Hong Kong University Alumni Association    香港大學校友會  

I’ve been here once before for lunch, and found the food quite good. However, on this visit, I found myself criticizing every single dish. For such food quality, and for a very average eating environment/ambience (with chapped glassware and torn tablecloths), and for the weird tasting tea (that you can’t choose), I consider this restaurant overpriced and not very worth it (unless of course you totally love hku and everything associated with it).

紫羅咕嚕肉

As promised, i managed to gather a bigger crowd for a group family dinner at the HKUAA clubhouse. With the count of head tripled from three to ten, we had the capacity of ordering more and the weighty dishes, including the salt-baked whole chicken and the lotus leaf rice.

The place was more crowded than i last visited and our big round table was at the far end of the small yet cozy place. It was not hard to decide what to order as there were quite a number of 'signature' dishes offered.

I have wanted to come here for some time ever since a friend told me their Cantonese food was quite good. Since we had a tourist friend in town it was the perfect excuse to try it out! We came here on a Tuesday night to find the restaurant relatively full, but luckily reservations were made.

I had the honour of deciding what to order that night, and so I went with their signatures, as well as a couple of dishes that were suggested by others.

First was the pigs lung with almond soup ($100 for a tureen), which was a first for most people on the table. The pigs lung soup here is slightly oilier than Luk Yu’s and lacked the strong taste and aroma of almonds which I really liked. It was also less creamy than Luk Yu’s in my opinion. However, for those who don’t like almond tea because of its strong scent, this would’ve been acceptable to the palate.

Next a few of the dishes came together… a lotus leaf rice (i.e. fried rice wrapped in lotus leaf) which was reserved when reservations were made. The rice had some diced chicken, mushrooms etc and was quite flavourful and not as oily as some Chinese restaurants prepare it, but was nothing special.

The sweet and sour pork was my favourite dish this night. They used young ginger (zi-geung) instead of pineapple like Luk Yu, and although the ginger wasn’t half as good (lacked the real punch and crunchiness), the pork and its sauce was so wonderful. The pork was still crispy and crunchy after sitting at our table for some time, and the sauce was really balanced – right levels and sweet and sour which everyone enjoyed.

Pan-fried pomfret fillets was a suggestion of the waiter. There was about 9 small pcs of fish max, and it wasn’t bad but nothing exciting or memorable. The choy-sum sitting beneath was way too undercooked too.

“Zai” (vegetarian claypot dish of assorted vegetables with vermicelli) was also one of the favourites on our table. There wasn’t a lot of sauce, but each piece of ingredient was coated with enough flavour from the fair amount of fermented beancurd (‘fu yu’) used, that spoons of sauce just wasn’t necessary. I particularly liked the big Chinese mushrooms and cabbage, whilst ma loved the vermicelli!

Deep Fried whole Chicken ($290) (‘Za Ji Gai’) was not our first choice, but since we didn’t pre-order their signature salt-baked Chicken we opted for this Chinese restaurant staple instead. Whilst the prawn chips on top were really bad and without flavour at all, the chicken fared a lot better. I loved the crispy thin piece of skin, clearly only possible because they had rendered the fat layer in between the meat and the skin properly. The chicken meat was also really tender, if not slightly bland, but a little Worcestershire sauce helped brighten it up.

Spinach with century and salted eggs was not even close to Luk Yu’s. The small dish only had a little spinach, and most were salted eggs, rather than a half-half of each kind. The broth was not sweet and lightly salted as I had hoped, but the fried garlic was good (and good for one’s health too!).

To end, we had some sweet soups ($28 per bowl). Here they have three choices only on the menu (almond-egg white, walnut and sesame soup), but were told they also had red bean soup (dessert of the day I’m guessing), so we ordered two almonds, two sesames, one walnut and one red bean soup. I had a try of the sesame soup and almond-egg white. Whilst my almond-egg white soup was way too thick and sweet, the sesame soup was acceptable – right sweetness and right consistency. Nonetheless I don’t think the $28 a bowl sweet soups were worthy at all… desserts are clearly not their forte, and you can find better versions at local dessert joints/stores!

