Diner’S Diary | Best roast goose in Hong Kong just a memory now Yat Lok closed – Tai Po restaurant’s version was almost flawless
The meat was addictively good – tender and juicy, the skin crispy and not too fatty underneath. But preparing and serving roast goose at the family-run restaurant was hard work, and after 61 years its ovens are now cold
Around 20 minutes after the shop’s supposed opening time, the roller shutters came up and Chu beckoned us inside. The decor for the roast meat place was strange – it looked more like a seafood restaurant, with several fish tanks around the room and screens showing sea creatures, with intermittent clips of an old episode of Travel Channel show No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain sampling roast goose at the restaurant.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen Chu was busy getting ready for lunch service. He explained that one of his staff was ill so he was extra busy these days, and wasn’t pleased to have to entertain reporters who wanted to know how he made his roast goose.
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Nevertheless he patiently explained how his father didn’t start out as a restaurateur, but was a Chinese opera singer. But with mouths to feed at home, he eventually gave it up and dabbled in a series of businesses before finally settling on roasting geese.
The original Yat Lok opened in Fanling, a town to the north of Tai Po, in the northern part of Hong Kong’s New Territories, in 1957. In 1976 Chu’s father moved the restaurant to Tai Po.
