Once you’ve tried a fresh local chicken, it’s hard having anything less—and the city’s famed birds are now making the leap from home kitchens to Michelin-starred menus
In Hong Kong’s folk religion, to which most of the city’s temples are dedicated, whole chickens are presented as a gift to the gods, especially on special occasions such as the beginning and end of the lunar year. After they’re used in ceremonies, they’re eaten—it’s traditions like these that cement the chicken’s key role on dinner tables, especially festive ones.
Hong Kong diners prefer live birds, says David Lai, chef and owner of Neighborhood restaurant, known for using local chicken for their whole-bird sharing dishes such as salt-baked chicken. “The chicken we get are freshly slaughtered each morning and delivered to our restaurant in the afternoon,” he says.
Hongkongers’ preference for live chicken likely stems from the fact that poultry were often kept as domestic animals and easy to come by, as well as the Cantonese obsession with fresh produce in general.
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Freshness is the key
“Fresh is always best and that’s what Cantonese ingredients are all about, especially when it comes to chicken,” says Matt Abergel, co-owner and executive chef of yakitori stalwart Yardbird, who has used local chicken since Yardbird’s genesis. He says, “When I came to Hong Kong 11 years ago, the city had a somewhat self-deprecating sense of food culture. It never made sense to me to not use local birds. I’ve always had the ability to not really care about people’s opinions and to me, it seemed like foreign chefs were using imported ingredients not necessarily because they were better, but because they were afraid that it would seem like they were serving an inferior product if it was local. Also, the fact that there is complete transparency in how fresh the birds are—killed today, used today—which is impossible when you use imported birds.”
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