With four beers our bill came to just under $1,400. Not cheap, though they do have set dinners which have better deals ($888 for 8 diners?!). Wouldn't mind coming back - esp for the sweet and sour pork!

more photos and original post: http://gastronomerr.blogspot.com/2010/08/hkuaa.html

*3 weeks ago*

Thanks for my dear mates - totally 14 of us did have a big dinner at that venue, with humorous staff lol

We did have lots Almond and pig lung soup, Fried prawn toast, Signature salted chicken, Eight-treasured duck, Deep fried calamari, Sweet and sour pork, Dry noodles, 'Lap mei' rice, Black and white sweet soup.

Almond and pig lung soup is a strong home-made soup for me, with many ingredients ...
Fried prawn toast is their signature. The dish was of nice presentation and the size of each piece was almost identical. The prawn was huge and the bite was crispy. Little flaw - a little oily for me. Overall, nice.
Signature salted chickenA big chicken. I quite like it, if there was a bowl of rice with me. It was just a delicious dish, meaty and tender. The skin is little crispy. But not too special.
Sweet and sour pork was huge. The pork was well-marinated and meaty. Nice. The green and red pepper, also the pineapple were well-made too.
Eight treasured duck was really nice. It was really an old dish and it was apparently taking time to bake the whole thing. And there was lots and lots of stuff inside!!!
Dry noodles with ginger and onion was just so-so.
Lap mei rice was special. Very good with well-cooked rice and fresh ingredients!
Deep fried calamari was yummy. The calamari was big and it was nicely marinated. Not oily, good.
Black and white dessert: I only took the sesame soup. The texture was nice as I prefer less liquid form.

Lovely dinner. And big thanks to my dear alumni buddies Missing the old days ... make the dishes nostalgic, haha

Went here for dinner tonight with my parents.

The service tonight was superb! I seriously think the service is better at night than at lunchtime.

We ordered the following dishes:

Pig's lung soup: very creamy and delicious. Had a strong almond taste.

Veggies: again, typical veggies, not too much oil.

Soya Sauce Chicken: very delicious and yummy, but a bit too much oil.

Pan-fried fish with veggies: not as salty as the chicken, but tasted good.

Dessert: almond soup/sesame soup/walnut soup: hand-made and very delicious.

All in all, it was a good dinner with lots of yummy food. A little bit too much oil though. Still, service was much better than usual and food quality is still pretty good. Not too cheap though. Could be much cheaper.

This time I went with a group of friends and ordered some different dishes!

We again went for the same old dishes, such as:

1) Veggies: they were so yummy as usualy!

2) 炸子雞: yummy chicken as usual

3) new dish: 牛腩煲: i didn't get to try out any of the beef, but the veggies and the taste were both very yummy!

4) new dish: 荷葉飯: finally got to try out their famous lily rice after making a reservation for it! We went for the small portion and it was so damn yummy!!!! The rice was not too wet, but had this really nice taste!

5) Prawn toast: the prawn toast was the best! Yummy prawns and excellently made buttered with some kind of coating that I couldn't describe!

6) Dessert: 杏仁茶: the almond tea here is really tasty, very dense and yet does not contain too much egg white!

All in all, the service here was expeditious this time! Dunno why, but everything just took around 5-10 minutes to arrive, which was excellent!

Price per person was also reasonable: $112! Highly recommended if u're going in groups!

This time went there with a group of friends.

Ordered a set of different dishes:

豉油雞 (half, which cost $130);

清湯豆苗;

Pineapple and 咕嚕肉; and

4 bowls of white rice!

The chicken was really tasty, but the portion was too small, much smaller than the 炸子雞. Tasty though.

The pineapple and gu lou yuk was very good! Cut into small pieces of Gu Lou Yuk and very tasty. 香口!

The veggies were again the same. Just as good.

Last but not least, we finally tried out their 杏仁蛋白茶, which was one of the best I've ever had! Very strong almond taste and didn't taste just like soup! The soup was in fact pretty dense! Anyway, it was a good dessert!

