A new Hong Kong restaurant, 1908BC, hopes to tickle your nostalgia with classic Chinese-British flavours.
Food loves to travel and when it does, it evolves. While we love to seek authenticity and seek out our favourite dish’s origins, it’s also fun to see how cuisine evolves in a new locale, where ingredients are tweaked and traditions innovated upon, often out of necessity.
READ: We Review Hong Kong’s Newest Italian-Japanese Kitchen
So it is with Chinese food; migrants from across China have departed for new horizons for generations, taking with them the regional dishes of their homeland and adapting them to their new surrounds. It’s not about what’s better, it’s about the journey.
Celebrating this journey is 1908BC, Hong Kong’s first restaurant dedicated to British Chinese food, the dishes of Chinese migrants found in the takeaway joints of the UK. Located at The Pemberton in Shueng Wan, the new eatery offers a touch of nostalgia with classic dishes that have long sated the appetites of the British – think crispy shredded duck, chop suey, and fried chicken balls with sweet and sour sauce.
Named for the year the first Chinese restaurant opened in Britain (in Piccadilly don’t you know), the new eatery is the creation of British-born Chinese Suzanna Ho, who grew up helping out at her family’s Chinese restaurant Dynasty in Bristol. With a menu that’s partially transported from the British seaside and part crowd-sourced through surveys of what Brits missed the most in Hong Kong, 1908BC will serve Chinese dishes, as interpreted in America, Canada, Australia, and even South Africa, sans MSG or colour enhancers, replicating classic take away dishes in the most natural way possible.
For example, to recreate the tangy sweet and sour sauce so beloved in the British Isles, Ho uses hawthorn for acidity and hibiscus for colouring, creating a dish that’s both comforting and innovative.
READ: Guns for Show, Knives for a Pro
This isn’t culinary blasphemy, it’s about gastronomic evolution; in fact, one of the more curious dishes on the menu is the Chip Shop Curry, a fusion of Chinese, British, and Indian influences that sees a choice of curries slathered over a basket of French fries. Other highlights include battered chicken meatballs in sweet and sour sauce; Crispy Aromatic Shredded Duck with pancakes; Chicken Chow Mein; and Kung SUPER-POW Prawns.
If you’re lucky they might even deep-fry a Mars bar for you.
For more Wining & Dining inspiration click here.
LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? FOLLOW ALPHA MEN ASIA ON FACEBOOK, OR INSTAGRAM AND SUBSCRIBE TO OUR HONG KONG-CENTRIC NEWSLETTER HERE
