FOOD CRAVER: The Finale of Cheung Lee

The Finale of Cheung Lee

Cheung Lee Restaurant
G/F, 120 Electric Road, Tin Hau

I had no idea about this restaurant until I saw its name listed in the Top Ten Restaurant on Openrice.com. I read from the reviews that it had opened for more than 50 years. I suggested paying it a visit to my parents on Sunday morning on its last day, and to my surprise, my mum used to dine in there before. I questioned about why are all old fashioned restaurant called Bing Café. She said its because Red Bean Ice and Pineapple Ice was what they always have when heading to those restaurants. There weren't much choice to choose from, not like what the cafes could offer nowadays.

The Pouring rain on Sunday afternoon was not a nice weather for any last opening, seemingly someone is grieving for the lost of yet another historical local restaurant. There were lots of people queuing at the front door of Cheung Li, but to be honest, I have no idea what they were waiting for, as I got my table immediately after I asked for a seating.

An Overview from second floor.

The restaurant had an old fashioned décor, small square porcelain floor tiles, white wall tiles under the mermaid green painted walls, nostalgic wall clock and cash machine, wooden chair seats and plain squared tables etc. The restaurant was full as expected but was not as cramped as I thought it would be. Sitting in the middle of the restaurant, there was plenty of space in between table for moving around. There were also a green old wooden stairs extending up to the second floor, which an awesome overview of the restaurant could be seen.

1) 加央多士烘底 $6

Once again I had the slightly idea of what 加央 was, it was actually a spreadable jam-like sweet paste from Malaysia. The crispy toast was in moderate thickness. There weren't many 加央 on the toast, so I couldn't really taste what the real taste of 加央 is. I somehow tasted peanut butter, and I hope it was not due to the contamination by the very knife which was used for spreading on toast.

2) 鹵水牛展治烘底 $13

I had never heard or tasted something like this before and it was surprisingly good. The beef shank was served cold but was slightly warmed by the toast. It was soft and went very nicely with the toast. The salty combination somehow gave me a similar feeling of corn beef & egg toasted sandwich. I personally flavor corn beef & egg more, but this Beef Shank Toasted Sandwich definitely worth a try.

A funny incident happened when I was snapping photos of my Beef Shank Toasted Sandwich, a camera man from Cable TV interviewed….our food lol. I bet the fact that we sat in the middle of the restaurant, had made us an easy target. He set his camera right next to our table, with the focus on us. My mum got all excited and asked whether they would be screened on TV, the camera man replied, "nope, I am just interested in this" with his finger pointing at my toast. Hearing the reply, My mum then got impatient and asked how long does she need to wait to consume her food lol. Anyway it was a nice experience and was pretty funny.

3) 豬扒湯意粉 $34

I have always loved HK style's spaghetti in soup, it is just so good. The Pork was nicely seasoned, very soft and tender.Yet the soup contained no flavour at all and made the spaghetti very dull. We added a lot of pepper into the spaghetti to give some taste but still it was not that nice to enjoy.

4) Pineapple Ice $11

The Cable man was interested in my Pineapple Ice too, so I let him recorded it before I could enjoy it. It was pretty much a normal Pineapple Ice, there were lots of finely sliced canned pineapple in the drink.

5) Silky Milk Tea in Hong Kong Style

Cheung Yi made really nice Hong Kong Style Silky Milk Tea. The milk was nicely blended in with the tea and the texture was so good! It is smooth, silky and rich. It was way better than the milk tea Tsui Wa Restaurant offers.

Effective Communication starts here.

The service of the restaurant was excellent. The family members of the restaurant took order real fast with good memory and served food promptly. They were all very nice and chatty. I saw many old customers came in and took photos with the owner after they had their lunch. It was sad to witness the closure of a local restaurant with such a long history. I reckton the most impressing experience I had today was not about the food, but the solid humanity between the restaurant members and the neighborhood.