Trusty Gourmet    信得過  

Arrived the restaurant @12:15 (make sure before lunch time and expect to leave before 1:00 pm). Their service was terrible, rude, no manner, kept pushing for orders (I understood they wanted the table back before 1:00 pm, but it is not the way to do business). We ordered 鮮元貝雲吞湯, 杏汁豬肺湯, 豬脆脆湯米線 and 白灼菜. First the 白灼菜 was overdone (what a waste). 杏汁豬肺湯 and 豬脆脆湯米線 is just so so (sorry the restaurant is over complimented). If you are fond of traditional 雲吞, you are at the wrong place, the mix of their special soup and 雲吞 are wrong combination. Overall, won't go back.

** Appologies, Photo lost **

My friend highly recommended this restaurant for its soup and noodles bowl, so we went to try it out today and see if it was that great. Apparently the most brilliant aspect in Trusty Gourmet was its soup - there were about six soup choices on the menu, while the noodles was additional sides that you could add in to your soup accordingly to your preference, just in case you won't be full solely drinking the soup.

There was an ad on the wall, promoting a private kitchen styled dinner by a Chinese chef called 'Brother Peter'. Another glance over the cashier, you might find Br. Peter managing the cash counter. There was several dishes stating they were especially prepared by Br. Peter, then shouldn't Chef Peter stayed at the kitchen? I kept wondering.

I ordered Fish Maw and Pork Bones with Dumplings (花膠水餃豬骨濃湯) and added rice noodles. There weren't any fish maw in my soup but I actually didn't expect there was any judging by the price anyway. To be blunt, I personally reckon the soup wasn't that special at all, the taste was quite light in taste. Adding to the fact that it was just a plain soup, it gave a feeling that there did not use much ingredients used to braise the soup. The soup tasted more like a noodle broth than soup to me.

The noodles wasn't that particularly special either. The dumplings were meat dumplings, the wrapper was quite thin and the meats were tender enough. However I don't personally like meat dumplings without a single bit of veggies in it, it was just boring to me.

To Conclude,
I reckon the restaurant used the soup as a gimmick and make the noodles optional. It is pretty pointless to me, who on earth would just solely order the soup without any noodles? It simply wouldn't fill your stomach. Moreover the fact that all four of us didn't finish half the soup suggested the soup really wasn't that good at all. The bowl of soup with noodles could be find in any noodle restaurants served as a noodle bowl but switch-able noodle type. There won't be a revisit from me.

Went back for lunch after a long absence. We ordered pig's heart, stomach, liver, and trotters. The liver was very, very tender like always, and I really liked the white pepper broth of the trotters... kinda reminds me of the bak kut teh I love in Singapore. I also had some Hsinchu rice vermicelli in soup... very nice.

I love pig offal, so this is definitely the place for me. And no, there is no MSG. My tongue told me so.

This time tried the other dumplings: scallop and pork, these were not as tasty as the fish maw ones.

The boiled liver wasn’t as tender as last time, anyway as well as that ordered the Pig’s lung soup.
Well I am not really a person that eats internal organs, but I just felt like giving it a try, knowing their food is relatively clean. The broth to the soup was very strong of almond; it had lots of almond fragments in it.

As for the pork lungs, it was VERY SOFT, the colour and texture was like whale blubber. Anyway it tasted ok, but just disgusting seeing the flesh coloured pieces. I am not a cannibal, but it just seemed like eating human remains. The pork lungs were so unbelievably soft and smooth.

Another place that was on my try list, but one of those Wan Chai back streets that is in between Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, and numerous little roads you need to cross.

Came on a quiet afternoon, and the waitor asked if we ate there before, and we said no, so he started to introduce the popular dishes there.
I rarely eat pork unless it is fresh, especially pork offal, I came here especially for the boiled pork liver, an item that I consider not really palatable because the texture is hard, bitter and dry.

Ordered the following: liver with new bamboo vermicelli, butterfly pork belly with rice spaghetti, stir-fried pork intestines with salted vegetables, fish maw and pork dumplings.

Liver with new bamboo vermicelli
The vermicelli was a bit different to the new bamboo vermicelli I have had before, the ones here are thick like bean thread noodles.
The liver was excellent, it wasn’t dry or bitter, but when you bit into it, it was like rubbery foam, which melts into thick viscosity.

Butterfly pork and rice spaghetti:
not as tender as beef hang larm.

Pork and fish maw dumplings:
better than expected, the pork was fresh and fully flavoured so it didn’t have that smelly over night pork taste.
Usually I don’t agree cooking seafood with red meats, but this one was ok, the pork was well flavoured and the fish maw melted in the dumpling making it gelatinous.
As with all dumplings, I felt there was too much skin, so I ate the edges dumpling with their homemade sauce.

The sauce they provided was quite nice, fully flavoured with chopped chill’s with soy sauce.
The soup base was the same for all dishes, but I felt it tasted like cooked rubber.

As for the stir-fried intestines, it was another HOT dish, the texture of the intestines was like fish maw, but chewier and fatty. Although I considered them to be relatively clean compared with other places, there was still a slight intestine odour.

Unexpected good taste. Especially the pig lung soup. NO MSG, the pig lung is soft and the soup taste soooo good. Only the Udon a bit chewy. Service is good. Will visit there again.