We Tried One of Hong Kong’s Best Chinese BBQ Pork Spots

[knife thudding]

Good morning.

Welcome to Taiwan, Eastern Edge of Hong Kong Island.

We're here at [indistinct],

probably the best char siu in town.

Let's see what's happening at the back.

Welcome to the kitchen.

So chefs are putting together the char siu.

They're skewering it with these metal skewers

that are going to allow them to hang

inside of that vertical oven.

Skewing the pork on the thicker end

and so that they can hang, cook, render.

Skewing the pork this way

allows them to cook relatively evenly

since it's cut into thick slabs.

In most of American buttery,

it all comes from one part of the pig,

but actually there's a lot of texture differentiation,

whether it's fattiness, leanness, but also the crispness

and I suppose the snappiness of that type of pork.

A little bit of soaked newspaper on the top of the char siu

to stop it from burning.

All of this is to control the temperature

to the effect of its final texture of the char siu.

All the char siu is inside of the oven,

all the different cuts you can see,

chef has linked some of it together

as a little bit of manipulation

because at the end of the day, the cooking is constant.

The fire is constant.

So the way that this cooks

is entirely dependent on the positioning of the pork.

Whether it's lower, closer to the flame,

which is actually a little bit cooler,

or if it's hotter over the top.

Generally speaking, he says the leaner cuts towards the top,

fattier cuts towards the bottom.

You want low temperature to render all that fat,

but the leaner cut can actually take a little bit more heat

and it can cook a little bit longer.

This is gonna be the first 25 to 30 minutes or so,

and then he's gonna check, flip them over,

rotate a little bit, and then readjust,

add maltose, so on and so forth.

Thank you.

[chef laughing]

These guys open for business at eight,

but it really starts to get busy around lunchtime.

[Simon speaking foreign language]

Oh my goodness.

First roast is done.

[Simon speaking foreign language]

[chef speaking foreign language]

[Simon speaking foreign language]

[chef speaking foreign language]

So this is the leaner parts.

This is the part that's gonna be a little bit drier

but less fatty.

Down here, this is the first cut.

Over here there's the fattier bits, super tender,

encased in a little bit of fat.

I mean this is all the range of texture.

You can start to see it come together

as the char siu is being cooked.

A little bit of char, that's part of the charm.

He's letting it rest for a couple of minutes

before it goes inside of the maltose.

It's gonna cool down.

It's gonna glaze and it's gonna go back inside of the oven

for that final glaze.

And there we go.

Maltose glaze.

Maltose, also known as malt sugar

is an alternative to honey in a lot of places,

but that is the original sugar used to glaze char siu.

When you're adding maltose to the char siu,

it's going to glaze the outside

and it's going to cling onto the pork

a little bit better than honey.

Maltose gives it a nice, clear, crisp, glisten.

Dude, this is so sexy.

Jesus Christ.

That maltose is so thick

it's going to cling to the char siu as it roasts,

even as slightly higher temperatures.

It's going to caramelize on the outside.

It might pick up a little bit of char,

it might burn just a little bit, but that's crisp

and that's what Hong Kong people like.

Now's the time for the second cook of the char siu.

These skewers positioned at different parts of the pork

are going to keep everything flat

so that he can get as consistent of a cook as he can.

The chef's starting to marinate the char siu for the day.

The first roast is actually meat

that's been marinated the night before.

So sugar, there goes some salt, a little bit of five spice,

five spice meat, those warming spice of cinnamon,

cloves, anise, [indistinct].

A little bit of san ginger powder,

everything mixed together like a dry rub.

So this is soybean paste.

In Cantonese barbecue restaurants

this is known as san-j raw sauce,

but really it's a fermented soybean paste

that has been all [indistinct].

And here comes a little bit of additional rose wine.

This is sorghum wine infused with a little bit of rose.

That rose wine gives it a little bit of light [indistinct]

to bolster that sweetness

along with everything else inside of the sauce.

It becomes a very sweet and savory profile.

That savoriness comes primarily from soybeans.

The key here is to get everything even,

it's a combination of a dry and a wet rub.

This marinade time is so important

for that pork to be juicy.

