Restaurants

By Charmaine Mok. Photography Michael Franke

Hong Kong is a city of discerning diners and top-class restaurants. But it’s also where, in a metropolis full of food-loving nomads, a simple bowl of soup noodles is king. It’s a telling sign when some of the most humble street-side mein dong (mein = noodle; dong = stalls) rank alongside glittering fine-dining hotspots in popularity. One of my favourites is my local family-run caff on a side street in Shau Kei Wan, in the Eastern district of the island, that does the best fish ball noodles in town. Likewise, over in the grubby end of the glamorous Central district’s Soho lies a filthy little joint (that nevertheless attracts crowds at all hours of the day) that profits from its legendary beef brisket noodles. All over the city there are hole-in-the-wall noodle shops that only do one dish, but they do it damn well.

Cha Cha Moon is Hong Kong-born restaurateur Alan Yau’s take on a mein dong. But instead of focusing on the myriad of noodle dishes found just in his home town, it’s a culinary journey careening around all corners of China, plus neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia for good measure. There are beef noodles from Taiwan and prawn noodles from Penang, while Sichuan dumplings and Singaporean char kway teow sit alongside spring onion pancakes from the north. To the moon and back, indeed.

Six months ago, Yau claimed that the inspiration behind opening Cha Cha Moon was a lack of decent Chinese soup stocks in London. So, to test the waters, we sampled two classic varieties from the soup noodle category: roast duck, and wonton. The former had an unctuous and flavoursome broth; while not helped by a somewhat ghastly greyish hue, it was full of the umami taste, punctuated by the surprising medicinal aroma of tiny red wolfberries. Fresh, al dente noodles were spot-on, transporting us back to the noodle bars of Hong Kong.

The benchmark dish, wonton noodles, was a let down. Far from the delicate dumplings their name suggests (‘wonton’, in Cantonese, literally means ‘swallowing clouds’), ours were filled with stodgy chicken and had thick, heavy wrappers. If the menu had made the distinction that these were Shanghai-style wontons (which indeed are heavier than their Cantonese-style counterparts), it would have been easier to understand.

Things picked up, though. Zhajiang mian (a northern dry noodle dish) had us picking at every last little morsel of minced pork, mushrooms and bamboo shoots, while the kitchen’s take on chicken fen pi, a Shanghainese cold noodle dish, was inspired by the use of jasmine tea-smoked chicken. The traditional sesame dressing, while slightly too watery, was spiked with hints of wasabi and sweet red onions – elements certainly reminiscent of Yau’s trademark culinary cunning, where the results are neither too shocking nor bastardised, yet different enough to delight.

With all dishes currently priced at a mere £3.50 (Update: the prices have risen at both branches, with dishes averaging around £5), we seemed to be guinea pigs for this new opening. Yau was omnipresent during the first few days; he stuck to the kitchen pass, observing diners and rattling off both compliments and criticisms to his battalion of chefs.

It is certainly admirable of Yau to throw the door wide open on Chinese noodle culture, and he hasn’t merely recreated a quintessential Hong Kong-style caff. That’s fine with us, but we feel the eclectic nature of the menu hinders the restaurant from truly delivering the best of these well-loved classics. There’s a lot of potential in this hip and cheerful operation, but for now, it has nothing on my local mein dong.

FEBRUARY 2009: The second branch of Cha Cha Moon, located in the Whiteleys Shopping Centre, is now open.

Time Out Issue 1971: May 29-June 4 2008