9 – Awesome
8 – Very good
7 – Good
6 – OK (factoring price)
5 – Average
4 – Not bad
3 – Not good
2 – Terrible
1 – Do NOT eat here