Whenever I find myself near this place, I go there.  If I’m hungry, I eat.  If not, I get something to take away for later.  I’ve been going here for so many years that whenever they see me standing outside, they yell out, “Hey, Char Siu Fahn!  Come on in!”   (Because that’s what I almost always order.)

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It’s in Wanchai, on Stewart Road, just off Hennessy Road.  No English name or sign (well, you can see that, can’t you?) but most times of the day, you’ll be able to recognize it by the long queue outside.  At 4 PM today, no queue outside but barely any available seats inside.

For whatever it’s worth to you, over on Open Rice it’s rated 216 “yummy,” 66 okay, 15 crying.  Apparently it is either the highest rated or most reviewed restaurant in Open Rice in Wan Chai.

I haven’t been to that many roast meat places in HK, but this is far and away the best I have ever been to.  Aside from amazing food, it’s almost ludicrously cheap and the staff are amazingly friendly.  And despite the lack of any English signs, this place is very welcoming to non-Cantonese speakers.

As I said, most times I go for the char siu fahn, the honey roast pork with steamed rice.  I think it’s $20 a serving.  Some of the reviews on Open Rice talk about them having a unique flavor here.  I can’t attest to that but I can tell you that their char siu is tender and juicy yet far less fatty than in other places.

I’m also a big fan of their siu pai gwat – barbecue spare ribs – which I must confess taste very much like the ones I used to get back in New York, only better.  The first time I ordered this, they gave me just 3 or 4 ribs on a bed of rice.  The next time I went there, I asked for the entire rack, with some containers of rice and veggie on the side.  If I recall correctly, the entire rack cost only $50.  I asked them to teach me the name a few years back and all the staff took turns quizzing me every few minutes.  The next trip, when I remembered it correctly, they were all smiles.

They told me that next time, I need to order this (and then invited me behind the counter so I could get a photo):

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Holy crap, I was tempted to just ask for an entire one to go then and there.  But since I had several hours of walking around to do, it will have to wait till next time (which hopefully will be soon).  And I never noticed before but today another guy at my table was getting the char siu in noodle soup and that looked nice, too.

Of course they have many varieties of pork as well as goose – all the traditional stuff you’ll find at a HK roast meat shop. Just that all of it is so much better here!

Hey, you got a better place?  Let me know.  I’ll be happy to check it out.  In the meantime, some other photos I took this afternoon.  It was difficult to get good positions for the photos with all the activity there, but I tried my best.   People ask me what I love about Hong Kong, one reason I stay here?  It’s because we have places like this – good honest food at a cheap price served with a smile.  And I ask you, when there are places like this on almost every street in Hong Kong, why go to McDonald’s?

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