[Simon speaking foreign language]

[chef speaking foreign language]

[Simon speaking foreign language]

[chef speaking foreign language]

[Simon speaking foreign language]

[speaker 1 speaking foreign language]

[Simon speaking foreign language]

[chef speaking foreign language]

[Simon speaking foreign language]

[chef speaking foreign language]

[speaker 1 speaking foreign language]

Okay, char siu's coming outta the oven.

It's been 50 minutes-ish of total cooking time

over charcoal the entire time.

You can see that dark black char.

It's gonna give a little bit of crunch,

a little bit of crispiness.

That maltose has really done what it's supposed to do.

This bright red's a sign of proper charcoal grill char siu.

Chef now is going to trim a little bit

of that black charcoal off

because at the end of the day, the burnt bits are burnt.

It's a little bit bitter.

So he's gonna trim it a little bit

and then bring it outside for all the world to see.

First char siu of the day,

[Simon speaking foreign language]

[chef speaking foreign language]

[speaker 1 speaking foreign language]

[chef speaking foreign language]

[Simon speaking foreign language]

Sorry, can't wait.

And we can take a look at how chef is cutting it actually.

This cutting of the char siu so important

because he is the selector.

He's a curator of the meat experience.

Chef here is gonna make a plate of all four cuts

just for us to see the difference in texture.

But the key to getting the type of char siu that you want

is to communicate and tell them how fatty you want it.

And if you really know what the specific cut

of char siu you like is.

[Simon speaking foreign language]

Snappy [indistinct] first cut.

[Simon chuckling]

Shit.

I should know exactly what this tastes like

'cause I've been eating here for so long,

but that is just, it doesn't get better than this.

I'm so glad we shoot in the morning.

First char siu that comes to the oven and we get it,

so snappy, so sweet.

Just so like, it's not honey.

Like if you imagine eating like a whole spoon of honey,

it's so sweet.

But the maltose is like such a gentle glaze.

For most people, first timers here.

Best thing to order is if you can get it,

[indistinct], first cut.

That snappiness in this pork is really, really special.

There's only two pieces of this in each pig,

which means that it's a very, very special

juicy but snappy experience.

Here it's called [indistinct] three bit char siu.

Three pieces of lean meat with tendon and fat in between.

If you want something a little bit leaner, less fatty,

the lean pork at [indistinct] tender.

[Simon speaking foreign language]

I haven't seen this cut in many other places.

This rib cap, it's encased,

it's a meat encased with a little bit of tendon

that gives it a little bit chew and then fat.

When you eat this, it just melts away.

For Cantonese people, Chinese people in general,

fatty but not greasy is really important.

You can taste it melt away, but it's not flowing.

It doesn't hang onto your palate too much.

Perhaps this is me being biased,

but as a Hong Kong person,

Hong Kong really has perfected Cantonese barbecue.

They've made it popular, they made it democratic.

A lot of places have made it a really, really consistent,

but just in this store alone, the cuts

and the type of marinade that they use is proprietary.

These names, [indistinct].

All of these things come specifically from this store.

There's still this innovation

that had happened in the last 60, 70 years in Hong Kong.

Now the cooking of these meats is really complicated.

So we don't do this at home.

You get them at shops, this is called a seal maple,

a Cantonese barbecue shop where they have the duck,

the chicken, the goose, the rose pork, the barbecue pork.

Now it's about like 10:30.

All of the Taiwan neighborhood locals

are starting to come get their meats for the day.

[Simon speaking foreign language]

I know this episode is all about char siu,

but the real lunch, Cantonese barbecue lunch

is a [indistinct], plate of rice with char siu and chicken.

[Simon speaking foreign language]

Char siu in it's full proper presentation

is best served over rice.

And that [indistinct] arguably the best

char siu in Hong Kong.

It's the best because number one, the freshness of the pork.

Number two, the technique.

And number three, perhaps most importantly,

the negotiation between the customer preference

and the specificity at which they cut their pork.

That's the texture and that's the flavor.

All in control through discussion of the customer

with the people who are cooking.

One of the best experiences we've had in Hong Kong so far.

Onto the next.