Notes » January 2007

Canto-Western Cuisine

I'm not a huge fan of most "Canto-Western" restaurants (although a few are good), but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try one if you ever visit Hong Kong.

You might just like it.

From the Canadian Press:

In a nod to steak house tradition, sirloins served at Hong Kong's Goldfinch Restaurant are accompanied by a sauce and a side. But don't go looking for American-style sauce and the ubiquitous baked potato with sour cream.

This is the wonderfully weird world of Canto-Western cuisine. The meat arrives on a sizzling iron plate, smothered with a soy sauce and garlic gravy that bubbles furiously. The side? Fried rice with egg and peas.

It may sound odd to Western palates, but at this Hong Kong restaurant, it's the only right way to eat steak.

The main problem I've noticed is the meat, which in my mind doesn't qualify as steak. I'm from Alberta, where I was used to eating high quality beef.

For decades, waiters have served up dishes best described as Western fare with Chinese flair: borscht spiked with soy sauce, wok-fried spaghetti with meat sauce, and a watery cream of corn soup with strips of pink ham floating in it.

I've been here more than eight years and still haven't figured out Hong Kong's fixation with corn and all the ways to add it to dishes.

Canto-Western cuisine grew out of the numerous steak houses and other Western-style restaurants that opened during the '60s and '70s in Hong Kong, a former British colony.

At the time, the food - which acquired the nickname "see yauh sai chan," or "soy sauce Western" - was a novelty. For locals, the restaurants were a more affordable and relaxed experience than authentic Western eateries, which catered mostly to expatriates.

"You could call this Hong Kong's earliest fusion food," said Lau Kin-wai, a food columnist at the Hong Kong Economic Journal.

That reminds me: I still have yet to visit Jimmy's Kitchen. That's going on the to-do list right now.

"Chinese people were trying to handle what they saw as exotic food at the time. They were applying their own flavors and culture to the Western dishes they were exposed to," he said.

But as Hong Kongers have developed more sophisticated tastes, once classy venues such as Goldfinch - at one time the only option for a taste of steak or pasta - have become quaint relics.

"In the past, this was one of the very few upmarket Western restaurants around. It wasn't so easy to come in here," says Wong Kin-wing, a longtime Goldfinch manager. "Only people with some money could afford to, and they only came for special occasions like Christmas."

But today, high-end Western foods are widely available, he says. And that leaves the few remaining soy sauce Western restaurants trying to capitalize on their nostalgic appeal. And it seems to be working.

Goldfinch, which opened in 1962, has become popular again after Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai chose its dark and musty interior as the backdrop for a romanticized '60s in his sultry "In the Mood for Love," as well as for a scene in the movie "2046."

Meanwhile, curious young diners are drawn by the restaurants' timeless qualities, their tattered leather-bound menus, dimmed yellow lighting, smoked mirrors, stained leather booth seats, large portions and no-nonsense presentation.

I'm more interested in the decor than the food. If you're curious, Goldfinch is located on Lan Fong Road in Causeway Bay.

Soy sauce Western meals typically begin with soup served with a sweet bun, or a salad of prawns and fruit that comes with a dollop of salad cream, which is similar to mayonnaise. Dessert usually is something old-fashioned, such as ice cream or sweet milk poured over orange gelatin.

The main course typically is a sizzle-plate steak accompanied by fried rice, spaghetti or french fries. Other popular mains include a fried rice that is baked with a layer of a cream or tomato-based sauce - likely inspired by lasagna.

None of that sounds appetising to me, but I'm a picky eater. It's also hard to maintain one's waistline with such high-calorie fare.

Among the most famous soy sauce Western dishes is "Swiss sauce chicken wings" created by Tai Ping Koon, a 146-year-old restaurant. The eatery claims to be the first Western restaurant to open in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, once known as Canton.

The story goes that a foreign diner who first tasted the dish - a plateful of wings marinated in spiced, sweetened and almost caramelized soy sauce - exclaimed that it was "sweet," a comment misinterpreted as "Swiss" by the Chinese waiters.

Because of the misunderstanding, diners thought they were eating an authentic dish from Switzerland.

That's what I love about this town; it has a million stories just like this that gives it such a rich character.

Another dish that could bewilder foreigners is macaroni cooked in clear broth, often eaten with a fried egg and ham for breakfast or a light lunch. McDonald's adopted the dish and sells it in the morning.

"These tastes are definitely completely different from real Western fare. Foreigners will find this food very unfamiliar, even unrecognizable," says Lau. "But that's OK, because I also find some Chinese food in Britain unrecognizable. This happens all over the world."

Ain't that the truth.

This article makes a nice addition to Hong Kong's Food Culture, which includes a section on the development of Western cuisine.

Now then ... who's hungry?

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