Wai Kee Noodle Cafe    維記咖啡粉麵  

Since my first visit I was craving for the noodles and liver again.

There are two Wai Kee restaurants, last time I went to the one near the middle of the road, this time I went to the one near the corner of the road.
I think its hard to compare since the chef was different and I went to the other one.

After eating at Hop Yick I was not that hungry so I wasn’t so bothered about queuing a long time for this restaurant to try their famous instant noodles with pig’s liver.

很濃郁的豬潤水。
很幼滑的豬潤片。
奶茶亦相當不錯。
比一般茶記寬敞。
$25！誠意推介！

Probably the best pork foie gras in town:

After a rare lunch karaoke session (the lunch part is rare) with a few high school students, aka the future pillars of our society, we went from Tsim Sha Tsui to Sham Shui Po to tour around the neighborhood. For two of the students, it was their first time in Sham Shui Po. They just stay in Yuen Long due to transportation costs so it's quite an amazing experience for them.

Before you become too surprised about that, don't - it's somewhat similar to those who only hang out on Hong Kong Island, or worse, those who only hang out only on the mountain tops of Hong Kong Island. (There are many interesting places in Hong Kong which I haven't been too. How embarrassing.) ！(◎_◎;)

Anyway, there are tons of quality eateries in Sham Shui Po, but you'll need to know how to find them. One of those quality eateries is "Wai Kee". Rumor has it that it serves the best pork liver in town. So we asked Mr.I, one pillar of society who lives nearby, whether "Wai Kee" was good as its reputation. He was surprised how others outside the area knew it (I told him to check OpenRice). Mr. I agreed and brought us there.Decor:

We arrived at 6:30 pm and were a able to get a seat with relatively ease. They had at least three shop situated right next to each other. If I remember properly, we went to the middle one.

The place was minimalistic, old-school but clean. Nothing but a surprisingly uncluttered metallic counter separating the open kitchen at the far end of the shop and about five round tables placed at both sides of the wall. There was plenty of space in the middle. Definitely more spacious than any Chaa Chan Tengs in Mong Kok or TST.

The big menu was on the wall:

The Ten Elements:

These were the six primary options:

a) Pork Liver; b) Beef; c) Egg; d) Spam; e) Ham; or f) Sausages.

in a broth with:-

1.) Noodles - (similar to doll instant noodles); 2.) Vermicelli; 3.) Macaroni; or 4.) Spaghetti.

Mix & Match:

It's pork liver/beef/egg/spam/ham/sausages or choice of two of the above (even three or more at additional price) mixed with either noodle/macaroni/vermicelli or spaghetti - there is also the option of adding extra carbs at additional price.

How many combinations are there in total? I'll leave it to those who like maths to work it out! I can't. I believe there is no English menu but since I suggest you order pork liver macaroni , that's the only phrase you need to know ("jue yun tung").

We ordered three Pork Liver Noodles and three Pork Liver Vermicelli, one bottle of Coke and a glass of cold milk tea.

Service:

The staff there weren't pushy at all. They were quite chilled. The cashier was staring into space and another was casually shuttling around serving the food to the equally quiet and relaxed (or tired) crowd in the eatery.

The service was not rough - which means very good by Cha Chan Yeng standards.

One of the ladies in our group courageously asked one of the staff to take a photo

To my surprise, the staff did not explode but simply asked a more technologically savvy (i.e. younger) staff to operate the smart phone - Good service.

The Main:

Our food arrived after a short wait.

Definitely no awards for presentation:What struck us was the generous amount of pork liver and the interesting coloured soup.

The pork liver were properly cleaned, very tender, slightly fatty and very fresh and in very generous portions! Very delicious!

Apparently, "Yellow Sand Liver" is the premium grade amongst pork livers. I've checked what is meant by "Yellow Sand Liver". It seemed to be a "fatty liver", perhaps like a fatty goose liver - i.e. foie gras. It's a type of liver that you'd like to have in a goose, a pig but most certainly not on you.

Even if Yellow Sand Liver may taste more fresh and generally more tender than most livers, Wai Kee managed to bring out the best potential of normal "healthy" livers. It's amazing how they could do it. I understand that one has to marinate the liver in cooked oil to make it smooth to eat. You then have to rinse and clean it multiple times so the liver would taste great with a good texture.

Those at Wai Kee were just as tender and as flavourful as the yellow sand version but infinitely healthier. Better than most places which provide cuisines made with liver - usually overcooked, I believe at least equal to those provided by "King's Palace Congee & Noodle Bar" 【皇府】 and other expensive congee shops or "Sang Kee" (【生記】Wan Chai) but less than one-fifth the price!

