歡樂海鮮酒家 (Happy Seafood "Foon Lok" restaurant) is a place where many local celebrities, media…read morepersonality types and insane food fiends all know about and willing to make the long trek to the area just to have a splendid seafood meal, but otherwise this restaurant never gets any press coverage abroad. Those who understand and appreciate it sing praises, while naysayers will complain of the exorbitant prices.
Executive chef Lau Ka Lun 劉嘉麟 (also known as Brother B to his dearest fans) B哥 was legendary in the HK food world. He re-defined new ways of cooking seafood Cantonese style, and had a knack for drawing out unique flavors with modern preparations, yet not going the road of fusion/confusion. His life story is that of an amazing one which I will dedicate a paragraph in tribute.
Chef Lau learned to cook simply by watching others, and at a young tender age of 8 or 9, figured how out to wok stir fry rice (and in a very professional manner) all by himself, while standing on a crate container of soda. He dropped out of school and became executive chef at age 14 of this restaurant (owned by his family), and at age 22, became the youngest chef to win a blue ribbon/Cordon Bleu award, with tons of admiration from his more senior peers in the food and chef community (including the legendary abalone master Yeung Koon Yat). It is with sadness that I learned of his passing this past June (apparent depression/suicide from debts and gambling). He was only in his early 30s and had such tremendous potential.
Located right in the heart of Lau Fau Shan, literally on the northwestern tip of New Territories by the coastline (where if you reach the tip, you can see the coastline of China right across), this is the baddest and most impressive seafood restaurant in the area. It is also the only seafood restaurant with a killer impressive display of seafood in the tanks (many of them imported, mostly around SE Asia and/or caught off South China Sea), alive and kicking with nothing to hide (those who have seen Koi Palace Daly City's murky seafood tanks and sleepy fish will know what I mean).
On January 6 some friends and I ventured into Lau Fau Shan as a detour before going to Yuen Long, and decided to come here for lunch. They opened at 11:30 am on the dot and we stepped back outside to pick out the seafood we wanted (sold by weight) and to tell them how we want it prepped. The biggest problem is that you are at the mercy of their pricing structure, and as there are no competitors like them around, they can charge what they like, it is really up to you. And they cannot tell you how much something costs until they weigh it.
4 of us, so many killer preparations to try. There was just not enough time.
When coming to Lau Fau Shan, one must try the local shrimp, or 九節蝦 (nine striped prawn). They have a short shelf life once fished out of the local waters and are incredibly hard to find even in HK island side fish markets. Really glad we got these. There was a minimum weight they were willing to sell, and as we wanted to sample some, there was difficulty in determining how much. I felt the manager was a little pushy as to what he was willing to recommend as a minimum amount but I glad we agreed to it. Very simple cooking in boiled water, with a delectable chili/jalapeno soy sauce dip is all you need. Intense shrimp flavor with incredibly juicy "brain" juice. 鮮甜無比!!! Beats the crap out of Santa Barbara spot prawns for Cantonese prep.
Steamed fish - so many varieties in the tank! Just pointed to one at random and apparently it was a deep sea spotted grouper 蘇鼠斑 (not the super high end variety). It was in the region of HK$600 to $700, so I guess it is on the high side. Then again a whole salt grilled Japanese Hokkaido kinki would run HK$800 to HK$1200 anyway, so sometimes there is no reason other than, go for it!. A simple clear steam prep worked wonders on this fish, and it did not disappoint.
Who doesn't like mantis prawn? Brother B's infamous prep is 麻香攋尿蝦, which is a wicked stir fry with sesame oil, sesame seeds, and a caramelized soy based sauce that just drew out very intense flavors while preserving the juices of this fugly beast. Biggest regret? Not trying their spiny lobster preps, or double down on the mantis prawn order (more shells than meat, but the meat was intensively good).
Brother B's fried rice 食神炒飯 is very interesting especially with the presentation. There is almost nothing better than to end a seafood meal with an awesome stir fry plate of carbs. His "God of Cookery" fried rice has a ton of crab roe in it, and of course the basic requisites of egg. See how nice and golden/yellow it is?
I feel truly lucky to have tried Brother B's cooking, yet feel sad about what happened to him. Such a truly talented individual with and incredible amount of potential (literally endless). For a young chef with no formal training, he outperformed many of his peers and had a killer creative and innovative streak.
