Chili Fagara

After my last unsuccessful attempt to dine at Chili Figara, I made sure that I made an early reservation to ensure that I would be able to partake in this fiery feast. The décor is quite stereotypically Chinese – red wall, bird cages, and traditional Chinese wooden furniture. It was obvious that this was a place that would appeal to westerners as being very “Asian” or exotic. Usually I would be a bit skeptical of these places as it feels a bit gimmicky and the food would probably be a tad funky or inauthentic as well, but luckily the food was very very good and I left with every intention of returning again. The restaurant is tiny and seats only around 5-6 tables. It is very dimly lit and it was a bit difficult to read the menu. One major complaint is that they don’t serve “normal” water; you have to order distilled or sparkling which is a major pet peeve of mine. This is especially annoying because they are serving really spicy food so they knew people would need water. Jerks!

We decided to skip out on the water and order some cold refreshing beers. The beers came with bowls instead of cups (another gimmicky touch!). I thought this was kind of cute as it made me feel like we were back in the olden days, but after a few sips I reverted back to just drinking from the bottle. 

The menu is divided into 3 different tastes: ma麻, la辣, and tang糖. Ma is numbing, la is spicy, and tang is sweet. The waitress brought out three dishes of seemingly complimentary starters to pique our taste buds, each dish corresponding to the 3 major flavors. The starters were decent and gave us a nice preview of the spice that awaits us. It was later that we found out these “complimentary” dishes were actually charged, which kind of pissed off C and I. I think it’s stupid when restaurants don’t let you have a choice and force these types of dishes on you, aka Billidarts with their stupid salami and olives. I am totally ok with a small charge for tea and such, but its agitating when they charge for these dishes without really giving the customers a choice. 

Shredded Chicken with Spicy Peanut Sauce

I really love peanut sauce; it’s so thick, creamy, and fragrant. The chicken was layered over some sliced cucumbers and other condiments that went really well with the spicy cream sauce. The chicken and the cucumbers were also a nice balance to the spice of the peanut sauce. When we first ate this, we did not think it was too spicy, but in a couple of minutes our mouths were on fire and we were grasping for our beers. Although it was spicy, the flavors were all very well done and were not overpowered by the spiciness.

Dumplings in Spicy Chili Sauce

This is a dish that I always get when I am eating at Shanghainese restaurants. This was obviously much spicier than the usual version I order! The dumplings were very well made; the skin was firm and thin, encasing a very generous amount of meat. The sauce was tangy, spicy, and bursting with flavor. Once again our mouths were numb and the sniffling was starting, but the dumplings were such delicious little morsels that we ensure that each bite was smothered with a generous amount of the spicy red sauce before being devoured.

Deep Fried Salt and Pepper Soft Shell Crab with Chilies

The next dish was another winner. The soft shell crab was very meaty yet still had an amazing crispy crunch to it. The flavors were mind-blowing and were super fragrant. The dried chilies made the dish look much huger than it actually is, and provided that glorious ma la flavor. This dish went really well with white rice and even though our bellies were stuffed we were still picking at these delicious bits of crab til we could not fathom another bite.

Overall, the food was fantastic at Chili Fagara and I am extremely excited to come again. Apart from the various little annoyances, everything else was fine and the food more than made up for these areas. One more thing of note is the service, the servers really need to smile more and be more polite. They were not really rude, but they looked like they shoved some chilies in their mouths before serving the food and really need to work on some hospitality skills. Other than that, I was impressed by Chili Fagara’s meal and if anyone can also handle the spice please let me know and we can all go for a spicy feast J!  

Chili Fagara

51A Graham Street

Soho

Central

Hong Kong