Hong Kong • Yat Lok

1814

G/F, 34-38 Stanley Street, Central • 852 2524 3882
一樂燒鵝 • 香港中環士丹利街34-38號地舖

If you like the skin of your roast goose crisp as new banknotes, Yat Lok is where you should cash in for what is Hong Kong’s most iconic dish. In the Fragrant Harbour’s most populated areas, you can’t go very far without encountering a roast goose stall. And, while you can have roast duck in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, you don’t get goose. Unless it’s frozen.

Geese are just more expensive to rear and apart from the extra feed, are also essentially more spirited animals than ducks which are easier to husband. Like some people, geese are high maintenance.

Skin as crisp as brand new banknotes.

In the rainbow kaleidoscope of Chinese cuisines, no one cooks a better goose than the Cantonese. Go ask any Chinese of any dialect or region. They won’t even bother to resort to parochial pride. The Cantonese win hands down and legs up as far as their roast goose is concerned. The Chu Family behind Yat Lok has been roasting goose since 1957. I think it fair to say that after 63 years – and god knows how many geese later – they know a thing or two about getting it right.

Yat Lok moved to its present location in Stanley Street in 2011. And is actually very near Yung Kee, the former “King of Roast Goose”. Yat Lok, on the other hand, is not a restaurant by any means (the Yat Lok Barbeque Restaurant in Tai Po, New Territories, closed in June 2018). It ’s queue up, sit down next to strangers, eat, pay, and get out. In that order. There’s not a lot of elbow room either when you are planted in front of the plate of goose. Everyone comes, whether by foot or in flashy car. The point of this recommendation is to inform that Hong Kong’s iconic dish pairs exceptionally with red wine, rosé, and an evolved rosé Champagne. You can always, of course, take out from Yat Lok. Goose on the loose.