The Spring Deer Restaurant

[Emdee]

THE SPRING DEER RESTAURANT (IN THE MISTS OF TIME)

Timeline #1, Hong Kong, July 1973: The Empress Hotel was my “home” for six months during a cooking stint in Hong Kong in 1973. Lying on my bed during my “down time” I used to watch the procession of customers entering and leaving the restaurant directly across the road from the hotel. Its neon sign, with its blinking lights would keep me awake at night and the boisterous exiting of its patrons would awaken me at other times.

I inquired one day of the concierge desk at the Empress as to their opinion of the Spring Deer restaurant and instantly they replied “is good, very good, near best in Hong Kong”. Later I found out that it had only been in operation for about four years but had really garnered a big reputation over the previous two years primarily due to the arrival from Communist China of a highly acclaimed chef who somehow had managed to extract himself and his family from the yoke of the cadres and the politburo from across the Pearl River estuary.

Timeline #2: Hong Kong, August 1973: I find that I have the unbelievable pleasure of having four consecutive days off duty from the Prince Hotel’s kitchens on Nathan Road. I determine that one of the first things that I will do is to have dinner at the Spring Deer. Arriving around 7 pm and only getting partly wet from the monsoonal downpour by running flat out across on a diagonal from the hotel to the restaurant’s front door, I alight the stairs and wait at the reception desk. “You have a vacancy tonight”? I ask. “Yes, how many” was the response? “Just me – no one else”, I reply.

“Oh, no good, we no serve single man eating”. Despondent, I descend the stairs and stare glumly at a flooded Mody Road.

Timeline #3: September, 1973: I’m prone in bed listening to beautiful classical music on the Rediffusion Radio station. One particular track has me mesmerised, but I miss its title by attending to a telephone call. I call the station and explain to the receptionist that I would like to chat to the female presenter so I can get the title of the track that is spinning around in my head. A few minutes later I’m engaged in a conversation with an English lady who has obviously been rather well educated judging from her “Oxcam” accent.

She enlightens me that the title I’m looking for is Antonin Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony “The New World Symphony”. I ask her opinion of where to buy it, and she obliges with that as well. She asks me why I’m in Hong Kong and I explain my contractual obligations at the Prince Hotel Group and in so doing, I get to ask her about the discrimination of dining alone at popular Cantonese restaurants.

She concurs and tells me of her instances of the same. A light bulb comes alight in my brain. “Would you like to accompany me to the Spring Deer one night and it would be my absolute delight to buy you dinner”. To my surprise, she agrees.

Timeline #4: Sunday, September 30, 1973: I agree to meet Linda in the bar at the White Stag Pub on Nathan Road for a few drinks and a “get to know you”. I sit there nervously wondering what this woman with the posh English accent will be like. There are many American, Australian and English accents in the bar and my eyes search the seats like a radar scanner for a likely candidate.

A few minutes later, a tall brunette woman enters the bar and looks a little lost as she surveys its denizens. I walk over and ask “Would you be Linda from Radio Rediffusion”? “Yes, I am” she replies.

So over a few drinks we get to know each other in a shallow way, as it always is when one is first introduced to a stranger.

Thirty minutes later we are ascending the steps of the Spring Deer wherein I have taken the prudent step of making a booking. We wait at the reception desk and I nervously note the place is full. I give my name to the receptionist, who then snaps something in Cantonese to one of the penguin suit clad waiters and we are ushered down to the bottom reaches of the restaurant near the kitchen.

The concierge desk back at the Empress have told me that this restaurant has built its reputation on its Peking Duck and I ask Linda if one our choices can be the acclaimed dish from the royal courts of the Imperial Era of China. “Why yes”, she concurs “It is my favourite Chinese dish”. That settled we peruse the extensive for another dish. We settle for crispy fried Cantonese beef in a sweet sauce and a serve of steamed rice.

The Peking Duck arrives, with one of the kitchen brigade in full regalia including a ludicrous tope and white gloves. He begins to dissect the bird which has a glistening bronze colour and then expertly folds the crisp skin into wafer thin pancakes and douses the meat with what I later discern to be Hoi Sin sauce and then neatly folds the pancakes with pencilled slices of cucumber and spring onions.

From the full bird there are 16 pancakes and we take our time consuming this outstanding delicacy, all the while telling each other a little more of our backgrounds.

