Dian Niu Yunnan Pickled Greens Hotpot Restaurant Joy City 滇牛雲南酸菜牛肉火鍋 深圳大悦城店 (Shenzhen, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

We're back in Shenzhen this morning to celebrate the New Year with another family. It's "Red Mouth Day" today, so we are being very careful about what we say to others. After a fun-filled morning exploring Shenzhen Joy City (深圳大悦城), we decided to grab lunch there as well.

Situated on the fourth floor of the shopping mall, Dian Niu Yunnan Pickled Greens Hotpot Restaurant (滇牛雲南酸菜牛肉火鍋) is a Yunnan-style hotpot restaurant chain specializing in its Yunnan vegetables and beef.

Obviously, everybody went back to their respective hometowns during the New Year, so there were only a few souls at the mall and having lunch at the restaurant.

We opted for two types of non-spicy broths, trying to stay away from spicy foods to kick off the year.

While they were preparing the broths, I decided to grab a few condiments from the "sauce" station.

This turned into a bit of a vegetable feast, as half of the dishes were plant-based. For most Hongkongers, the meal would typically lean more towards meat and seafood, with vegetables likely towards the end of the hotpot meal.

Yunnan beef fillet (雲南黃牛肉) — The beef fillet from Yunnan cattle was pretty tender, but the way it was cut into small pieces and marinated made it a little less appealing, both for our eyes and palates.

Beef offal platter (牛雜雙拼) — The ox tongue certainly wasn't bad. I had trouble identifying what the other part was.

Beef marinated with litsea (木姜子牛肉) — This came with a nice extra kick and a numbing effect thanks to the litsea. Much tastier than the previous beef fillet.

Beef trachea (牛黃喉) — We first thought it was beef tripe at first glance, but the texture didn’t feel right. After checking the menu, we found that this was actually the cow's throat part. It was a bit crunchy but not a lot of flavor there.

Taro sheets (麗江七彩洋芋) — The taro was sliced into thin sheets which turned into something like potato chips when cooked. Pretty interesting!

There were a lot of vegetables (which I forgot to take photos of) including tofu in the set but mint leaf?

Every time we come to Shenzhen, we seem to learn something new, and this meal was a nice lesson on the ingredients from Yunnan. I'm not sure if I liked everything, but it was great for our education!

Food Rating: 4.8/10

Price: ¥¥¥

Address: Shop L431, Level 4 Joy City, 61 Chuangye 2nd Road, Bao'an District, Shenzhen, China

深圳市宝安区新安街道宝民社区25区创业二路61号大悦城商业中心四层L431

Closest Metro Station: Lingzhi (灵芝)

Tel: +86 18948327800

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 10:00pm daily

Map: https://j.map.baidu.com/2a/YlJM

3.3 Cafe Maritime Square 三點三冰室 青衣城店 (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

We didn't do much on Chinese New Year day. Jelloman and I started the day with a movie, leaving little nugget a moment to play with his grandparents before we regrouped for a family gathering at almost 2pm. After some quality time with the older folks, it was time to head home.

This was when little nugget felt hungry and asked for afternoon tea. I don't blame him really. We ordered way too few dim sum for lunch and everyone probably didn't have enough to eat.

So, we sat down at 3.3 Cafe (三點三冰室) at Maritime Square (青衣城). I thought it was a little heavy having noodle soup with satay beef at this hour. Dinner wasn't far off.

While my son was enjoying his noodles, I was busy generating a new year greeting image for the year of the Horse. It took me a while to get things going but I thought I was getting the hang of it at last.

Price: $$$

Address: Shop G24-G25, G/F, Maritime Square 1, 31-33 Tsing King Road, Tsing Yi, NT, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsing Yi

Tel: +852 2762-9818

Opening Hours: 8:00am - 9:30pm daily 

Pici Pasta Bar Lai Chi Kok (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★★☆

I received word from higher-ups that we’ll be spending most of Chinese New Year at home studying. Little nugget is having his exams in early March so it looks like that we're getting an early start this year.

I was told that if we made good progress, we might get to enjoy one dinner out over the weekend. Thankfully, our study pace was decent enough for us and we were rewarded with an early dinner at our neighborhood pasta bar, Pici, tonight.

Tuna tartare — The tuna tartare was beautifully complemented by diced avocado, pickled onions, and a house dressing primarily made with a sweet soy sauce that had a subtle kick.

Chef's selection of cold cuts — Apparently, my favorite appetizer here, vitello tonnato, has been taken off the menu so we had to scramble for a second appetizer. The cold cut platter wasn't what I had in mind initially but the combination of culatta ham, mortadella, salame, Ubriaco cheese, and grissini turned out to be a satisfying way to start the meal.

Chitarra king prawns — Choosing the main dishes was much easier, thanks to the wide selection of freshly made pasta. The squid-ink chitarra has been a staple for us, and we didn't mind having it again tonight. The incredibly fresh pasta was tossed with chili, garlic, cherry tomatoes, and prawn bisque, making it wonderfully delicious.

Orecchiette 'Nduja — Little nugget had fallen in love with the cat ear pasta, or orecchiette since he last had it at Minimal a few months ago. This version here was nicely tossed in a spicy 'nduja sauce, and finished off with Italian sausage and cherry tomatoes. Very nicely done.

Pappardelle beef cheek — Normally, the two-person set with two appetizers, two pasta and two desserts would be plenty enough for the three of us here but tonight, I witnessed an evolution. We could no longer afford to have food for two people with little one now a grown kid. So, we added a third pasta dish.

I didn't get to enjoy the pappardelle much tonight cuz little nugget almost single-handedly finished the entire dish all by himself. It's his favorite, with the thick pasta perfectly paired with flavorful beef cheek ragu that’s been slow-cooked for eight hours.

Panna cotta and tiramisu — As usual, bravo~!

It was another satisfying meal at our neighborhood pasta bar. I noticed significant improvements in the service during our recent visits. Just a couple of months ago, little nugget received a complimentary juice from the staff, and tonight, we were treated to a few scoops of gelato on the house!

Food Rating: 6.8/10
Price: $$$
Address: Shop G03, G/F, D2 Place TWO, 15 Cheung Shun Street, Lai Chi Kok, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Lai Chi Kok
Tel: +852 2557-7227
Website: www.pici.hk

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 3:00pm, 5:00pm - 10:00pm daily