As we sat and waited, some more of the other restaurants opened up. We took this opportunity to eat again. Let's face it, a couple of buns didn't really fill us up. It was a stepping stone to a real meal. We looked around and ended up at Ocean Empire. Their specialties included rice noodles dishes normally found in dim sum restaurants.
After we ordered at the cashier, we were given a ticket. We sat and watched the women work. They were making fresh rice noodles for our dishes. Woah, I was really impressed. Why can't we have something comparable in the States. That's dedication to freshness indeed. Below is our dish of cruller wrapped in noodles. The cruller itself wasn't crunchy enough. I assumed it had suffered from being pre-fried earlier. However, the noodle was soft and supple.
Our next dish was a glutinous rice dumpling. The flavor was not bad and the serving was quite large. We found pieces of eggs and meat inside. What a nice, happy surprise! Unfortunately, the texture was very mushy which made it really tough to use chopsticks. Nonetheless, we were quite happy and satisfied with this dish.
On a more daring note, I ordered a rice noodle dish with fish inside. Yes, I ordered a fish dish at an airport. However, keep in mind that this is Hong Kong airport and this is a seafood restaurant. The result? Not bad at all. There was lots of ginger that countered any fishiness that may have been there. The texture of the meat was mushy but tolerable. The rice skin noodle was again soft and supple. Although I found a bone in one of the pieces, I didn't regret trying this dish.
And lastly, we had a crowd favorite: bbq pork in rice skin noodle. The pork stuffing was well seasoned and made the whole dish very flavorful. The soy sauce on top was unnecessary but appreciated. The texture was much better than the other dishes so this was definitely the favorite of the day.
We were all really happy that we had decided to grab some real food from here. It certainly made our wait go faster and we weren't as grumpy anymore. Ah, food. The cure-all.
Hong Kong International Airport
hongkongairport.com
Ocean Empire
Arrivals Meeters & Greeters Hall, Level 5
05:30 - 00:30
2261 0858
ocean_empire@ssp.com.hk
I LOVE the dining options in foreign airports! It always makes the trip seem to start faster when you can eat at a place like this before the vacation even starts!!
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