I really wanted to post pictures but accidentally deleted all of them. Will post them again next time!

Seriously, this restaurant still needs to improve on its service! Food is good though! Dishes really need to be much bigger coz prices here are not too cheap!

Finally got to take some time off work to write a review!

Went for lunch here yesterday with some friends. We didn't order a lot of dishes as they appeared to be very expensive. We were seated at a table facing the door so we were able to see the number of people flowing in and out.

What I need to complain about this restaurant was the poor service Service was very slow and poor. We ordered only 3 dishes and waited for over 15 minutes. The waiter even said, "You should've told us that you are in a hurry!" I'm like....everyone who eats in Central for lunch are in a hurry! Nevertheless, I have to say, that the food was good.

we ordered the following dishes:

清炒豆苗: very delicious. I asked them for little oil. And they really didn't make it too oily. The portion was not enough though and it was the first dish that arrived. We were already starving by then. So even when we finished the veggies, the main course and the noodles hadn't even arrived yet.

chicken (炸子雞): it was very good. The skin of course was fried but I didn't eat much of that. The chicken tasted very good. However, some tasted saltier than the others. The nice taste of the chicken wasn't very proportionate.

葱油撈noodles: this was my favorite dish! The noodles were not too tender and had this sort of elacity! Not too oily either as I asked for little oil. All in all, a very good dish!

But seriously, they really need to improve on their service. I would've given a higher ranking if their service was better and much more efficient!!!

Reservation is required. Please ready your HKU Alumni or staff member number.
The restaurant has about 10 tbles. Inside the restaurant, there is a bar (Komos Plus), near the main entrance. Instead of having a drink at LKF, try the Komos Plus after dinner.
The restaurant is easy to locate on the uphill, way to LKF. The ground floor is a Korean comestic shop: LANICGE
Take the lift, press "1/F"
Overall comment;
The place is ambience, clean and services is up-to-standard.
This restaurant is a good choice for Chinese cuisine at a fair price in Central.
We ordered 4 dishes + 1 soup, average cost per head: HK$230-
If you have HKU Alumni credit card, you will entitle 10% discount
Here is our dishes:
1 Sweet & Sour Pork
2 Thousand Egg, fish fillet and parsley soup
3 Salty fish & steamed pork claypot rice - highly recommended!
4 Black soya & garlic fried chilli chicken
5 Steamed soya sauce tofu

