Tibetan Noodles at North Point (and Dessert at Fook Yuen)

Noodles 青藏牛肉麵

  

Kam Ping Street, 27A, North Point, Hong Kong

Rating: 7.2/10

Price: 50 HKD per person (30-40 HKD for noodle)

There's a vicious cycle you often fall into if you live on campus (like I do) in Asia. You always have to eat similar-tasting chinese dishes that are often not that great that once you get to leave the campus and eat out, you only ever go for the most western food available.

It's not that the western food in Hong Kong is not good, it's just that there's so much authentic and awesome food that you miss out that are frankly speaking so god damn CHEAP and close too! 

So, eager to convince others of this perfect opportunity to quickly and cheaply escape the monotonous campus food... I took two of my friends to this Tibetan Noodle place in North Point.

I mean... who has ever tried Tibetan Food outside of Tibet? Really? Isn't that enough of a reason to go try this place out?!?!

AND unlike the other noodle-joints in Hong Kong where the food may be good, but the staff are so snarky and scary, this restaurant was one of the friendliest 'local' restaurant I've been to!
They had a great English Menu that wasn't hurriedly written down with poor english but a proper menu with cute little chilli to denote spicy dishes!

Plus the woman taking orders were very patient and even suggested us the dishes to try without even being asked! 

We decided to try couple of the dishes (as recommended and approved by the staff):
    -Beef Noodles with Home Made Garlic Sauce (39HKD)
    -Stir Fry Noodles with Leek & Mutton (45HKD) 
    -Poached Egg with Home-Made Sauce (12 HKD)
    -Cucumber with Home Made Garlic Sauce (28 HKD)
    -Cumin Grilled Eggplant with Garlic (25HKD)

To give a grand-total of: 50 HKD per person for 3 of us! :)

The restaurant is relatively clean too, and we had went rather early (around 6PM) and the place only started really filling up as we were leaving! It had a very relaxed atmosphere with no one pushing or shoving us around.

Poached Egg (3/5):
It's not that the egg was not well-cooked! It was actually rather excellent but there was nothing too special about it, and it was quickly forgotten as soon as the other dishes began arriving. Especially given that the flavors of the other dishes was rather distinct and strong, it was rather bland.

Cumin Grilled Eggplant (4.5/5):
  This dish was excellent! THe egg-plant had a crispy outer-layer whilst not being dry! Plus the over-abundance of garlic was such a great match with the cumin-spiced eggplant. It was actually not spicy at all, but if you don't really like garlic this is DEFINITELY not the dish for you! Otherwise, this is one of the best eggplant dish I've had in Hong Kong

Beef Noodles with Home Made Garlic Sauce (4/5):
Despite it being 'Tibetan', I guess I had expected it to taste similar to the noodles I've had some-point in my life. However the flavor was refreshingly and shockingly new, I could not relate it to anything I've tried before, and there's something so tantalizing about trying something completly new. 

Plus, the hand-pulled noodles were delightfully cooked to al-dente, which meant it was chewy-and firm just the way it should be!

Spicy Leek and Mutton Stir-Fried Noodles (3.5/5):
I preferred the beef-noodles, but by no means was this a average dish! Despite it being rather oily, the strong mutton and cumin flavor from the sauce made the whole dish come-together without it being too  heavy. The Noodles were thicker, and firmer too!

It wasn't as spicy as I hoped it would be, and anyone who doesn't have a severe problem with spicy food should be able to enjoy all the dishes without any difficulty.

Cucumber with Home Made Garlic Sauce (4/5):

   Apparently this is a staple side-dish in China, and I can understand why! It's so yummy! :) It's like an oriental salad with cucumbers! They were so refreshing and lightly seasoned that it paired nicely with the heavier flavors of the main-dishes. The slightly sour vinegar taste also boosts your appetite and cleans up the meaty-flavor from the other dishes! 

Ha, as you can see from the photo above it was a successful (and cheap) dinner! Now i get to boast about having had the chance to try Tibetan style food and that it tasted delicious! I hope one day I can go to Tibet to try out the local cuisine there because despite my original doubts, it tastes very different from other Chinese dishes! 

Fook Yuen     福元湯圓  

Shop I-1, G/F, Lei Do Building, 7 Fuk Yuen Street, North Point

北角炮台山福元街7號利都樓地下I-1舖

note: FORTRESS HILL MTR exit A

After dinner, we decided to walk a little to Fortress Hill to a corner-dessert place that had a rather high reputation on Open Rice. Following our trend of 'all things local', we decided to try some local treats for dessert! There's no English menu at this place, but you can point on the photos to order (like we did). But after trying the dessert above and their specialty which are the glutinous rice balls, next time I'll just go straight for these amazing little balls filled with black sesame!

The desserts are so cheap with most of them under 20 HKD, and if you do order the glutinous rice-balls you get total of 5, which should fill you up rather well! 

Look how happy she looks! 

See the sesame oozing out?! It's simply divine! It's much much better (and less sweet) than mochii in my opinion! They're just so chewy and soft and... and...just try them! 

There's different flavors you can choose from, we tried both peanut filling and black sesame and we loved them both! I think there's couple of other ones such as red-bean but i highly recommend the black sesame!!