Asian Cuisine in Watsonville via Guongzhou

The owners of , Liling Chen and Zou Bo Huang, are from Goungzhou, China, a bustling port city that is also the center for Cantonese food in China. The menu at HK Garden reflects the Cantonese sensibility in its cuisine, focusing on freshness and mild but rich flavors.

When my friend and I arrived at Hong Kong Garden on Saturday for dinner, there were a few full tables, but the restaurant wasn’t what I’d call busy. As we waited to give our order, however, we noticed that a lot of customers were coming in for take-out orders, a good sign that the restaurant is a local favorite.

The restaurant contains a large front dining room separated in halves by a screen and a second large room that serves as a banquet hall. Mounted on the ceiling are colorful paper parasols that mute the ceiling lights pleasantly.

A row of drawings and letters from schoolchildren decorate one wall. I got up to inspect the letters; they were all from a class at , thanking the restaurant owners for their food and for showing them how to use chopsticks.

The menu provides a lot of variety, with entrees that would please vegetarians as well as omnivores. While most of the items on the menu are traditionally Cantonese, you’ll also find more spicy dishes, such as calamari with curry sauce or Szechwan eggplant. Next time, I may try the Salt and Chili Pepper Prawns, which the owners' son, Yanwei "Joey" Huang, says is his favorite.

Although I was curious about the Cream Cheese Crab Meat Wonton, we decided to start off with the assorted appetizers. Our server brought us a large, wooden platter crowned with a small hibachi grill. It made for a dramatic presentation, and it was fun to finish grilling our meat over the flame (although the meat was already fully cooked).

Arranged around the grill were the appetizers: fried wonton, paper-wrapped chicken, skewered beef teriyaki, char siu (BBQ pork), breaded fried prawns and small spring rolls with a sweet-and-sour sauce. The BBQ pork was a little disappointing, as the pieces appeared to be fried, rather than sliced from roasted or barbecued pork butt or shoulder. Having eaten BBQ pork countless times in San Francisco’s Chinatown as well as in the Monterey Bay area, I expect marinated, freshly sliced pork. Otherwise, all the appetizers were good, especially the tender, paper-wrapped chicken.

Opting for shared dinner entrees, we ordered Shredded Black Pepper Steak, Fish Fillet with Ginger and Scallions and something I don’t see often on local Chinese menus: Garlic Spinach.

The pepper steak arrived sizzling hot. The meat was very tender, spiced with lots of ground pepper and accompanied by thinly sliced onions, scallions and bell peppers, simmering in a light sauce. It was absolutely delicious.

The fish entrée contained large pieces of a tender white fish (probably tilapia), mixed with sweet green onions and generous slices of ginger over rice noodles. Thankfully, the noodles weren’t included to provide bulk; rather, they added texture to the entrée. In proper Cantonese style—despite the ginger—the overall taste was mild, and pleasing.

I enjoyed the Garlic Spinach, a simple dish of spinach presented in its own vegetable juices (often called “pot liquor”) and spiked with plenty of garlic.

The excellence of the three dishes I sampled will definitely have me going back for more.  

1012 East Lake Ave. Hours: Open 6 days a week: 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 4:30-9:30 p.m. Closed on Thursdays. 831-724-1188.