Who says good food has to be expensive or made of fancy ingredients?

Probably the best liver in town indeed!

Carbs:

Quite a lot of noodles packed in that medium-sized bowl! The texture was a bit similar to "Doll Instant Noodles" but it had a stronger egg taste.

Slightly soggy for my taste but still, no complaints. We all enjoyed our noodles or vermicelli.

The vermicelli was cut into small shreds. You could eat everything with a spoon. A bit like a laska style.

I suppose macaroni might be better a better option as it will absorb the very good liver soup a bit more easily.

By the way, don't forget about the chili sauce on the table. I scooped it out and tried it. The colour was light orange. I thought immediately that it must be homemade. Indeed, the chili sauce was great! Almost like a very hot version of XO sauce. Very good with whatever you're having but just don't overwhelm the very good soup base.

Broiled liver soup with ginger:

Cantonese mothers would make liver soup with ginger, Chinese wine and a bit of salt to taste. Liver soup is supposed to be very rich in iron and very good for health (particularly women's health.)

The remarkable thing about this simple bowl of pork liver noodle was the soup. It's proper liver soup!

Very aromatic with a hint of ginger and mild Chinese wine aftertaste. I downed the whole bowl!

At a HK$25, just the soup itself was worth it's weight in gold - or more accurately - iron. HK Style milk tea:

I usually drink coffee/tea for the caffeine only. I usually order it cold so I could gulp it down in 3 seconds. This time I took some time to enjoy the taste of this Hong Kong style milk tea.

You might be surprised at how varied the taste and the texture a Hong Kong Milk tea could be. Not a connoisseur by any standard, I felt that the taste was a good balance between red tea and milk, about half-half. The key point is that the texture and the aftertaste were very smooth.Conclusion:

If not the best liver in Hong Kong, definitely best value for money.

The great pork liver soup is worth it's weight in "iron"!

No queue. Spacious.

Wai Kee Noodle Cafe ~ simple and honest food for the people!

Now that's a bit of Lion Rock spirit.

In a Hong Kong style restaurant, a bowl of instant noodles is a very important food item as instant noodles appears in almost every dish if you are not ordering rice.
Who doesn't know how to cook instant noodles? Even the dumbest person knows how to, but having a really nice bowl of instant noodles does not appear everywhere all the time. Firstly the texture of the noodles has to be good, and the soup base is equally important as well.
The name Wai Kee Noodle Cafe has long been a pretty renowned Hong Kong style restaurant. It has a setting of an old-style Hong Kong restaurant in a neighborhood back in the old days. Inside the restaurant, there's no air conditioning. It is a small crowded place. At the instant we sat down, a waiter came forward to take our orders. I have thought about what to try already and made my orders.
Fast enough, a bowl of Pork Liver w/ Instant Noodles ($25) came. The bowl of noodles is steaming hot, with many pieces of pork liver in it, and you can also know that the soup base has a nice strong flavor by the smell of it.Pork liver hasn't been my favorite food item. Nonetheless, I find myself quite liking the pork liver here. The pork liver has a smooth and chewy texture. More surprisingly is that it is able to give an al dente texture. I am certain that the pork liver contributed to the strong flavorful soup base as well. The soup contains the essence from the pork liver, as well as a mild yet distinct flavor of ginger and every sip of it is definitely warming. The instant noodles is pretty memorable too. What's great about it to me is that it absorbed the essence of the soup base yet still remained an al dente texture and didn't get soggy even after a while.
Halfway through the noodles, the Kaya French Toast ($15) came too.

Before visiting Golden mall, I visited this famous local restaurant with my old buddy. I have no problem to dine here with guys only. Frankly speaking, this place is too "traditional" to me, in terms of its decoration, cleanliness, and service.

We ordered “Instant noodle with pork’s liver and beef”, “Instant noodle with luncheon meat & pork’s liver”, “iced coke with lemon”, and “iced coffee with lemon”. It is not a good experience seeing the bubble from pork’s liver and beef on the noodle. Is it caused by the soda powder marinating process? Frankly speaking, I don’t want to know the real answer on it.

Do they taste good? The texture noodle’s texture is pretty good and the luncheon meat was so crispy. Since I am not fans of liver and such texture of beef, I have no comment on such “signature” items.

Hum ... if I revisit this restaurant again, the instant noodle, and luncheon meat are probably the only reasons.

