紹華小廚 - Best Clay Pot Rice Yet!

Rating: ❤❤❤❤❤

I actually got lost trying to find this place in Shau Kei Wan and had to ask for directions at a nearby mall. I must have looked pretty lost as the guy at the concierge offered to walk me there personally. The restaurant turned out to be located just off the big street in a government run food court. The food court was small with only this restaurant and another Thai restaurant as the only stalls that sells food. The place was brightly lit and the tables were adequately clean. They are famous for clay pot rice cooked with coal, and there were 20+ choices on their menu! For all clay pot rice, you can add chinese sausages, salty egg or egg for an extra $5. Between the 2 of us, we ordered 2 clay pot rice to share. 

Each clay pot rice came their soup of the day, and the soup we got was the chicken feet and peanuts soup. Usually these soups that come for free are watery and bland, but this soup was the real deal! There were lots of ingredients in our small bowl of soup like chicken feet, lean pork, peanuts, etc. It was really rich and flavorful, and a great start to our meal.

When our clay pot rice came, the waiter poured some sweet soy sauce in and closed the lid to bake it some more. We were told to let it bake for another 3 minutes. Can't wait!

Taro with Minced Pork and Chinese Pork Sausage ($55+5) - the taro arrived sitting on the rice in two half balls. The smell of taro was fragrant as we smashed the taro to mix in with the minched pork and rice. The taste of the taro blended in very well with the minced pork, and after a coat of taro, the texture of the rice became softer than the usually hard rice that comes with clay pot dishes. Depends on your preference if you like hard or soft rice, but I prefer harder rice so next time I would not mix in the taro so thoroughly. The chinese pork sausage was fatty and flavorful, and overall this was one good clay pot rice!

Garlic Beef and Duck Liver Sausage ($55+5) - the surface of this dish had been coated with fried garlic, which smelled amazing! The beef, which were in cube form, came from a special area near the neck vertebrae and they was surprisingly juicy and springy with a nice proportion of fat and meat! Usually I'd prefer the pork sausage over the duck liver sausage, but the duck liver sausage here was very good as well! My only complaint was that there was too little sausage for one portion so next time I would order 2 portions of sausage for each clay pot rice.

Best part of eating clay pot rice is the hardened rice crust on the side of the clay pot! The rice crust had been burnt to a nice crisp so it was like eating rice cracker. It had also absorbed the flavor of the sweet soy sauce and was yummy to eat!

Verdict - one of the best clay pot rice that I've had and the prices were very reasonable for the quality and amount of food we got! Although it may be a bit out of the way, it also beats standing in line at some of the more famous places in Sheung Wan for example. As the temperature continue to drop during this season, I'm sure I will be back to try some more of their clay pot dishes like the clay pot lamb casserole! Yum!

紹華小廚 
Shop CF3, Oi Tung Market, Aldrich Bay, Shau Kei Wan 
8199 8188

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