Islam Food – Introduction

Islam Food is a long running restaurant in Kowloon City that turns out excellent Halal food for locals who throng in here every day for expertly cooked northern Chinese Islamic food.

It is some distance from the crossing to Kowloon but it is worth persevering.

Islam Food – Exploring the food

Many of the dishes will be instantly recognisable for those who love the food of northern China. Spiced, beef tripe, sesame oil chicken (optionally served with jellyfish), shredded beef with fermented cabbage, curry mutton with rice, fried rice with shredded dried scallops and egg white … the list goes on.

But there is one dish that you simply must order! It might not sound very interesting but you will see them being served at every table. It is listed in the Dim Sum section of the menu under the unlikely name of Veal Goulash – remember that this restaurant opened in 1950 and Western names were often applied to dishes that were different.

So what is “Veal Goulash”? It is an enclosed pastry with a very flavoursome wet stew of veal inside. We use the term “wet stew” quite deliberately because just as with the famous Xiao Long Bao dumplings, there is a lot of liquid inside and it pays to hold the pastry parcel over a bowl and stab the bottom of the pastry with a chopstick to let the delicious liquid escape before biting into it. This is a dish that we will remember for a long time. Even as we write this we are thinking of our next visit to Hong Kong where Islam Food will be right at the top of our “must visit” list.

We also ordered a plate of “Cold Dish – Beef 4 Sorts” which saw braised beef slices, slices of beef tripe and jellied slices of beef tendon as well as beautifully juicy sesame oil chicken teamed with jellyfish. This was a very good combination which we enjoyed thoroughly.

We also enjoyed the classic northern dish of spring onion pancake. These little gems have a flaky pastry created by folding the dough, sprinkling it with tiny pieces of spring onion and then rolling it into a cylinder before cutting of coins of dough and flattening them and frying them to form golden discs of flaky goodness.

Overall it was a very good meal and we can see why people come here from all parts of Hong Kong.

You can read more about the history of Islam Food on their Web site which is displayed in both Chinese and English here.

And, if you are visiting Hong Kong you should drop in for a meal to the Chairman which you can read about here.