Unbeknown to us, at the conclusion of the Peking Duck dish, the carcass was whisked away and twenty minutes later a big tureen is set upon the table with a steaming soup inside. “What’s this then” I ask the waiter?
“Is second course Peking Duck”. I had been used to just having the pancakes back in Australia so this was something new. We had two bowls of the duck stock each, with neither of us really appreciating the greasy concoction, so I motioned to the waiter to remove it. At that stage Linda remarked that she didn’t know how she would handle the next course and for that matter neither did I.

The crispy fried beef arrived smothered in a reddish sauce. We ate just a little each and it was absolutely beautiful, but our respective tummies didn’t do it justice. Had either of us known about the second course of the duck we probably would not have ordered the dish.

We finished our Tsing Tsao beers I paid the bill on the way out at reception which was a whopping $HKG350, but as I was paid in Australian dollars at the time and the exchange rate was around 8/1 it equated to $AUD43.50, which in 1977 was a lot of money.

I bade Linda goodbye and asked if we could do it again, to which she readily agreed.

Timeline #4: Sunday, 2 December, 1973: I’m dining with the charming one whom I taken out on at least 20 occasions over the preceding months. We are back at the Spring Deer for my farewell dinner, as I have completed my contract with the Prince Group and on the following day I would by flying back to Sydney. I sit there looking at the pot sticker dumplings toying with them, whilst making small talk with Linda. Inside I'm feeling very glum. I tell her that working in Hong Kong is like working in a furnace but that her presence and friendship has made my stint memorable.

I then look her straight in the eye and stumblingly ask “Would you consider coming back to Oz with me, I know it is a big ask, but just consider it”. The reply is a high squeal followed by : “Oh yes, Oh yes” and she immediately ran around the table and gave me a big hug.

I let out an almighty “Yahoo”, which startles everyone in the restaurant as we are standing there embracing. The diners cotton on that something special has happened and they all start clapping.

On the way out, I pull out a sheaf of Hong Kong notes to pay for the delicious meal of won ton soups, potsticker dumplings, and a whole Garoupa, steamed to perfection and swathed in soy sauce with accompanying bok choi.

Ann, the receptionist whom we have got to know quite well over the preceding months as we dined there each week, waves her hand and says “is free, have happy life in Australia”, as she hugs Linda firstly then me.

Timeline #5, August 1977: Linda and I are staying at the Empress Hotel on our last holiday before we start a family. It rekindles fond memories for me and the twinkling neon sign across Mody Road is still the same as it was when it kept me awake four years earlier. As we ascend the steps of the Spring Deer a feeling of nostalgia sweeps over me, for I realise that it was in this restaurant that the crucible turning point in my life occured.

At the reception we find that Ann is no longer there but has emigrated to Canada. Secondly, we find the acclaimed chef, Zhong Wei has also gone to Canada. We wonder what the food will be like without his skill in the kitchen. As it is such a nostalgic and romantic night, we ordered Peking Duck as we had done on our first date but this time we are much wiser about the second course. We also ordered our favourite Potsticker dumplings and a Szechuan Hot and Sour soup.

We shouldn’t have worried about the food, as the Peking Duck when it was dissected by the same chef - Sam - as four years earlier was every bit as good. The glistening skin and bronzed meat with the pencilled cucumber and spring onion sticks with the sticky Hoi Sin sauce was as good as we remembered. When the second course arrived, it was déjà vu 1973, with the greasy stock presented as a soup. This time we had one bowl each, before calling it quits. The spicy Szechuan soup and the potsticker dumpling along with the Peking Duck pancakes had more than satisfied our appetite. I pay at the reception desk once again this time it amounted to $495HKG which equated to $AUD61.85. As I descend the stairs I am doing a mental calculation of what I have to cook in Australia to get the same amount of money.

Timeline, #6: Hong Kong, December, 1993: Linda, our son Mark who is now 15 and your correspondent are walking down Mody Road towards the Spring Deer restaurant. We have holidayed in Hong Kong ostensibly so Linda who is now known as the Shopper Girl can get some bargain shopping done for Christmas presents in Australia later in the month. The previous night, Mark had noticed another Chinese restaurant farther up Mody Road with a menu pasted in the window and which touted itself as a “Chinese Remedial Restaurant”. Among the delicacies were “deer’s penis, bears claw, bird’s nest soup, cobra, frog glands, and pigs intestines”. He asked “Will there be an ‘interesting’ menu at the Spring Deer. “I hope not”, I responded.

We have explained the significance of the Spring Deer for Linda and myself to Mark, but in the way of all teenagers he doesn’t get it and instead is more interested in the Walkman he has bought in Hong Kong and the INXS tape that he is bopping and jiving too.

