Social Place
303, 30 Canton Rd
Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Over the course of the last few years I’ve visited both posh Michelin-starred and hole in the wall dim sum places during my visits to Hong Kong. So when I visited Hong Kong a few weeks ago on my latest trip, I decided to give my Michelin Guide some rest and venture to other dim sum restaurants that caught my eye (admittedly, mostly from Instagram and eye-catching Facebook posts).
One of those place was Social Place, which has very Instagram friendly dishes that are also fairly unique. My friend and I decided to swing by for dinner one of our first nights in Hong Kong to see what the fuss was about. Like many casual places in Hong Kong malls, we grabbed a number from the table waiting touchscreen. While we waited the 20 minutes it took for a table to open up, we looked at the menu to see what to order (crossing off those dishes that the restaurant had indicated were sold out for the day). After some pensive deliberation, we ordered the following:
- Social Platter (Pickled black fungus, iced okra, Sichuan spicy sausage) – The social platter is an appetizer course where you can choose 3 small plates of different items. Since one of the vegetarian items we wanted were out, we substituted with spicy Chinese sausage instead which had nicely flavored meat and a good snap, but perhaps a little too oily with the chili oil. The ice okra was amazing, however, and I loved the perfectly cooked texture of the okra which gave it a nice snap and chew without any sliminess. The fungus to me was okay, but I think it’s because I generally don’t like pickled black fungus to begin with.
Dragon Beard Kale at Social Place
- Dragon Beard Kale – Despite the misleading “kale” name, this dish contains Chinese Broccoli cut into the shape of “dragon beards”, blanched perfectly and stir fried with gogi berries. This was one of the best dishes on the menu and my friend and I couldn’t get enough.
- Truffle Shitaake Bun – The buns were cute and shaped like mushrooms, but I found the filling a little off-putting. While I appreciated that I got my “money’s worth” of truffle, so to speak, it was VERY truffle forward. If you like truffles, this is the bun for you, but as a person that only likes a hint of truffles, this was a bit much.
- Noodle with Scallion Oil – The noodles were well stir fried, if a little bit oily. I liked the flavor overall but sadly this normally vegetarian dish got tainted with dried baby shrimp. Normally I wouldn’t mind it so much but the dried shrimp was a lot and completely unexpected, marring this dish somewhat.
Pig-Shaped Taro Bun at Social Place
- Pig-Shaped Taro Bun – These buns are priced at 1 in each basket, so they are a little pricey. However, I would say they are worth it because not only are they incredibly cute, but they have this lightly sweet taro filling that is equally as pleasing to the palate. If they weren’t nearly $4USD each, I would have definitely order another one.
Charcoal Custard Bun at Social Place
- Charcoal Custard Bun – These “lava” custard buns look stunning, like many other items on the menu of course, but were just as good tasting. The custard was runny but not super messy and the bun was slightly chocolatey giving a very nice texture for dessert.
Overall, most of the dishes here taste good and look awesome. Like most every place, there are hits and misses and obviously many dishes are more Instagram focused than focusing on flavor. Ironically, I do think the more beautiful dishes are the better tasting dishes, although many of them have a higher price to match. I would definitely recommend others taking a visit in Hong Kong to take a little detour out of the safe and ordinary dim sum dishes at other place.
SINO IN SOCAL 