I grew up in Sham Shui Po, so I always go to "Wai Kee " for lunch. My mother always said that she always ate this noodle while she was pregnant. My sister and I like to go to there for lunch, but my mother always said the taste of the noodle is not like the past.

Every time I go there I think the noodle taste is going worse. And the price become expensive

I like to eat a pig liver and beef noodle and lemon tea. I think the lemon tea is good, but the texture of pig live is too hard. Sometime, I feel stomachache after I ate this.

Sometime, the service is good. Sometime is bad. I think keeping good service is important to a Cafe, so I hope they can be caution for this.

Last time I ate here was a while ago and I was thoroughly NOT IMPRESSED with their instore signature dish - namely the must-order 豬潤麵. Lately, as I was showing someone to the area again and briefly mentioned the fame of this shop and how they keep expanding and now occupy a few shops on the same street - we eventually wandered in to give it a try. Let's see if HYPE is JUSTIFIED 2nd time around.

豬潤麵 :
I wasn't keen to try one all by myself despite liking Pork Liver when done right, although every other person in the shop ordered this dish. We ordered 1 bowl to share as a trial. Let's talk about the easiest thing first - the flappy and over-soft noodles that has lost its bouncifulness and even springy appearance. You get the drill. Any restaurant or so-called 'Specialty Shop' which can't even boil their noodles correctly have no right to survive... every Hong Kong person should be an expert on cooking Instant Noodles, except this 'Specialty Shop (or 3 shops!)' has has seemingly been granted immunity.

The 'gavage' process induced sickly 黃沙豬潤 might once have been good quality but most Liver pieces in the bowl were over-cooked to the point, they started curling up and about to wrap around itself again like its suffering a retracting muscle syndrome. Only a rare piece or 2 retained a 起沙 texture but the great majority were boiled at such High Temperatures they've shrunken to a portion of what it used to be: dry, rubbery and very dense. Believe it or not, some even had tendons in them still attached, making it impossible to chew. Both these downfalls completely destroys the whole idea of eating 豬潤.... ( I can't imagine if a Duck Foie Gras got the same treatment in a Western Restaurant and what customers would think of it. Seems like Chinese cooking is not knowledgeable about lower-temperature cooking at all! )

And to top it off, the soup wasn't even sweetish nor filled with a livery essence. What?

****************
UNBELIEVABLE EXPERIENCE.

WHAT'S MORE UNBELIEVABLE TO ME IS THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE THAT CONSTANTLY VENTURED IN AND ORDERED THIS EXACT DISH WITHOUT A SECOND BLINK! ...

We have tried this place 2 times, the noodle was really not that impressive. It came with a lot of bubbles - the presentation was kind of horrible.
The toast or sandwiches we ordered were bad too - the texture and color was just not right. It became popular as the place was interviewed by the Chief Executive - was this the only reason for its popularity - we just did not get it.

I was around the area so I did some research to see what to eat before I starve myself...

Found this place on OpenRice so I thought I'd give it a try, for -the- No. 1 spot in Sham Shui Po.

I had the pork liver and beef noodles, since I craved both ingredients. Just like the pictures others posted, there is a lot of foam on the surface... After a while, you taste the liver in the soup itself. It is quite unique. I'd order just the pork liver if I were you. The beef doesn't get a lot of taste since it's all boiled in liver soup, most likely.

There was enough ingredients to keep me from being bored. Becareful though, it is REALLY hot to the tongue.

The ladies seemed to have developed a chant or song of the menu itself....

I would eat it again if I'm around the area, but I wouldn't go to Sham Shui Po specifically to eat it.

Being there for lunch Saturday afternoon with gf. Wait a seat by around 15min because its one of their busy day. Too much peoples lining up at their door waiting to eat their 豬潤 or 牛肉麵. But I don't love 豬潤, So every time I'm here to eat 牛肉麵. Thats my all time favour. And my gf will having 豬潤麵. Their noodle you can say its nothing special. The only different are only on the soup. And thats enough for making peoples keep coming and eat their noodles. They have making the noodles by heart! And their 咖央西多 are very good too. Much better than the one in Centrol! As here it realy got the 咖央 tast and its fully fill inside the bread! Every time here won't be any suprice. But you won't be disapointed because they keep their quality so well. Thats why they still have so many customer waiting and eat there. Even they have less of food choice. I've you never been there. Just try and will love it. If don't want to wait too long. Just go Mon-Friday, will be less peoples.