Eat, Play, Run: Hong Kong: The Yellow Door

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I won't bury the lead. The Yellow Door is the best Chinese food I've ever eaten. There really isn't even a close number 2. The Yellow Door is the Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky of Chinese food, all rolled up into one.

The restaurant serves their meals on a prix fixe menu. For starters, we had eight dishes. Eight!

Sliced pork with spicy garlic sauce. The pork was sliced paper thin, to the point it sort of melted in your mouth. So very good.
Corn with lemon leaves. Served chilled,this was also very good. But, have you ever tried eating corn with chopsticks? It's like running a marathon... with one leg tied behind your back.
Boiled Shanghai Beans in distilled liquor dregs. Yeah, that's the name. I like to call it edemame in tasty, sour sauce.
Pickled egg with caviar. This should've been the best dish. But, it was actually the worst. The pickled egg was cased in sort of gelatin, with the fish eggs on top. The whole thing didn't really work for me.
Fried spare rib with cumin. Or as Kenwyn called it, cumin with fried spare rib. The cumin was definitely strong, but the little bits of spare rib were great.
Salad of shredded potato with spicy sauce. The potatoes were shredded thin, almost like hash browns, and served with a wonderful spicy sauce. Not sure if I liked this or the sliced pork best.
Deep fried shrimp with bread. Oh those Chinese. We call it breaded deep fried shrimp. The breading was light, providing just the right amount of crisp to the shrimp.

After the starters, our main dishes came out one at a time. The first dish was called Soup of scallop and flowering Chinese. Awesome title, right? It also tasted the awesome. The broth had only a subtle taste of scallop. We couldn't figure out what the "Chinese" was but, it too was very subtle. Almost serving to just add texture to the soup.

Chicken and shredded leeks with spicy sauce was next up. The chicken breasts were juicy, yet firm and loaded with flavor. The spicy sauce was hot, without detracting from the flavor of the chicken. This too was an excellent dish.

The next dish, the smoked pork ribs with honey and tea leaves was heavenly. For me, this was the highlight dish of the meal. The meat literally fell off the bone. The honey/tea leaf sauce was unlike anything I've ever had. The flavors were just so good. Thinking about it now, it brings a smile to my face.

It's half-time. We just hit the halfway point of our six main dishes. Kenwyn was doing a nice job pacing herself, but Doug and I pretty much licked eat of our plates clean. Doug even picked at Kenwyn's.

OK, on with the meal. Fried prawns in Sichuan sour and spicy sauce. Shocking, but another winner. I know I'm supposed to try to be critical of the food, but it was all so damn good. In this case, the sauce was just perfect. I liked that they stayed away from a traditional sweet and sour sauce.

Stir fried squash with ginger. If you gave me 10 guesses as to what I was eating, I would've never guessed squash. I would've been hard pressed to guess in 25 guesses. But, you guessed it, it was very good. Sometimes ginger can be overpowering, but not here. It added to squash, bringing a fresh flavor to the forefront.

Shanghai stuffed duck. As the final dish, I think this was supposed be the piece de resistance, but of the six, it was actually my least favorite. That's not to say it wasn't a decent dish, but compared to the others it came up short. The stuffing completely overpowered the duck. The duck itself was only so-so, so maybe that was on purpose. On the plus side, the duck was very juicy and tender.

After the six main courses, were brought out a meat dumplings with chicken soup. After the 'big show' it seemed kind of tiny, but it was very good. The dumpling, excellent. I guess it was actually a nice to finish off the meal.

Finally, for dessert we were served "Sweet soup of glutinous rice ball." I prefer that my desserts include the word "chocolate," still, for a Chinese dessert, it was good. The little rice balls were kind of fun to eat. The sweet 'soup,' which was served hot, was also pretty good.

Overall, I couldn't have been more satisfied with meal. I told Doug and Kenwyn that they should've saved Yellow Door for last, because nothing else can really compare.