Clay Pot on Tang Lung St: Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

On Tang Lung St, slightly hidden across from Time Square, is a common bus stop for people heading to Stanley Beach from Causeway Bay. Anyone heading here to take the bus will quickly take notice the variety of restaurants on this street, from Vietnamese, Thai, to Hong Kong cafes. Along the street, you'll find near the end, a special little shop that is hidden by the variety of restaurants surrounding it, that specializes in Clay Pot.

The restaurant however, does not serve the clay pot until after 6:00pm, so if that's what you are after, then you'll have to be like me and my girlfriend, and hunger till dinner for the delicious clay pot.

What makes the clay pot rice special in comparison to your regular steamed or fried rice? The rice is cooked in the clay pot itself, which when cooked over the open flame, infuses all the heat into the pot itself.

The texture and pourous nature of the pot also retains the flavor of the rice; at the same time, the pot cooks the rice on the outer edge faster than the inside, producing what is called 'fan jiu' in chinese, which means rice skin. The 'fan jiu' is a layer of rice that cooks faster and becomes stuck together and slightly singes, giving it a 'hern' (fragrant) flavor.

Decor
The restaurant is not one of the most visually appealing restaurants when it comes to cleanliness, but in my opinion, definitely gives it the old Hong Kong atmosphere. I do caution people to go to the washroom someplace else before coming here as you might not be comfortable with the facilities in the restaurant.

With wooden chairs, plastic stools, aged kitchen tiles around the walls, and quickly wiped whitish laminate tables, you quickly get the feeling of being someplace more rugged and more of a real Hong Kong experience.

Menu

There is a menu consisting of Hong Kong cafe style cuisine (such as Singapore fried vermicelli) which is served throughout the day, and a separate menu for the clay pot rice dishes. Be warned though, as the menus on the wall and scattered in the restaurant are only available in Chinese; there may be English menus, but we failed to ask that night.

Some of the clay pot dishes available include savory ingredients such as Chinese dried sausage, fatty sausage, ground beef, salty pork, salted fish, chinese beef ribs (served cut up in chunks), and more. In some of the combinations of ingredients in the Clay Pot, a raw egg is cracked into the hot burning clay pot and covered with a lid to cook. If desired, an egg can be added to any of the clay pot dishes for a very small extra fee. If they forget to do it for you, be sure to pour their special sweet soya sauce while it's still raging hot to make sure the flavor is infused into the rice.

Drinks

There are your standard Hong Kong cafe drinks, such as Horlicks, coffee, iced tea, Ovaltine, almond drinks as well as your usual soft drinks. The restaurant doesn't serve alcohol, but feel free to sneak in your own alcoholic beverage (in our case, a can of Tsing Tao bought at 7-11).

The clay pot: away from the flame but still cooking hot and infusing the rice with flavor