HONG KONG: Seafood in Sai Kung

Sai Kung is a town that evolved from a fishing village in Hong Kong’s New Territories. Fishermen still unload their catch at the harbour where there’s a market centre with countless tanks of fresh seafood.

You can take a stroll along the main drag and spend a lot of time staring at some not-so-familiar sea creatures.

The weird things kept in water bottles by themselves in a tank (bottom right in photo above) were mantis shrimp — or “pissing” shrimp in Chinese because they tend to pee when cooked. It looks like a cross between a praying mantis and a shrimp, but it’s not really either.

Their crazy lightning-fast claws can stab or dismember their prey to death. They can also easily break the glass on an aquarium with one jab. How anyone figured out these could be eaten, I’m not sure.

The main promenade along the water is dominated by the three side-by-side restaurants of Chuen Kee Seafood (there’s one more around the corner) and their tanks.

You get a table, go pick what you want straight from the aquariums, and then choose how you want it cooked.

The quality at Chuen Kee is excellent but our hosts that day, Bernard and Areta, took us to Luk Fook Restaurant down a side street that their close friend recommended.

Like most of the restaurants here, the tables spill out onto the street where diners keep their jackets on. There’s no central heating since it averages 18 degrees in the winter, but wearing your coat during dinner is totally normal.

First on the table were snacks of peanuts and preserved vegetables. I love these salty, pickled mustard roots, but have only really ever had them prepackaged in cans or packets. These ones had a nice snap-crunch to them, I guess because they hadn’t been sitting for years in packaging.

A heaping plate of fresh, poached prawns came next with their heads and tails still attached. You certainly get your hands dirty peeling them and then dipping them in soy sauce with chopped green chili peppers, but it’s so delicious because the prawns are so fresh.

You know they’re good when all you can hear at the table are the sounds of lips smacking and sucking the juice out of the heads (OK, that might have been just me).

There was more lip-smacking with the razor clams in a black bean sauce with peppers and onions.

In Chinese, razor clams (蟶子) are named after their scroll-like shape. I didn’t recognize the tube-like clam at all, but Wikipedia says it’s also called an Atlantic jackknife clam so maybe I’ve eaten these in the Maritimes and didn’t realize it.

As you chew it, it’s almost crispy and almost soft at the same time. They have the “song” (爽) texture I’ve mentioned before like pork cheeks.

There was a huge rock cod done two ways: wok-fried pieces with broccoli and then steamed, but neither really moved me and they looked terrible in photos anyway.

Some beautiful steamed scallops were served on their shells, topped with garlic and glass vermicelli. Like the shrimp, there was little added to this other than the garlic and some light soy sauce. The seafood is just so fresh, you don’t want to mess with its natural flavours.

For me, the highlight was the palm-sized piece of fresh abalone (鮑魚).

This sea snail with the iridescent inner shell is the caviar of Chinese cuisine. It’s a pricey delicacy traditionally served at weddings and other banquet celebrations, and is a symbol of wealth and good fortune. (I’m sure my dad’s been socking away his savings so that I can have abalone at my Chinese reception.)

Unfortunately, the high demand means that the world’s abalone has been overfished. California has some strict laws protecting the once-bountiful populations. Some divers risk shark attacks and drowning death to get their hands on abalone.

Not surprisingly, China produces about 80 per cent of the world’s farmed abalone. Farmed abalone is generally about four inches across, which is smaller than the wild kind.

Canned, dried or salted abalone is available but they’re totally different from the unique taste of fresh ones. They’re soft and buttery in texture when prepared properly. Fresh abalone is tough and need to be tenderized (think pounding chicken into cutlets), but if you overcook it, it turns into rubber.

Abalone has a subtle, earthy, slightly sweet flavour closest to a scallop — but not really.

It’s like trying to describe the singular smell of a truffle. An abalone tastes like … abalone. There’s nothing else like it.

Luk Fook Restaurant (六福菜館), 49 See Cheung Street, Sai Kung, Hong Kong, 2792-9966. Open 11:30 a.m.-midnight.