Kam Shing Restaurant     金城餐廳  

In the area waiting for someone to join me for dinner, travelled past this shop and faintly recall it being mentioned on the Openrice forum! A closer study of the shop window revealed clippings of 亞穌's recommendation of their Baked Porkchop Rice! In fact she recommended a few shops in the area too! Anyway I hardly watch her old or new shows, some people seem to love or loathe her especially her recommendations, but let's give it a try!
************
BAKED PORKCHOP RICE: The Sauce is made in-house by baking/cooking together for hours a mixture of tomatoes, carrots, onions and celery - much like French or Italian cuisine's sauces or stock. The end product tasted sweet, mainly of pureed tomatoes and carrots. Good but it was a bit plain! There wasn't enough sauce on my porkchop rice however, so we had to beg for more 'unbaked' version of it twice before the staff gave it to us reluctantly!
The Pork Chop itself was thick. Its soft but was very lean and not tasty enough. It lacks either the deep-fried or post baked aroma, also came with no pork meat taste. I've had better pork in other places I think! The Rice was expectedly a 炒底 type with just shredded eggs and MSG, rather than 炒飯底 which comes with more ingredients and suits some other dishes better! The rice grains were 乾身 and 粒粒分明, it was slightly bitey too which was awesome, with some decent rice plus eggy aroma and taste! However one can't attribute this fully to the chef's fried rice skills, because to me, it was quite obvious this was largely to do with the special longish rice grain they use here.... it was different to other shops' grain selection and is some sort of longish 在萊米 or Thai Basmatic Rice, then mixed with pre-fried eggs rather than frying them together as 'coating', like other chefs prefer. It was a smart and efficient move by the restaurant to go down this path!
ALL IN ALL, this based porkchop showed a lot of Intelligence and also 誠意, especially with the sweetish slow-cooked sauce and the rice grains! However as a whole, the end result wasn't Great, barely Quite-Good. 大家樂, 美都, 大快活, 翠華, etc - all have their own advantages over here, especially when counting the vegetables and pork side! If anything, its the rice here which wins it points...
MOROCCAN CHICKEN WITH RICE: Their other Signature Rice Dish here but hardly anyone orders it. When this came, it had a Portuguese Curried type of sauce, which was mainly Yellow, but on the outside display photo the sauce is meant to come with gravy and should be much darker! The Chicken was shallow-fried, its a bit stringy but ok-good since anything cooked in enough oil is good, its almost the expected Chinese philosophy that 'more-oil' = 'more-moist', its like their shortcut method! A piece of Bacon came on the side and topped with a fried egg without much 鑊氣.
The rice is a Turmeric based Rice, similar to India or Indonesian style - but it lacked fresh Turmeric taste so one gathers its mainly powdered Turmeric for colour. In case it was too boring on its own, the restaurant mixes in some Sultanas, chopped peppers and slightly more shredded fried eggs. This rice wasn't good however, it lacked any discernible taste and colour-blind eaters can't tell its not a white rice. To me, it felt like an under-achieving Mexican or African Spicy Rice.

My Lemon Tea was a bit bland that night also.
Anyway, will probably come back 1 day, but both of us diners wished it was much better!

Eating out these days, with help from OR, it's easy to form expectations or further down, "having my mind made up" before we even enter the eateries. That, however, is a bad thing. Often times these predetermined expectations lead to an uncomprehensible sense of disappointment. Was the food really bad? Many times you'll realize it's not awful, but it just didn't fit into the famed aura described as "food of the gods". I reckon some of us may have felt the same way.

This eatery has been introduced and recommended over and over again: on TV, on newspapers, on the Internet. The menu, decor, and staff are strictly Hong Kong-style, offering a comforting sense that no pretentious is expected, or for that matter, allowed in a place like Kam Shing.

I ordered the famed Baked Rice with Pork Chop ($37)and a complimentary Hot Tea with milk. The tea arrived steaming, with milk already in. The traditional sense of generosity seems to have lost through the presence of "sugar packets". The Rice arrived promptly, about 10 minute after.

Pictured here, almost the entire surface was covered with an orange-coloured tomato based sauce and baked. As the dish came out piping hot and set before me, the sides were bubbling still. Carefully spooning through the contents I realize a whiff of steam erupting from within, creating the aroma of fried pork chops combining with onions and fried rice.

The rice, laden with golden flakes of egg throughout, was no sticky mess despite the presence of its thick sauce. With the baking rice on the side of the dish crisped up that resembled most to rice cooked in clay pot. The pork chop was lightly breaded before frying, and juicy moist within. Having already cut into pieces, there was no need for the knives here, just fork through the scrumptious chops with rice. The sauce was thick but not pasty as it coated the pork chop well but added saucy accompaniment to the fried rice. There were chunks of tomatoes and onions throughout. If there is anything, I could only wish for more sauce.

While browsing through the menu with "XX's Recommendations" costing between $55-$75, I couldn't be more surprised that Kam Shing's specialty costs $37, and possibly less to make. The milk tea was good, and so was the rice. It's not just mine, so were other tables' . I could hear the folks from the next table saying how well it's supposed to be and it turned out to be "just ok"...I couldn't help but smile within, thinking that one's taste couldn't possibly be the same across the board as my bite of an apple is the same taste as yours. Looking at their reaction to their "ok" version of the baked pork chop and rice -- spooning and swallowing and licking their lips with the last bit of sauce clinging, I wondered how our expectations may have preceded our judgments when it comes to experiences in dining out. For me I think the rice tasted fine, and I just may come again when the craving hits.

Until then, I am enjoying the educational lunch, with what the pork chop and rice taught me about food appreciation.