Since 1966 – Steak on Flames at The Boston Restaurant

The Boston Restaurant in Wan Chai has been serving its signature dish, Beef Brochette Flambé, since 1966. Today I took a leisurely lunch there and had a delightful steak that came with amazing theatrics. The experience was really quite special.

The Story of Boston Restaurant

In those pre-economic boom years in Hong Kong’s history, there was a great divide between the restaurant choices for foreigners and the local population. Boston Restaurant came into the dining scene with a pitch that meets Hong Kong’s very nature of a mixed Chinese-and-Western heritage. As one of the first three steak houses in Hong Kong, it offers diners what is known endearingly as “soy sauce western,” a spin of western cuisine with local elements.

The so-called “local elements” of Hong Kong styled western cuisine usually involves the signature butter buns, and a choice of either cream-based or minestrone soup to start.

Then comes the meaty main course and diners can choose from a selection of steak, pork chop, mixed meats and lamb chops served up on a sizzling plate. The plating was simply a few slabs of meat placed above some French fries and veggies. For decades, this was what Hong Kong people thought of as western food, and Boston Restaurant led the trend.

There are two levels at the Boston Restaurant. The ground floor is a “snack shop,” with quite an elaborate menu to order from for takeout or dine-in at the small bar stools on the same floor. The menu for this snack shop offers “specials of the day,” with dishes that are quite distinctly the “Chinese-western” kinds.  There are classic choices of baked rice and spaghetti, usually coming with a generous layer of cheese to satisfy the Hong Kong diners’ expectation of slightly burned, melted cheese in all their baked dishes.

As to the restaurant upstairs, customers can either order from the lunch special or the a la carte menu. I opted for the famous Beef Brochette Flambé, which is such a signature that the restaurant owned a patent on the dish.

Photo: the Lunch Special at Boston Restaurant

Food Tasting at Boston Restaurant

The Beef Brochette Flambé adds a touch of theatrics to the common steak on sizzling hot plate. The beef comes first in a skewer. Then the waiter sets the meat on flames. The flames is induced by rose wine. Besides its dramatic visuals, this step, in its culinary intention, serves to introduce the fragrance of wine into the beef. As the meat is moved onto the sizzling hot plate, the flames catches on.

The theatrics will finish as the waiter pours the sauce over the sizzling hot plate, and you will hear the hissing of the sauce on the plate until it slowly cools. As per tradition, the sauces offered are black pepper, onion, garlic and soy based bbq. I sat there waiting, and it was with mouthwatering anticipation that I began my meal.

I dug in, and to my delight, the beef was very tender without sacrificing meatiness and juiciness. In typical local steakhouses, the chefs usually treat the meat heavily with baking soda to break down the toughness. There is no indication of such treatment in my dish because the meat had the right texture and moist. It went right through the gastronomical tract without any residue of tough, unchewable parts. There was also no visible rims of fat, unlike the standard soy sauce steaks that we get at local steakhouses.  For the price (HK $190 for a set), the Beef Brochette Flambé really lives up to its name.

I finished the wonderful lunch with Hong Kong style milk tea. Usually, at “western” restaurants the milk tea offered is rarely in the traditional Hong Kong style. But surely, Boston Restaurant has that. What a pleasant surprise.

At lunch hour, a little before 1pm, I did have to wait a while, for thirty minutes or so, before being seated. The ambiance of the restaurant is clean and modern, as apparently Boston Restaurant has gone through some significant revamp of its dining space.

I do hope that Boston Restaurant continues to stand the test of time. Due to the pandemic, a number of old, well-known local steakhouses have closed down. May the memory of “soy sauce western” live on, and thrive as witness to Hong Kong’s mixed heritage.

How to Get There

The address for Boston Restaurant is 3 Luard Road, Wan Chai. It is across from the Southorn Playground.

Sources

Timeout.com, Boston Restaurant.

Timeout.com, Hong Kong’s Oldest Restaurants You Need to Visit.

Donna Mah, Blazes from the Past, China Daily, April 23, 2012.

Gourmet KC on Boston Restaurant (Chin).