Yong Fu Hong Kong launches Start of Winter menu with preserved ingredients
Yong Fu Hong Kong has introduced its Start of Winter menu, executive chef Liu Zhen's final seasonal offering. The menu emphasises preserved and fermented ingredients, priced at HK$2,888 per person for a minimum of four diners, available through 8 December.
Hong Kong may not have its coats out just yet, but the first signs of winter are beginning to creep in. A dry northeast monsoon has brought cooler mornings and fresher northeasterly winds, with temperatures dipping to around 22 degrees Celsius — just as the traditional Chinese calendar turns toward winter.
November 7 marked Start of Winter, or Lidong, the 19th of China's 24 solar terms. At Yong Fu Hong Kong, the seasonal shift has made its way to the table with a new Start of Winter menu, completing executive chef Liu Zhen's year-long series inspired by the four seasonal markers of spring, summer, autumn and winter.
This final chapter takes its cue from the Chinese idea of dong cang — storing and preserving through winter. Rather than simply making everything heavier, Liu turns to ingredients that have gathered flavor over time: seafood from the East China Sea, winter bamboo shoots drawn from the earth, cured meats, fermented rice lees and dried produce.
The opening plates set the rhythm. Lightly cured cuttlefish is paired with a clear caviar jelly, its clean salinity contrasting with the seafood's springy texture. A Vietnamese-style drunken chicken, made with a 300-day free-range bird marinated in aged fermented rice lees, is lifted by the sweetness of seasonal figs. Winter bamboo shoots, meanwhile, are slowly cooked with Tibetan pork and scallion, absorbing their richness without losing their own delicate freshness. The appetizers conclude on a deeper note with Ningbo-style braised oxtail, finished over agarwood smoke for a lingering woody aroma.
From there, the flavors gradually intensify. Yellow croaker arrives in a milky broth made from its bones, poured over delicate fish slices and left for 50 seconds before being served with yam “cat-ear” noodles and fresh bean curd sheets. Monkfish liver takes a richer turn, layered with octopus before being battered and fried until crisp outside and yielding within. One of the most indulgent combinations brings together freshly peeled shrimp from Ningbo with tu huang you — the concentrated roe and fat of hairy crab — finished with seasonal Italian white truffle.
A warming soup of wind-dried wild duck is then gently simmered over charcoal with dried bamboo shoots and taro, allowing the duck's concentrated savoriness to deepen the broth while the bamboo lends freshness and the taro adds a soft, creamy texture. The rice course features blue swimming crab pan-cooked to release its juices, while meat picked from the legs is stir-fried with rice, potato, beans and cured pork before the whole dish is baked together. The meal ends with a sweet soup of nine-year lily bulbs, gorgon fruit, dried lotus seeds and sturgeon tendon, finished with the fragrance of osmanthus.
Yong Fu Hong Kong's Start of Winter menu is available through December 8, priced at HK$2,888 per person plus 10 per cent service charge, for a minimum of four diners.