In food-obsessed Hong Kong, it’s no longer enough to discover a great new restaurant. These days, true status comes from finding a great new restaurant on the Chinese mainland. And if it happens to be hidden away on a secret island, so much the better.
Until recently, Shenzhen, a Chinese-designated Special Economic Zone (read: place where capitalism is okay as long as tourists come with cash), was the destination of choice for serious eaters. Just an hour’s train ride from Hong Kong, it attracted gourmets eager to sample the authentic Sichuan cooking of emigrants from the north.
But my friend Lau Kin-Wai—art critic, curator, and owner of The Yellow Door, one of Hong Kong’s best Chinese restaurants—returned from a recent visit to China with news of an even more exotic experience. He had heard of a new restaurant near Zouhai, a lesser-known Special Economic Zone, that was said to specialize in rare river fish cooked in the Cantonese style. Since we get very few river fish in Hong Kong, we were eager to try it, and we set off in pursuit with friends.
Our adventure began at the Macao-China border, which we crossed on foot after sailing over from Hong Kong. From there, a 40-minute taxi ride took us through the crowded city of Zouhai into a rural landscape of rice paddies, lotus fields, and heavily wooded peaks. A footbridge led across the water to a tiny island that closely hugged the shore. Soon we were sitting next to the Sai Kong River, sipping Champagne we’d brought along, on Grinding Knife Island.
The best translation—the only translation—for the name of the restaurant is “Catering Street.” To enter it, we walked through a large kitchen garden with manicured beds of Chinese greens, coriander, potato, taro, and winter melon. This seemed like a very good sign.
The staff appeared a little overwhelmed by our arrival, and we realized that we might have been the first Westerners ever to eat here. When Kin-Wai asked the names of the fish or about the preparation of a dish, the staff answered politely but did not stay to chat. The chef himself was too shy to appear, even when we begged for him to come out and acknowledge our praise.
And there was a great deal to praise. Everything sampled during the four-hour, ten-course meal had been picked, caught, or slaughtered on the very day we ate it. Food of such absolute freshness is rare anywhere. And to find it cooked so perfectly in this part of China was absolutely amazing.
We were welcomed with succulent oysters braised in a peppery chicken broth. After these tidbits, Kin-Wai went off to order lunch. On the way, he was introduced to a monkey (which, he was assured, was not destined for the kitchen). He was happy to hear that the ostrich and the white crane in adjacent cages were also pets.
Our first course was a richly textured sturgeon, which is very rare in Hong Kong. Indeed, Kin-Wai had never had it before. It tasted almost meatlike, but with the flavor of true freshwater fish. A steamed monkey-head fish followed; smooth and subtle, it literally melted in our mouths. The third fish was a delicate cinnamon fish, whose texture closely resembles that of sea bass.
The next dish before us was the most exotic—worms are highly prized here in Guangdong province (where even rats can end up on the dinner plate) but are seldom served in Hong Kong or Macao. At Catering Street we ate special brown worms, bred in a nearby—and deliberately flooded—rice paddy. They were baked with minced pork, mushroom, sun-dried orange peel, and egg—and the result was extraordinary. Once you overcome your squeamishness, all you remember about the dish is its rich flavor and buttery texture.
Another course was almost as unusual. As we came over the bridge, I had noticed a vicious-looking bird with a long beak and sharp claws in a cage in the garden. I was sure the angry little night traveler, as it is known, would exact revenge on the boy charged with delivering it to the kitchen. We saw the bird go into the kitchen. There was a loud screech ... from the bird. A few hours later, it was served on the bone, its meat lean and tender. Our night traveler had been stewed in a clay pot with star anise gravy, which overcame the bird’s slightly gamy taste.
We also feasted on crab, with almost the same texture as the soft-shelled variety but here steamed with lotus leaf, which imparted an earthy flavor. We moved on to stream turtle, which also came with lotus leaf, this time braised and tender enought to eat. An eel dish was elegant, served on green pepper, carrot, and pink onion. A side dish of wok-fried greens, with just a touch of oil and garlic, accompanied the other dishes. By the time the rice arrived, Kin-Wai insisted that it was simply for filling the stomach, and we certainly didn’t need that at Catering Street.
Sitting on the peaceful river bank, we recalled that not so long ago this entire area had been marshland and reputedly inhabited by pirates. It has only been a few years since an entrepreneur from nearby Shunde, the culinary capital of Guangdong province (and, indeed, the hometown of our chef), began building a golf course with attendant facilities. He had gotten as far as the restaurant when the money ran out. Someday, the club may become the sumptuous resort it was originally intended to be. On the other hand, with food this good, who needs golf?
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