Chuen Kee Seafood Restaurant

Fresh seafood in Sai Kung! Abalone, sea urchin, scallops, oysters, lobsters, crab. You name it. Take out and sit down both available. The bill will be calculated based on the price of the seafood ingredients and cooking, separately, if you choose to sit and eat at the restaurant for some Canto-​style seafood dishes. Solid flavors!

Alright I have no idea if this is the right Sai Kung restaurant, but all I remember is that there’s a Chuen Kee, Sung Kee, another one. They’re honestly all pretty much the same given they’re competing for the same customers. Hong Kongers seem to like coming out here for the view as they eat dim sum… but being that you’re right by the sea, we opted for the seafood. We got mantis shrimp, abalone, sea snails and something else but it was all out-​of-​this-​world delicious. Yes, you can probably get the same for cheaper elsewhere in SE Asia, but being that you’re in HK, I don’t know where you can get fresher or better seafood. If you’re in HK, you have to come up to Sai Kung. And don’t take the bus as that takes a little over an hour and requires multiple transfers. Take a cab for no more than $ 15 – 25 at most (despite it being a 45 min drive) and spend the day or afternoon enjoying the food and the views.

Quality may depend on your choice of sea food. Found it to be a great experience.

A sad and disappointing pick of a restaurant in Sai Kung, a coastal town otherwise very well known for its seafood.
The one upside was the outdoor dining area with a nice view of the harbor. The dim sum selection was limited with staples like cha siu bao somehow out of supply by the time we arrived. For shellfish, it was nice to try some more exotic variants of shellfish that I’d never come across before in the US. That being said, some of the clams had a mild fishy taste to them while a dish of fried shrimp were overcooked so badly that the flesh inside was burnt to a crisp and entirely inedible. And as this was a more expensive type, the manager offered to only replace three of the original dozen or so despite the failed preparation…
And to top things off, the place as a whole was like that of a street stall in terms of cleanliness with disgusting bathrooms.

Ordered stirred squid (decent, no flavor — ³⁄₅), fried chili shrimps (great, very tasty — ⁵⁄₅), halves of mantis shrimps in garlic (decent but nothing special — ³⁄₅) and fried oysters (did not taste much — ³⁄₅).
The pricing structure was a bit confusing — you go to the market, pick out the goods and then you pay a cooking fee. The price was more than we expected but still decent for fresh fish (paid about 450hkd per person, including a beer). The staff forgot about some of our orders and we needed to remind them several times.
Visited this place after a nice (yet exhausting) hike in Sai Wan. Worth a visit, but don’t expect your taste buds to fall in love.

Yumcha in Sai Kung on a Tuesday morning? Why not? The 2 of us had 6 – 7 dishes & it was all tasty. At this Resturant, you can yum cha outside. 1^st for me. I would love to do it again… Wish it wasn’t so far from. Central –45 min drive & expensive $ 30/​hr parking. But if you’re in Sai Kung, check the place out.

We had dinner here after a 3-​hour hike in the nearby mountains.
Dinner was pretty good! We had a number of dishes:
1) Fried Rice — quality comfort food, not too salty, not too oily, flavor was delicate, well done.
2) Fish Cake in Fried Dough — Yum! This was really tasty even without any of the dip that they provided. A bit on the oilier side, but that’s okay with me.
3) Lettuce Sauteed in Garlic — This was okay. The dish was very heavy on the garlic and had a somewhat thicker sauce. If you are looking for a clearer, more delicate vegetable dish, avoid this. Otherwise, it was alright.
4) King Crab in Fried Dough — This was through and through, delicious. You can’t really get this wrong. The bread crumbs were very good, but not spectacular. Was also thrown off by the large cubes of salt. Avoid the white stuff amongst the breadcrumbs!
5) Fried Fish — We went downstairs to choose a fresh fish. This was amazing, topped off with cilantro, lemongrass, and chives. The fish was perfectly done, not under or overcooked. The flavor was delicate despite the fried fish skin (which by the way was perfect, and this is coming from someone who doesn’t normally like fish skin). This was my favorite of all the dishes.
6) Clams with Garlic — yum, yum, yum. Large plate of fresh clams. A LOT of garlic. Like an unbelievable amount.
The waiters are very quick to change your teapot when you need them to. And oranges were provided at the end!
This came to a total of 285 HKD for each person in a group of six, which was pretty decent considering all the fresh seafood we ordered.
Would recommend!

Have been going here for years already, dim sum for breakfast and lunch and seafood for dinner. The food has generally been good with a few exceptions. Apparently there is a different chef on some days in the beginning of the week and the difference in taste is noticeable, especially for the seafood.
A lot of reviews mention overcharging. This probably happens from time to time. Be particularly careful about the sets. Have seen wildly different sizes of the same dishes in the same set served to tables right next to each other.
It’s hard to prove, but prices do seem to vary with the day of the week also. Having said that, I’ve really come away disappointed with the food itself.

