Is simplicity best, or simply the easiest?
Answer: both.
Too many restaurants cropping up all over the place. Everyone just wants to be cutting edge, doing something different. A few just end up emphasizing style over substance (and unfortunately many buy into the hype).
Then you look at a place like Australia Dairy Company, or even this old school HK cafe, and lines form outside the door more or less throughout the day, and wonder....they must be doing something right.
Sometimes you just need to do one thing right, and only that thing.
And do it so bloody fecking well that nobody can replicate it. You become the expert and go-to for this. Wash, rinse, repeat, and become the undisputed champion.
Of course it helps when you have been doing it for years. But you never stray from a commitment to quality and consistency, and that is the key point that many miss.
維記咖啡粉麵 (Wai Kee Coffee and Noodle) has been a staple of Sham Shui Po for decades. Their flagship product offering is an ethereal and incredible pork liver soup, and their pork liver prep is also very solid.
While they have other things on the menu similar to other HK cafes, they do the pork liver soup so well that if you do not try it here, you haven't really visited Wai Kee, or even Sham Shui Po area.
These guys are so successful that they opened up two additional spaces on the same street to handle overflow and crowds (and all 3 locations have lines!).
Pork liver is a rather challenging ingredient. Cook it too long and it becomes dry, chewy, and unappetizing. Undercook it and you are essentially flirting with danger if the product is not clean. And as fresh as you can get, there is always that taste that drives people away (kind of like how people dislike sheep and goat for being too gamey).
Yet WK makes some truly amazing pork liver, and a rich deep lightly sweet pork liver broth that is indeed the stuff of legends. Their liver does not have that weird taste or aftertaste, and it is not just a matter of using ginger. Don't think anyone has been able to figure out their secret.
Yes they have other offerings on the menu, but you really want to have a bowl of pork liver soup with either macaroni, rice noodles, or instant noodles. If you don't want pork liver slices, spam and egg is a safe choice. The broth will have some bubble/fat, it's not molecular cuisine, but is part of the flavor.
Their iced coffee is good, way better than Australia Dairy Company.
Another must have item is their french toast, with kaya jam (coconut based) on the inside.
Simple food, comforting, yet done at such a ridiculously high level.
Don't expect beck and call kind of service here. More like local style, no nonsense, efficient.
They deserve their success and to some extent, arrogance if they want, since they have the quality to back it up. read more