Yee Tung Heen

Address: 2nd Floor, Excelsior Hotel, 281 Gloucester Road, Causeway Bay
Tel: 2837 6790

No trip to Hong Kong is complete without savouring the city's very own Cantonese cuisine. There are myriad restaurants that serve excellent Cantonese food, and one of them is Yee Tung Heen. The restaurant was recently recognised by the Michelin Guide with a Bib Gourmand, signifying great food with reasonable prices. The décor is simple, and standing out on one wall is a large fish tank that allows customers to select part of their meal while it is still swimming.

Until the end of June, the restaurant is offering a special menu featuring the cuisine of Shunde, a city in Guangdong province that has a strong influence on Cantonese food. One of the menu’s most popular dishes is the pan-fried fish belly with ginger. The belly meat is the most tender part of the fish, and combining it with peppers and ginger gives it a nice pungency.

Of course, you cannot fully appreciate Cantonese cuisine without trying dim sum. The most popular dishes include shrimp dumplings, siu mai, and barbecued pork buns, but be sure to also try the restaurant’s deep-fried turnip puffs, which have a flaky pastry shell and moist turnip centre, and steamed rice flour rolls with minced pork.

One of the signature dishes is sautéed beef with water chestnut and “fryer stick”, which is referring to a deep-fried Chinese doughnut. The unusual combination brings together different textures and flavours, creatively using these ingredients normally found in inexpensive local eateries.

The steamed egg custard buns are so popular that they had to be reintroduced on to the dessert menu after being removed. These typical Hong Kong buns – known as pineapple buns because of their appearance – are sweet and fluffy, and the small amount of egg paste in the centre adds a satisfying extra kick.

Yè Shanghai Address: 6th Floor, Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel, 3 Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui Tel: 2376 3322 Shanghainese food is known for its oiliness, strong flavours and use of alcohol. While Yè Shanghai adheres to the spirit of this regional cuisine, the chain of restaurants (two in Hong Kong and one in Shanghai) creates the dishes with contemporary flair, meaning less oil and more subtlety to suit modern palates. The restaurant décor also keeps this balance of traditional and contemporary, and the overall ambience is comfortable and very chic.

Peking Garden

Address: Shop 5, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Admiralty
Tel: 2845 8452

If you have never eaten Peking duck, find out what you’ve been missing at one of Hong Kong’s restaurants most famous for the dish. The duck is prepared according to specific, complex procedures: blowing air into the meat to separate the skin from the fat, hanging the meat to dry, and then boiling, glazing and rinsing. Finally, it emerges from an oven with perfectly crisp skin. The skin – the most prized part – is then carved into bite sizes with some meat attached, and is eaten rolled in paper-thin flour pancakes with a bit of hoi sin sauce, scallion and cucumber.

Food from the Beijing (or Peking, as it used to be called) region is characterised by strong flavours, often using sweet or savoury sauces. One of the restaurant’s very traditional dishes embodying this cooking style is the braised sliced fish with rice liquor, in which tender sea bass fillets are served with a fragrant, sweet sauce. Also be sure to try the delicious deep fried prawns in chilli sauce, one of the restaurant’s signature dishes. The large prawns are crunchy on the outside, glazed in a slightly spicy sweet and sour sauce and served piping hot.

The signature dessert is a soft steamed red apple stuffed with purple rice, which has interesting textures and subtle sweetness. Another good choice is the fritters, which are essentially pieces of starch candied to a crisp, with some red date paste in the centre.

Each of Peking Garden’s four locations is slightly different. The Pacific Place location, conveniently situated inside the mall, has European-inspired décor which is unusual for a Chinese restaurant, and is also the only branch that uses no MSG in its cooking.

Peking Garden has always been known for its live noodle-making performance, when a chef pulls a chunk of dough into long, thin strands by hand. The feat can be seen nightly at 8pm at the Central branch (Shop B1, Alexander House, 16-20 Chater Road) and 8.30pm at the Tsim Sha Tsui branch (3rd Floor, Star House, 3 Salisbury Road). The fourth location is in Taikoo Shing (2/F, Cityplaza II, 18 Taikoo Shing Road).