得龍大飯店 Tak Lung Restaurant

新蒲崗康強街 25-29 號地下
25-29 Hong Keung St. G/F
San Po Kong, Kowloon
KMB Bus 5C
Get on at TST Star Ferry Pier, or Hung Hom Station
Get off at Ng Wah Catholic School


If you want good ol' country-style Cantonese cooking, without the expensive decor of banquet style restaurants (酒樓 jau lau), this is where you want to go: Tak Lung Restaurant. With a down-to-earth cha chaan teng atmosphere, its quality cooking is bound to please anybody. Plus they've even got a neat rating system on their menu telling you which dishes are ordered the most.

My visit started off with this freebie appetizer, nice to munch on to pass the time.

咖喱焗牛尾 Curry Baked Oxtail

This curry oxtail was delicious. The sauce was spiced just right, the potatoes gave it hearty texture, and the oxtails were simply succulent. Slices of carrot gave a sweetness to it all, and while the little clay pot that holds it might be the secret to its perfect fusion of flavors, it does definitely give it a nice cozy appearance. On top of that, the Curry Baked Oxtail actually came with slices of garlic bread.

While curry oxtail with garlic bread isn't quite country-style Cantonese cooking, they do it up so amazing here that you'd be a fool to pass it up. But the draw to Tak Lung is, after all, country-style Cantonese, and so this next dish is an exemplar of it.

家鄉炆鵝缽 Country-Style Goose

This dish had such a unique flavor, a kind of sweetness boosted by a bit of spice and salt that kicks your tastebuds into ecstacy. The taro in the dish took on the juicy flavor of the goose, making it the best taro I've ever tasted before, and I normally don't even like taro. The pieces of goose meat were tasty, and had a filling feeling biting into them, but not too heavy, a perfect balance of tenderness and heartiness. And the interesting bowl it's served in keeps it nice, hot and tasty. This is a signature dish of the restaurant, making it known throughout Hong Kong for the place to go for goose-meat.

And of course, what would a traditional Cantonese meal be without sweet soup? The green bean soup was another freebie.

The only drawback I can think of for this restaurant is that it's not the most conveniently located. I went to San Po Kong, the district it's located in, mostly because I wanted to see the area my mom got her first job as a teenager, and moved out to live on her own for the first time. But while family history was what drew me to Tak Lung Restaurant, it was the knock-your-socks-off food that'll have me recommending this place to anybody. It's well worth the trip, which is a 30 minute bus ride from Hung Hom station. I'm certainly not the only one impressed, considering that they had to buy more space just to keep up with the business. Check them out. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.