HONG KONG – LUNG WAH HOTEL

To me, travelling is all about new experiences and creating memories, often with my tastebuds and stomach. When I first visited Hong Kong in 2009, I had never eaten pigeon before. We feasted on the unique fowl twice during that trip and after returning home, I started noticing the bird all over menus in Toronto (although often listed as squab). Personally, I’m not sold on the bird but my affection is growing. Pidgeon is very fatty, and the meat gamey. For The Hubby though, no trip to Hong Kong would be complete without a visit to Lung Wah Hotel in Shatin and one of their famous roast pidgeons.

Located on a hill in Sha Tin, Lung Wah Hotel was built in 1938 and can be a challenge to find. I remember on our first visit, I melted in the sun and we had to ask for directions multiple times before The Hubby recognized the stairway up to the restaurant. On this trip, we had his aunts to guide the way.

Being an older restaurant, the dining room was dated but clean and filled with large round tables. I’ve read reviews that service ranges from spotty to downright neglectful, but with a language barrier and aunts who were not shy, I didn’t notice any issues. As soon as our table was full, we placed our order for roast pigeons.

Served head on, the plate of pigeons arrived along with disposable gloves, this was a eat with your hands kind of meal. The pigeons come whole, or cut into quarters. While the birds aren’t large, they are heavy and I would recommend half a pigeon for those with smaller appetities. In comparison, The Hubby can happily polish off one and a half himself. The skin was crispy and the meat dark and tender. One thing pigeon has chicken beat on is flavour, gamey and in no need of sauce or heavy seasoning.

To round out our meal, we also had spicy calms, steamed tofu, salt and pepper crystal pigeon eggs and a few others I missed snapping. All of the dishes were good but the real draw of Lung Wah Hotel was hand down, the pigeons.