We came here for afternoon tea, and still it’s pretty popular and crowded. Granted it’s Sunday… on a holiday weekend…
Their specialty is seafood, but for a lighter meal opt for their fish cakes (with noodles or just on their own). They are chewy and delicious. And of course they do a decent job of Hong Kong beverages, like yin yeung (tea and coffee), or milk tea.
Inside it sits like a typical Hong Kong diner, so cramped booths and a chance of sitting with another group at the same table. Service is meh as usual, so make sure you go with a local if you don’t speak Cantonese.

There are several seafood places to choose from in Sai Kung. We picked Chuen Kee because it was the busiest and appeared to be full of locals. We were not disappointed. We had spicy salt mantis shrimp (aka pissing shrimp), stir fried razor clams with peppers in black bean sauce, steamed rock cod, steamed scallops with garlic and vermicelli, stir fried tong choy, and of course, some Tsing Tao beer. Everything was cooked perfectly. The razor clams were particularly awesome and I loved the shrimp!
Prices are kind of on the high side. We paid close to $ 200 USD for 3 people and the service was just ok. Except the guy at the fish tanks was really nice and offered all sorts of suggestions on how to have everything cooked. I would go back again simply for the quality of the food. Plus if you get a table outside, the ambience is quite amazing with a great view of the harbour.

going to Sai Kung for seafood is like going to Fisherman’s wharf for best crab. not absolutely necessary since can get all the good stuff on HK island too, like the wet markets. thus locals mostly take tourists there, also to look at all the seafood displayed.

Now I know that everybody knows going to Sai Kung for a seafood dinner is like prepping yourself to be eaten alive. Overcharging, underweighting and I have heard of any and every way there is to cheat you away from your hard earned cash. these days this is not done on a grand scale (at least not to locals anyways) as I suspect that they have worked it out that we know it too. The most patrons you see here these days are mainland tourists and foreign tourists with their local friends; so an entire table full of locals must be a rarity.
To provide a more balanced view, Chuen Kee is one of the most established seafood restaurants on the Sai Kung seafront and indeed their shops seem to span over several time zones there, with the biggest fish tanks and biggest variety of seafood upfront. Its brightly lit and there are always staff trying to drag you in there so its all very welcoming. there is a huge grouper tank at the entrance and apparently they are not for sale (I can hear WWF fans breathing a sigh of relief).
Don’t get me wrong– neither am I saying the food is bad here. I would be fair and say the way they prepare seafood is actually ok; seafood might not be for everyone but if you were in HK on a trip this would definitely make your trip more complete.
Its just that, A) you almost certainly have to go for the sets and B) have you seen the prices? I’m no masterchef but even I would know that the bits they give you in the set aren’t the nice bits and with the prices I have to fork out I can have a seafood gala at home.
So that’s what I do now.

I went here with A’s family, and we went for the package. Always go for the package. I’ve found that the set prices are more reasonable than individually ordering seafood in the tanks according to market price. This particular package, good for four, includes your choice of 5 seafood dishes with vegetables and dessert. Our go-​to favourites in Sai Kung are always: the boiled shrimp with sweet soy sauce, plain yet always generously portioned and super fresh; scallops served in the half shell with yet another simple glass noodle and garlic topping; steamed fish; stir-​fried crab with ginger and onion; and the much-​loved mantis shrimp. These aren’t necessary the best-​value-​for-​money picks, though. I did see lobster with cheese sauce on the list, but I’m not much a fan of anything cheesy in Chinese cooking. Unless, of course, you’re talking about «Chinese cheese», the fermented bean curd or 腐乳, which is typically served here with morning glory/​tung choi. We opted for the tung choi alternative that night, cooked with shrimp paste.
In all, the food was good — particularly the steamed fish which had a sauce that A’s mother said was made with a special lard, thus giving it a very full flavour that can’t really be replicated at home.
However, when it came to the dessert, we were slightly appalled. We asked for red bean soup, and noticed the server went over to the corner of the restaurant where there were dirty dishes and trash overflowing from the bin. In between these two attractive points of reference, there was a red cooler. The server opened the lid, tossed it to the side, and ladled in some red bean soup into the plastic bowls on a tray. It looked so unappealing, and we were so happy to see the tray of bowls taken away somewhere beyond the crowd. Our happiness faded, however, when the tray came back, this time with little spoons in each bowl.
A’s father was the only one on the table courageous enough to give it a taste, and turned out it was lukewarm and generally not palatable. So we asked for some sweet watermelon slices straight from the fridge instead. Crisis averted.
Other than desert, I’d definitely recommend!