Keung Kee Seafood Restaurant

It was a Saturday night and my boyfriend and I were feeling far too lazy to venture out further than a few stops from Tai Wai. I did a quick search and found this seafood restaurant around a residential district on the riverside — Garden Rivera in English. Usually, nearby residential areas in Tai Wai and Sha Tin can you find some pretty good local family-​run restaurants, and Rivervine was no exception. Not simply this, but the restaurant was super cheap and has now become a worthy contender to some Sai Kung seafood eateries because of its proximity to the abode.
Although it calls itself a seafood restaurant, its signature dishes actually consist of: chicken and abalone congee, and roast pigeon. Now, there are a few roast pigeon places in both Tai Wai and Sha Tin that have become renowned across the foodiesphere in Hong Kong, so I wasn’t bringing my hopes up about this particular dish — especially since, in conjunction with the congee, it comes at the super deal of 52 bucks. (The congee on its own is $ 18… so yes, don’t expect real abalone, and don’t expect much of the imitation either.) The pigeon was just so-​so, not as tender or as succulent as other places, but for how much it cost — a pretty damn good deal, and if you’re like me, you’re just gonna dip it in the excellently roasted salt anyway so you won’t really be able to discern any subtle flavours if there were.
The congee was good, mainly because the two odds pieces of chicken were so perfectly salty and complemented the jok well. The abalone imitation, I think sea whelk is usually the textural substitute, was fine — and portioned so that each person had one slice each. What do you expect for $ 18?
As for seafood, the quality of the cooking doesn’t really come close to the Sai Kung seafood masters but you’re paying considerably less. There is an ongoing deal for $ 158 — you pick three seafood items on the menu, including scallops with garlic vermicelli, razorclams, and crab with ginger and scallions. The razorclams were so fat and juicy, and we asked for black bean razorclams, so they had onions and red peppers fried with them too. The scallops were fresh, and they served us four pieces (!!!), but the vermicelli was a little overcooked so it wasn’t very nice to eat with the scallops.
In all, there’s definitely a return visit in the works, especially when we can’t be bothered to head all the way to Sai Kung for a seafood fix.