Last weekend I sort of had a “friend mixer”/Korean BBQ dinner when I brought together six friends from different corners of my life. The venue was Korea Kam Sing Restaurant in TST. According to HK food bible OpenRice, it’s one of the top-rated Korean restaurants in the district. We made a booking, as we were a party of seven on a Saturday night.
The restaurant itself looks small when you enter, but has a fair number of tables once you climb up a narrow staircase. We settled in and ordered an embarrassment of food: four portions of meat for BBQ (two pork and two beef), kimchi pancakes, soup dumplings, bibimbop (Korean stone pot rice), and fried ricecakes. This was on top of the eight or nine little appetizer plates that came free with our meal (glass noodles, tofu, kimchi, etc). We decided to wash it all down with Hite beer and soju.
Taking Korean to new Hite(s)
The kimchi pancakes were a hit, with a just-salty-enough soy sauce. I found the pancakes to be significantly less sour than the ones I’ve tried before, meaning they didn’t incorporate as much kimchi “juice”. Personally, I liked this Kam Sing version better.
The pork was also amazing, smothered in satay-like sauce and wrapped in lettuce leaves. One important lesson I learned from G, who lived in Korea, was to put the pork in your mouth first, then take a sip of soju, as it cuts the grease.
We literally ate non-stop with little chatter. However, at one point, G did pause to say, “Can we eat here every night?”
Korea Kam Sing Restaurant
G/F, 5 Humphreys Ave., Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
2311 8636
Cost: ~ $150 HKD/person (including drinks)
Far from domestic 