Once again the tide nostalgia sweeps over the Shopper Girl and your correspondent as our minds travel back in the mists of time to our first date in this very place on that rainy Sunday 20 years earlier. We couldn’t order anything else but our first meal together, so it was Peking Duck once again, but this time we had a teenager with us who had an insatiable appetite. So the 16 pancakes were devoured in no time, but on this occasion there is another chef doing the dissecting as I learn that “Sam” is now the sous chef, having worked his way up the kitchen brigade’s pecking order during his 25 years as a loyal servant.

As the world changes, some things remain constant and the Spring Deer’s Peking Duck is one of them. Same as before, déjà vu, same same, beautiful, can’t be beaten.

The second course arrives and Linda looks at me and gives a wry grin and nods in the direction of Mark. We have our obligatory one bowl, while Mark has several more until the tureen is finished. Our waiter returns and says “so like very much yes”? Mark nods vigorously and we smile wanly.

I pull out my Amex card at the reception desk and pay the bill for three soups (one chicken and sweet corn, one won ton and one Szechuan), two serves of the potsticker dumplings and two serves of spring rolls for the teenager and the Peking Duck courses. The tab comes in around $HKG795 but with the poor Aussie dollar now only fetching a little over five Hong Kong dollars to one Aussie the bill evens out at $AUD144.50.

Timeline #7: June, 2010: As my wife of 33 years and your correspondent walk down Mody Road towards the venerable Spring Deer, we remark on how much TST as it is known has changed over the past four decades. The foreshore has been reclaimed many times to the extent that the Spring Deer in the early 1970s was only a four minute walk to the esplanade, now it was several blocks.

We note that many buildings have been wrecked and have been replaced with gleaming examples of 21st century consumerism.

We arrive at the Spring Deer and I walk out onto the street to see if the neon sign is still the same. I need not have bothered as it is still the same one that kept me awake almost forty years earlier. We take the lift up to the restaurant and the thought occurs to me that we would never have thought of taking the lift in our younger years.

At the reception desk I gaze down the restaurant and it is exactly the same as it was on our first date all those years ago. However, a new generation of the family has now taken over this venerable institution and no one knows us. “How sad”, remarks my wife but time and tide waits for no man or so I think.

We are shown to a two seater table that overlooks Mody Road and I gaze over to where the Empress Hotel once stood and where another gleaming building now resides in its place. As the waiter is about to give us the menus, I wave it away and order our favourite Szechuan Soup, the Potsticker Dumplings and of course the Peking Duck.

The Szechuan soup is as good as ever, but it comes in a tiny bow which produces only about several mouthfuls. The Potsticker dumplings are sublime with two dipping sauces accompanying them and the Peking Duck is just like 37 years ago, when Zhong gained his reputation in Hong Kong of the master chef of Peking Duck. It still produced the 16 pancakes, it was still dissected by a toped chef with white gloves, and it was still accompanied by the perfectly cut pencilled cucumber sticks and spring onions.

The second course arrived, we had our one obligatory bowl of the greasy stock masquerading as Peking Duck soup and a while later I was producing my Amex at the reception desk. The little Aussie is now worth six Hong Kong dollars to one Aussie. With the bill coming in at $HKG850 it works out at $AUD130 for our evening meal.

I’m surprised as I had expected to pay more and thinking that maybe they have made a mistake we don’t wait for the lift but swiftly descend the stairs. Standing out in Mody Road, the Shopper Girl looks as beautiful as the day I first laid my eyes on her in the White Stag Pub on Nathan Road almost four decades earlier. I look at my reflection in the gleaming windows of where the Empress Hotel once stood and I conclude that the years have not been so fortunate to me. Too many hours in messy kitchens, too much intake of fumes, too much stress.

At the corner of Salisbury and Mody I look back over my shoulder at the Spring Deer and all the memories it brings back. We are now heading for imminent retirement, so we probably won’t grace the portal of the Spring Deer again. A sad nostalgia sweeps over me as I recall the great turning point in my life then the thought of earlier re-enters my head once again “time and tide waits for no man”.
Amen

[kyshel]

BRAVO!! and many thanks for sharing those memories

We're off to Hong Kong in Feb. My first trip since 2003 and the very first for my husband. It will amost be our 6th anniversary and plan to have our special memories, too

[Lastrun]

How nice. Enjoyed your tale................we return to Hong kong in June for our 55thwedding aniversary , we spent our 50th there and so many years ago our 25th.........we stay in what is now the IC HKG, on our 25th it was a Holiday Inn....the view with room service, a good drink and my girl....great life........Hong Kong is special.

[Henry]

Wow how does it feel to share so many memories? But really thank you for your efforts!