香港大學校友會 has long been regarded as a reliable Cantonese restaurant in Hong Kong. Its food used to be just a notch below 陸羽 but with a more approachable price to attract customers. But recent downhill alerts left me worried about its quality maintainence. Were those rumors or were they true? I needed to find it out myself.
The staff was very efficient in sending out dishes, with the pacing of the dinner so fast that one couldn’t help but to feel rushed. Deep Fried Shrimp Toast (蝦多士) is a popular dish these days and having had the same dish at 陸羽, 鳳城, etc., I think the version at 港大校友會 was quite good. The toast underneath was chrunchy and not greasy, but the shrimp was not as plump and juicy as the one at 鳳城, causing the proportion of shrimp to toast a bit off and compromising the mouthfeel. It was still delicious though certainly not the best.
Chinese Almond Soup with Pig’s Lung (菜膽杏汁白肺湯) is a best-seller here, but the soup tonight was rather disappointing. I didn’t mind it being a thinner version than the more concentrated rendition at 陸羽, but the indiscernible almond aroma and flavor (杏香和杏味皆欠奉) and the monotonous saltiness was what bothered me. The vegetable (菜膽) and pig’s lungs (豬肺) were very tender, but the latter wasn’t cleaned as good as 陸羽's and couldn’t be qualified as "白肺". I agree with 唔食都知唔好食 that when compared to 陸羽 this soup was relatively mediocre (比較之下).
Salt and Pepper Squids (椒鹽鮮魷) arrived piping hot and fresh. The squid was meaty and tender and the seasoning was spot on. The crispy coating was a tad too thick for my taste, and I rather focused my effort on the fried chili toppings to avoid the batter. The taste of Steamed Beef Patty with Dried Tangerine Peel (陳皮蒸牛肉餅) was rather confusing as we couldn’t figure out whether it was pork or beef at first. The flavor was alright but the patty was too dense with the meat minced too fine to feel the meat texture. The dripping from the patty was the best part of the dish.
Pan Fried Stuffed Dice Fish (煎釀鯪魚) was a disastrous dish as the minced dice fish was crumbly and dry. The fish flavor wasn’t robust at all possibly due to the excessive flour added to the minced fish. Even the sauce served on the side and the crispy skins couldn’t save the dish.
Salt Baked Chicken (古法鹽焗雞) was the most anticipated dish of the night as the version 港大 is often regarded as the best in Hong Kong. I certainly hope that we could find a better one as the chicken tonight was inconsistent. The skins weren’t particularly crispy with some of the skins very salty and other parts bland. The meat was rather dry particularly approaching the breast parts, and overall completely lacking fresh chicken flavor. To be frank I didn’t find anything impressive or appealing about this chicken and it would be embarrassing to call this 鹽焗雞 the best in Hong Kong.
Salt Baked Chicken Offals (鹽焗雞雜), on the other hand, was incredibly delicious as the savory note complemented well with the gaminess of the chicken offals. The livers were not as luscious as I wanted, but compared to the chicken they were miles more enjoyable.
Stewed Whole Duck with Pomelo Skin ( 柚皮炆全鴨) was the saving grace of the night as the duck was stewed to the point where the meat just fell off the bones and very tender. Normally gooey thick sauce wouldn’t be my preference but after the dry chicken the brown sauce was a nice lubricant to the duck and to my mouth. Best were the pomelo skin (柚皮) which was thick and soft with no bitter aftertaste (at least for the pieces that I tried).
I didn’t get to try Sweet and Sour Pork with Young Ginger (子薑咕嚕肉) as they were gone very fast. Judging from that as well as the very little oil residue left behind on the plate, I assumed it was a very well-prepared dish.
The savory portion of the meal ended with the Fried Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf (荷葉飯). This was reasonably tasty with the meat and vegetables evenly distributed in the fried rice and wasn’t a bit oily (乾身香口). The rice had a mild hint of lotus leaf’s fragrance which only testified the fact that the chef didn’t take any short cut to prepare the dish.
While I thought we had the better dishes towards the end, 港大校友會 managed to throw a tragic ending to the end. The desserts were 黑白鴛鴦糖水 (black sesame sweet soup and almond sweet soup). I tried the latter and it was like a cloying sweet muddle with thickened with tons of flour. I couldn’t recall the last time I had 蛋白杏仁露 that bad and the version at 海景軒 was like 100 times better.
If this dinner was at a neighborhood restaurant, I wouldn’t be complaining as the dishes were mostly at an average level (not disgusting but not impressive). Given the reputation of 港大校友會 and the fame of their 古法鹽焗雞 and 菜膽杏汁白肺湯, the execution of our dinner regrettably didn’t meet my expectation. Of course it didn’t take away the effort of the organizer who took his personal time to create this meal and I want to give my deep appreciation for his work. I hope it was an off-night but with the recent reports there seems to be some quality slip at this once-reliable establishment. 港大校友會, please get your game back as we cannot afford to lose yet another quality Cantonese restaurant in Hong Kong.

My colleague and I went there for lunch. There was something odd about the restaurant that caught my attention when I was glancing around. The place was full of middle aged men and women, and there were even a few very old men, and I could not help wondering where all the young alumni have gone.

I was given the honor of ordering food, so i decided on a soup and two meat dishes and some steamed rice.

杏汁豬肺湯 was the reason for our visit, so it was a "must have". The size portion however was a bit too large for two persons, so we ended up each having almost 3 bowls. But this time it was somehow not as good as i remembered. The almond flavor was not there.

蝦多士 was as good as before. Crispy and not too oily.
咕嚕肉 was good but not great.

