Walking around Whampoa

Hung Hom is a pretty eclectic nighbourhour in the southeast region of the Kowloon Peninsula. There's a variety of traditional HK cafes, dessert houses, and independent shops up and down Tak Man Street (德民街). At the end of the street is the Whampoa Garden which consists of residential buildings and over 300 shops, including a boat-shaped shopping centre known simply as the Whampoa.

The boat themed shopping centre at Whampoa Garden (Photo:CathC)

Apparently a there's a large Japanese immigrants and expatriate population living in the Whampoa expatriats, which explains the good mix of Western/Asian/fusion restaurants and shops. For dinner tonight CharK and I went to Ant One-a nice restaurant with both a unique menu and friendly service.

I'd classify Ant One as a fusion restaurant that draws inspiration from Italian and East Asian cuisines. They serve dishes like salads, pastas, pizza dishes--with softshell crabs, peking duck, and laksa. My favourite dish of the night was their peking duck spring onion pancake (known as a puffy pastry "pizza" on the menu). The overall combination with the salty spring onion and fragrant duck was delicious; it was slightly odd tasting biting into parts where there was only cheese.

Interesting fusion between the East and West--a spring onion pancake topped with mozzarella and peking duck (Photo: CathC)

Another interesting combination was the soft-shell crab pasta in a laksa sauce (Photo:CathC).

Even just a little bit of the sesame vinaigrette dressing seem to cover most of the taste of smoked salmon dragonfruit salad, so this was just an ok tasting salad to me.

If you know me, I can have desserts for any meal of the day (I'd happily start the day with a slide of leftover  pie or spongecake). So I was really happy to end my meal with this yummy green tea Crème brûlée. The green tea was fragrant but not too overpowering as it can get in some green tea desserts.

A creamy dessert to end the night (Photo:CathC)

I know a lot of people aren't fans of fusion cuisine because the dishes often turn out to be a jumbled mix of ingredients that don't taste good together. But tonight's dinner proved to be an tasty exception. I'm glad we stumbled on this place during our trek around Hung Hom.