Hong Kong is all about skyscrapers and during my short time here, I’ve found out that some of the city’s nicest restaurants are located several floors above the ground and often inside a shopping mall.
Budaoweng is located on the 23rd floor in the iSquare mall and it is one of the nicest hotpot restaurants I’ve been to, and the view was beautiful. We ordered beef, vegetables, dumplings, tofu and ostrich along with a yin yang pot (one spicy soup and one mild soup). A tray with different kinds of oils, sauces and spices was brought to our table, so we could mix each our dipping sauce, as we preferred it. I really liked the ostrich, which was juicy and with a very distinct flavor that went very well with my peanut/garlic-based dipping sauce.
Budaoweng was quite an upscale place, but also very traditional, and the staff didn’t speak much English, so we were happy to have Cantonese-speaking M and her friend with us, and we let them take care of ordering the food. I don’t know if I look Chinese, but the staff at restaurants and in stores all speak Chinese to me, and when I tell them I don’t understand, they just speak louder. Maybe they think that I’ll understand after a while, if they speak loud enough, I don’t know…
It was a very delicious dinner, but the spicy soup was so spicy it left me in tears. M explained that it was the hot Szechuan pepper, which made the soup so spicy and advised us to try avoiding the black peppercorns, but I played it safe and avoided the spicy soup completely.
Budaoweng, 23/F, iSQUARE, 63 Nathon Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong