Hung Kee Seafood Restaurant

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, and when in Hong Kong, you must eat at an outdoor seafood market. (Ok, I’m not sure if this is entirely true, but I’m going to go ahead and say yes.)
We were brought here by a Hong Kong local who said that this was a must-​eat place in Hong Kong.
And I will be honest. I think that we mostly enjoyed our meal here because we had someone with us who spoke Cantonese, had been here before, and knew what she was doing.
When you arrive, you will be greeted by a bunch of random people standing outside Hung Kee beckoning you to have a meal there. Most of the seating is outside at tables and plastic chairs that you would normally find on people’s lawns during the summer, but that’s just the way things are done here.
After you are assigned a table, you go to the tanks that house all of the freshly caught fish and other sea creatures and pick out what you want. The tank area is really interesting and actually makes for some impressive and colorful pictures. They have a a few large tanks that house particularly ginormous fish that everyone was taking pictures of. Our Hong Kong local friend took charge of selecting the fish. The part that I am not really a fan of is when the staff throws the seafood on the ground to prove that it is fresh and alive. This baffles me, and also grosses out the part of me that would prefer that anything I consume not be thrown on the dirty ground that everyone walks over… especially if some of the food is going to be served raw as sushi or sashimi.
Food: Overall, I really enjoyed my meal here. The food was clearly fresh and prepared very well. They also have a selection of wines that you can order and consume with your meals, which was particularly nice for a seafood dinner.
+Clams with garlic and glass noodles: I think this was my favorite dish. I am a huge fan of garlic and these clams were definitely not lacking in garlic sauce. SO GOOD. I am not entirely sure what type of clams these were (perhaps razor clams?), but they were larger clams– each person was served one clam.
+Clams in black bean sauce: These clams on the other hand, were much smaller, but also flavored very well and quite scrumptious. My sister’s favorite dish of the night.
+Mantis shrimp: This was my first time eating mantis shrimp, and they were absolutely divine. I am kind of weird and am generally not a big fan of foods that require me to use my hands and get messy, but these I could get used to. Worth it!
tl;dr: We had so many different dishes that were all amazing. Unfortunately, I don’t know the English names for all of them, but hopefully pictures will suffice. If you’re looking for a place that locals go to get their seafood fix in Hong Kong, definitely check out Hung Kee! And try to bring a friend who speaks Cantonese…

Avoid at all costs. The food ain’t that bad, but the service is atrocious and extremely rude. Also be very wary when choosing your seafood from the tanks, that’s the first place they would start to gouge you, for they don’t use a modern weighing scale, but some obscure ancient one with the balancing beam without incomprehensible markings, so you have to take their word for it, not to mention that they would quote you differing prices.
Second, they would charge you $ 35 for every different seafood being cooked, and the irony is raw is at $ 40, and that’s another place where they would add plenty of ancillary charges, for instance the seafood I have gotten were just $ 400 (and it was in-​house, so it should have been free or at the very least, minimal), but the «cooking» was $ 200, so go figure, they claimed it’s because of the sauces and one was with a little bit of noodles (you would be able to see it in my photos), but then again my Chinese wasn’t so good, nor could they speak English, so their excuse was I misunderstood them!
Furthermore, a quarter of the clams wouldn’t open, which meant they are dead before they were even cooked, so the rest probably weren’t that fresh to begin with, and all they said was it was like that, without any offer of partial refunds or whatsoever.
Lastly, I never had any of the sour appetizers, but I still had to pay for them despite me telling them that I didn’t even touched them (it was literally at the far end of the table), and I didn’t even know they were there! They really know how to squeeze you every way!
I don’t normally complain at all, but I guess this is how HK is! They give the Chinese people a bad name.

Great outdoor seating with a pleasant view while you eat fresh seafood right out of the water.
The big fish tanks and many different types of seafood swimming in their small caged tanks will make any seafood lover crave. Lunch time gets very empty and it’s the way I like it. Food comes faster and service is more attentive.
Ordered the lobster with noodles, razor clams, prawns, and squid in black bean sauce.
The highlight of the meal was the lobster with noodles. Noodles was a little bit cheesy and creamy but not too overly drowned in sauce, while the lobster shined its fresh red shell with succulent white meat. The lobster is already cut and diced up. Usually I’m always cautious when eating lobster or any shell fish that is already cut. The small pieces of shell when chewed in your mouth can really do some damage and chipping to your teeth! I was very careful when eating, but I’m glad there were no loose shells that would chip my teeth, saving me a trip to the dentist. Thus the dish was clean and cooked very well and to perfection!
Service was very attentive and most importantly the seafood was really fresh!

Sai Kung is popular for locals and tourists alike. One of the most important decisions to be made on an excursion to Sai Kung, is which seafood restaurant to dine at. I’ve had the pleasure of dining at «Michelin-​pick» Cheun Kee Seafood, although I must say my personal favourite is Hung Kee, even if its signs don’t broadcast it making the Michelin cut.
The prices are similar all down the promenade when you order a package deal at the seafood restaurants, but Hung Kee does some little things that makes me a regular.
First off, the mantis shrimp. I love mantis shrimp, so this is a pretty big deal. Last time I was here, Hung Kee served the hard shell mantis shrimp in the package deal, rather than the softer shells which have less sweet/​flavourful meat. However, the cooking method is similar between restaurants, using that red spice that makes your lips smack.
Other dishes I rate: the scallops (with glass noodles and plenty of garlic!); razorclams (done in a similar fashion); and the black bean clams.
Understandably, Hung Kee usually gets very busy at night, so we tend to get here for lunch so we have more seating options, time to chill out with a cold beer etc. If you can’t get a table here for dinner, no sweat — the other joints down this street aren’t drastically different.