CookSmart (12th Issue) Page10

EatSmart Restaurants Snaps

North Garden Restaurant

A New Taste in Old Hong Kong

North Garden Restaurant is located in Sheung Wan, one of the oldest commercial district in Hong Kong and also home to many Chinese herbal medicine stores, dried seafood stores, finance and trading firms and China enterprises. Many of the people working here are fine food aficionados. North Garden Restaurant, since its establishment in 2005, has already earned itself a distinguished reputation for great food. It has won further applause from the customers after the introduction of a couple of “EatSmart” dishes lately.

Nouveau Cuisine Cooked with Premium Ingredients

Ms Judy LEUNG, Business Manager of the restaurant group, said that the founders of the group, who had been in the business for many years, have seen a growing trend towards healthy eating. They aim to serve their customers with delicious nouveau Cantonese cuisine cooked with premium ingredients, less oil and less salt. They, moreover, refrain from adding flavour enhancers to the soups.

The restaurant group joined the “EatSmart@restaurant.hk” Campaign last December. Mr. WU Wing-ming, the Chief Cook of Sheung Wan branch, said that the briefing sessions help them better understand how to make tasty and healthy dishes with less sugar and salt. “We used to poach vegetables with pork soup,” he said, “now we use mushrooms and vegetables soups, which make vegetables less greasy, healthier and equally delicious.”

North Garden Restaurant has introduced in their menu five “EatSmart” dishes, which are both innovative and delicious. "Whole Pumpkin Stuffed with Stir-fried Assorted Mushrooms", for instance, is inspired by the Hakka Big Basin Dish, while "Steamed Egg Custard with Minced Pork and Vermicelli Topped with Fish Fillets" gives a healthy twist to a traditional Tanka recipe. The “EatSmart” dishes are well received and more customers are opting for “EatSmart” items.

Strive for Continuous Improvement

Judy said that the restaurant had established a regular and loyal customer base, and so they need to create new dishes to keep them coming back. The restaurant thus changes the menu every two months. She said, “If you want to become better, you will seek to improve yourself.” The restaurant subsidises colleagues to visit other restaurants for food tasting. Members of the kitchen staff, moreover, frequently exchange views with food suppliers to explore new food ingredients and dishes.

Judy realises that the mushrooming of online restaurant guides give the sector an impetus to constantly improve their services. She said “With so many restaurant reviews and ratings on the web, there is no place to hide.” As part of the efforts to improve service quality, the restaurant team holds two meetings a day to review their operations as well as food and service qualities. Dishes identified as unsatisfactorily cooked are pictured for future reference.