Located at G/F, 73 Chung On Street, Tsuen Wan in Hong Kong

For our last meal in HK on our fall trip in 2014, we visited an extremely popular restaurant in Tsun Wan.  It’s so popular that you must ensure you go there early before it opens at 5:30 p.m. in order to line up to get a table.  My friend Jennifer recommended this to me, saying that ‘chicken pot’ places are all the rage now in Hong Kong.  Upon hearing that, I knew I immediately had to get myself to it before I left HK (food blogger that wants to stay ahead of the ‘trends’).  

What you see when you look in from the store front — empty at 5:30 p.m.

We walked into the restaurant and into the back alley into another dining area

The Great Restaurant is unassuming at first and we were definitely one of the first customers to walk in at 5:30 p.m.  The restaurant looks small but they actually acquired many of the side shops as their territory too (impressive!).  We got a piece of paper from the counter with a number written on it and was told to go to the back alley and turn left. Wha..

So we did.  We walked into another small dining room with purple booths and chairs.  The place is dinky and no frills.  We, along with every customer that came in, were ushered to order a chicken pot first.

Purple everywhere! + hot pot menu

There are three types of chicken pot you can choose from. We chose the half chicken pot

We chose half a chicken with a teeny bit of spicy (the ‘ma’ in ‘ma la spicy’ removed).

I’d never had chicken pot before and was super excited and curious about what it would be like.  Yay!  Turns out they bring you a pot with the seasoned chicken already in it cooked, turn up the heat on the portable stove to boil, and then the chicken is ready to eat.

Beautiful, shiny, and healthy-coloured chicken awaited our chopsticks.  Yum!  The chicken meat was smooth, seasoned nicely and tasted of soy sauce and a bit of spicy with a hot mild aftertaste.  It was very good!

Chicken pot!

Boiling away and almost ready to eat! It smelled SO amazing while it was heating up

It’s ready! Nomnomnom

Yum!

We ordered rice with it too to soak up a bit of the mild spice before finishing up the chicken, adding soup into the hot pot to boil.  We had two kinds of veggies and a plate of fish slices too!  All the veggies soaked up the oils from the chicken and were a bit spicy too.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the fish as even though it was so very fresh and bouncy, there were a lot of short and stumpy bones embedded into its meat.

Fish to place into the hot pot

These are the pictures I took when we left — look at how many people there are waiting to get in!

There was a time restraint of 90 minutes dining time from start to finish.  We left promptly and I was shocked to see how many people had accumulated outside the restaurant in the time we were inside eating.  Holy mackerel, no wonder we were advised to come early!!

I definitely enjoyed the chicken at The Great Restaurant and would recommend this to HKers and tourists alike.  Just remember to get yourself there by 5:30 p.m. or if you’re group of 10 or more, call to make a reservation. 🙂

Just look at the long line-up!