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Reputedly one of the best Chinese restaurants in Scotland, Ho Wong's rich, dark colonial interiorand modern and Westernised menu, with a particular emphasis on seafood, combine to mark this out as a very popular venue. It is streamlined into fairly familiar categories:
sizzling dishes, satays, bird's nests (something on a
bed of shredded fried yam) but seafood has price of
place. Not only can Danny Chow cook, he knows where
to source raw materials too. All his seafood comes
from Troon-based MacCallum's, a fish wholesaler of
impeccable provenance.
Chow demonstrates the Chinese obsession that
seafood must be ultra-fresh and he cooks it in a variety
of inspired and interesting wayswithout over-elaborating.
If I was going to splash out on a dover sole or lobster,
(and believe me that won't be cheap), I cannot think of a
better place to do so than the Ho Wong.At £3.50 a shot,
one steamed scallop was a pricey commodity, but it was
so wonderful that I found myself scraping away at the very
last morsel of succulent flesh on the shell and draining
the toasted-garlicky soy juices like a bowl of soup.
Meanwhile, the deep-fried prawn dumpling was keeping
amazingly hot over its candle-burner hotplate and this
was another winner: a filling of finely chopped prawns,
chinese cabbage, spring onions, savoury and comforting,
inside faultlessly crisp, cleanly-fried pastry half moons.
So to the stuffed crab claw, an extraordinary dish where
the crab meat is reformed around the black claw tip
then fried in a thin crisp batter. The flavour was
essence of crab, the texture, like a soft, moist
spongey doughnut - very different and entirely
delicious. |
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