I ate Chicken Feet...and other food tales (not tails!)

I knew it would happen eventually while in Hong Kong...chicken feet. But before I get into that, I'll give you some background. Our lovely work colleagues in Hong Kong decided we should all go to dim sum together. We headed to the King of Kings in Central. That's the English name of the restaurant, I just can't remember what the Chinese name is. Per usual, we started with some jasmine tea and they actually brought us what I would consider dessert - some yummy little egg tarts. I didn't take a picture, but they were really yummy. Egg tarts are like a thing here. It's basically a tart shell filled with a firm pudding that has a custard and eggy taste and texture.

We ordered a variety of items including pork soup dumplings. A soup dumpling is basically a dumpling filled with soup and usually a protein like shrimp or pork. You have to be careful and let them cool down a bit first because they are like a little explosion in your mouth. You can see some here (with the red vinegar on top) along with half of a pork meatball, which tasted good but the consistency was a little mushy...oh, and they did not look appetizing! There is also a pork shumai here and a turnip patty.

One of my favorite dishes is this plate of fried little whole fish. They were fried to perfection and very flavorful. You could just eat them whole because their bones are so tiny you don't even notice them. Yumm!

OK, on to the, eh hem, good stuff. Second round of dim sum consisted of some green vegetables, yay! Finally something that isn't fried or stuffed :) The vegetable was really good, I don't even know what it is but it tasted like a cross between kale, bok choy, and broccoli. It was sauteed with ginger. Next to that is a vegetable spring roll and some beef wrapped in rice noodle. A little slimey and mushy for my taste.

Last, but not least, the chicken foot! It was cooked in a sweet and bbq type sauce. How creepy does that look?! I said I would try almost anything, so I had to dig right in. I made my coworker, Elaine, try one too! Look how happy we are to be eating chicken feet...

Elaine was a trooper and took a bite, but she wanted nothing to do with it after that. I ate my entire foot. The sauce was really good, which made it a lot better. It was kind of like eating chicken skin or the skin and cartilage on chicken wings, but not crunchy. It was firmer than skin, but not as crunchy as cartilage if that makes any sense. You have to eat around the bone of the foot and there are several little bones you have to spit out. Overall, I did not think it was that bad, just really creepy. It definitely hasn't been the hardest thing I've had to eat here so far!