Dongguan Tangxia Food Adventure: Salt-Baked Shredded Chicken at Ke Pin Hakka Cuisine!

Ke Pin Hakka Cuisine – A Meal of Necessity

Choosing to dine at Ke Pin Hakka Cuisine wasn’t exactly intentional—it was more of a last resort. The places we really wanted to eat at were either too crowded, had long wait times, or simply didn’t appeal to us. Some restaurants weren’t suitable for just two people, making ordering difficult. What surprised us the most was that a particular coconut chicken restaurant had managed to stay open for so long. In China, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for restaurants to survive, especially those in shopping malls. It’s not uncommon for a restaurant to disappear after just a few months! We briefly considered trying the coconut chicken but decided against it since we had eaten it before. So, we ended up going for Hakka cuisine instead.

But is the food here really Hakka cuisine? Or rather, does Hakka cuisine in mainland China taste the same as what most people are familiar with? There are definitely some differences. The one thing that remains unchanged is the bold and heavy flavors—every dish is designed to go well with rice!

One of their signature dishes is salt-baked shredded chicken. The chickens used here are quite small, which seems to be a common trend across different restaurants. At first, it may seem unusual, but after seeing it enough times, you just get used to it. The saltiness does penetrate the meat, but not very evenly—some parts are overly salty, while others are not. The meat isn’t completely dry, but it doesn’t retain much juice either. Personally, I found it quite average.

The tea tree mushrooms, on the other hand, had me eating a lot of rice.

To put it simply—it was salty!

One of the more unique dishes we tried was a seasonal egg dish filled with mugwort. The flavor of mugwort isn’t for everyone, so it might be an acquired taste.

Mainland China’s Wuchang rice is widely regarded as a high-quality rice variety. However, when the large pot of rice arrived, we were a bit taken aback—there was no way two people could finish it. In hindsight, ordering that much rice was a mistake. This meal ended up costing nearly 500 TWD per person, which goes to show that dining out in China isn’t necessarily cheap. Of course, we did order a bit more than necessary. Plus, you can usually find discount coupons online, but we were too lazy to look for them.

In the end, the tea tree mushroom hot pot was the only dish that left a lasting impression. Everything else was just average—it wasn’t a meal that felt particularly worthwhile.