For desserts, we had 杏仁糊 with egg white, which was very good, light and not too sweet.

The "trouble" I am referring to is of course the need to become a member of this place before you can be a patron of their restaurant... ... apparently they have been enforcing this policy recently. But it is well worth the trouble cos the food is real nice. The 杏汁白肺湯 is very special and I don't recall having tried anything like this before. The soup is soothing and nice and serves as a good starter. The 蝦多士 is , as described by many others, very cripsy and not oily at all. The braised 豆腐 is also a delight - with texture which is very much like bead curd pudding and very tasty. We also ordered a fish dish (can't remember the name) which is also nice. The fried gelatinous rice is also very good. The highlight of the meal is of course the 鹽焗雞 (pre-ordering required) - very tender meat, full of salt flavour and with a slightly cripsy skin. This is a must-try item ! Will definitely come back again (I think they offer discounts for those using the BEA credit card offered by HKUAA).

The food is generally quite good, I heard that the Chef actually worked for Luk Yu before joining this restaurant, no wonder the soup "black pepper pork belly" is so good. Also the Sweet & Sour pork is very highly recommended, it's very hard to get the same dish elsewhere this good these days. Service and decor not too bad but I'll not rate it excellent, one of those "oldschool" Chinese restaurant if you know what I mean!

Simon

The Hong Kong University Alumni Association, in short, HKUAA is one of those speakeasies in Hong Kong. Don't even dream of digging it out from one of those so-called Hong Kong's best restaurants guides. Being the antidote of advertisement and marketing, it is one of the best-kept gastronomic secrets in town that prevails solely by word of mouth.

Put it bluntly, the setting of HKUAA is unassuming. No fancy d嶰or or slinky paneling of any sort –the dining room is functional –nothing more and nothing less. The clientele come here for one reason only: good Cantonese food that is rightfully prepared. Under the helm of chief chef uncle See (ex Luk Yue Teahouse), the fare is ever consistent and impeccable.

As always, our Cantonese dinner the other night started with a bowl of soup. The soup we drank was the soup of pig's lung and almond cream. To me, the inclusion of this soup in the menu was real sign of dedication for good cooking in itself, since the preparation of it is painstaking. First the kitchen needs to hand wash the pig's lungs, which takes at least 2 hours; then the soup must be slow-boiled or else the lungs will crumble. The creamy white soup was sweet, refreshing and the cubes of pig's lungs, on the other hand, was tender and effervescent.

The stir-fried pigeon strips with Chinese dried ham showed why uncle See kept winning unstinting praise for his flair. The sweetness, as well as the juiciness of the pigeon was well preserved. The luscious Chinese dry ham added more complexity and power to this dish.

The fried Chinese pomfret was the highlight of the night. The pomfret tasted so fresh, moist and tender that it seemed like it came from sea seconds before the frying. All the essences of the sea and all the flavors of this exquisite fish were well pervaded, thanks to the first-class skills of the kitchen.

The saut嶪d shrimp with pine nut was idyllic, a dish that was simple in preparation and gentle in flavor. The fresh and plump shrimp proved to be a fitting match with the crunchiness of the pine nuts.

Another impressive dish was the salt-baked chicken a la 'Classic.' Not mere filler at all. The skin was crusty and the meat was succulent and smooth. The savory flavor was just right with a smoky overtone. Indeed a true classic.

The congee of chicken and partridge came next was ethereal. It was cooked in the same tried-and-true formula made fabled by the kitchen of Luk Yue Teahouse. All the ingredients were cooked in slow fashion that they were literally transcended into a bowl of creamy soup, oozing the spellbinding flavors of both the chicken and partridge.

The normal ending touch of a Cantonese dinner, the fried rice, was no less fascinating. Two varieties were served the other night. Of them, the fried glutinous rice steamed in lotus leaf was the most memorable. The rice was deftly prepared, preserving the moistness yet embracing ingredients like the dried ham and the mushroom well. And because the fried rice was steamed in lotus leaf, it also evinced the unmistakable earthy flagrant of the leaf with every bite.