Spring Deer in Kowloon

Spring Deer Restaurant, nestled in the busy streets of TST in Kowloon is one of the old, famous restaurants. A favourite amongst Asian visitors, the restaurant is famous for the Peking Duck...however, with just the two of us, it was not possible to order the famous bird, as it was only offered as a whole duck.



As can be seen, it was totally packed on the Sunday evening, though the waiter managed to find us a table easily, the whole restaurant was packed...mainly with what seemed like local families having their Sunday dinner out.

We settled for three dishes...first the mixed vegetables:



This was actually quite superb. Very fresh, very tasty vegetables - especially the baby corn was wonderful. The light sauce which accompanies was also delicately balanced to show off the vegetables' own flavour. My favourite dish for the evening.

Also, a kind of home made tofu, in a shrimp egg sauce



The shrimp eggs were almost microscopic, and showed their presence as a reddish hue to the tofu, and a rich, but salty taste. The tofu was a bit more firm than I would have preferred, but was nice and fragrant.

We also ordered the fried chicken:



Almost like our har cheong kai, but without the seasoning of belachan. The chicken was fried in a super hot wok...scalding and making the outside and skin super crispy, while retaining the moisture in the meat. Good, but not really special to me. I prefer the HCKs in Singapore.

We then enquired about the xiao loong pau which we saw many tables ordering...but told the waiter to hold the order untill we finished the dishes as we might have had too much food. I guess he mistook our instruction, and delivered the xiao loong pau when we were finishing off our dinner. This took us by a bit of a surprise, as we were rather full, and had expected he'd come to check with us first...but I guess the entreprenaural spirit of Hong Kongers are such that if we did not specifically say we did not want it after our enquiry, they assumed to have made the sale...but anyhow...



The xiao loong pau was not spectacular. The meat was rather leand and a bit dry tasting. The skin was too thick. The juice within was ok. I had expected better, especially when almost every other table had a basket.

Overall, Spring Deer is not a bad place to eat. Not particularly one to make one's way to just to sample the food...perhaps the Peking Duck, but we did not try that. For the stuff we ordered, it was rather ordinary.


Spring Deer Restaurant
46 Mody Road
九龍, Hong Kong
23664012