My Multi-culture Universe: 04-024 Snake soup

04-024
Snake soup

After talking about the exotic special menu of our local Pizza Hut, I am going to show you what authentic snake soup looks like. Normal Chinese restaurants do not serve snake soup or snake meat very often. Snakes are mainly served in specialty restaurants dedicated to serving snake soup.

Snake soup

Snake soup used to be more popular in the old days. It has become less popular now, especially among the young people. Due to the decline of the popularity, finding a snake restaurant in the city is not always an easy task.

On the new year’s day of 2024, I had a chance to visit one of the snake restaurants. The shop’s name is Snake King Kau, located in Kennedy Town, one of the old districts of Hong Kong.

Snake King Kau

The restaurant is very small in size. It does not even have a proper restaurant license. A food producer license is all they have. This means they cannot put more than 8 seats inside the restaurant. They mainly serve takeaway, though dine-in is also welcome.

The choice of food is limited. They sell mainly snake soup and snake broth. In addition, they also sell glutinous rice with Chinese sausages, chicken rice with snake sauce, and, if you are a meat lover, deep-fried snake nuggets. For those who do not like eating snake, they offer preserved duck leg with rice, mutton with rice, boiled vegetable, and Chinese herbal tea. Last, but not the least, they also sell Chinese herbal tea. I will explain what herbal tea is later.

The combo menu

Let us have a look at their prices. From left to right, the combo menu shows:

Large size snake soup & Glutinous rice with Chinese sausages - $130
Small size snake soup & Glutinous rice with Chinese sausages - $82
Snake broth & Glutinous rice with Chinese sausages - $58
Large size snake soup & Chicken rice with snake sauce - $140
Small size snake soup & Chicken rice with snake sauce - $92
Snake broth & Chicken rice with snake sauce - $68
Deep fried snake nuggets - $80

The à la carte menu

On the à la carte menu, from left to right, it shows:

Large size snake soup - $100
Small size snake soup - $52
Snake broth - $28
Tortoise soup - $52
Chicken rice with snake sauce - $50
Preserved duck leg with rice - $50
Glutinous rice with Chinese sausage - $33
Boiled vegetable - $25

On the last row at the bottom of the menu, it says $12 for an extra piece of Chinese sausage or Chinese black pudding.

In addition, there are some special menus on the wall.

Chinese herbal tea Sang Ji Sheng

One of them is the Chinese herbal tea menu. The herb for making the tea is called taxillus chinensis. Taxillus chinensis, also known as mulberry mistletoe or Sang Ji Sheng 桑寄生 in Chinese, is a parasitic plant that grows on the branches of trees, especially mulberry trees. It has been used for medicinal purposes for hundreds of years in traditional Chinese medicine. The main function of taxillus chinensis is to nourish the liver and kidney, strengthen the bones and muscles, expel wind and dampness, and prevent miscarriage. It also has various pharmacological effects such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticancer, and antihypertensive.

It costs $22 for a bowl of taxillus chinensis herbal tea and $26 if you want to add an egg to it.

HKD 600 for a pot of turtle soup

What could be more exotic than snake meat? How about turtle! We use softshell turtle, mixed with Chinese medicine, to make a soup. It costs $600 for one pot, enough for a whole family.

Tortoise Jelly and Tortoise Soup

Another menu item, less exotic but still unusual, is tortoise jelly and tortoise soup. Both sell for $52 each. There is no tortoise meat in the jelly or the soup. We only use the shell of the tortoise. No, they are not vegetarian.

You don’t have to worry about eating snake meat by mistake when you are in the city. Snake meat is very expensive. In fact, some unscrupulous snake restaurants may replace snake meat with chicken or pork in your soup. But at Snake King Kau, you were given a choice. If you don’t trust them, you can buy a whole frozen snake and take it home to cook it yourself. They sell them for $250 per snake.

HKD250 for a frozen snake

Let me show you what a bowl of snake soup looks like. On the table of a snake restaurant, there are normally some condiments. You will find pepper, Chinese vinegar, lemongrass (inside the tin box) and fried dough (inside the plastic box). Depending on your preference, some people like to mix them into the snake soup. I only like adding lemongrass to the soup, not the others.

Condiments to mix with snake soup

Lemongrass

Fried dough

This is what snake soup looks like. I ordered a small bowl. The size is not too large, only around 400ml. It is a thick soup with shredded snake meat, chicken, pork, fish maw, black fungus, and other ingredients. Like the snake soup pizza, not all the meat inside the bowl is snake. Snake meat has a very special texture and can be easily distinguished. The meat is rather tasteless though.

Can you see the texture of snake meat?

As a traditional snake restaurant, there is more to explore inside Snake King Kau. Apart from those special menus, you can also find photos and newspaper clippings hung on the wall. They show the brave history of the restaurant owner. You can see how many big snakes were hunted down by Mr. Kau in the past.

The restaurant is also a showroom of Mr. Kau's brave history in snake hunting

On the shelf of Snake King Kau, there are bottles of wine, made with snakes or other animals, such as deer tails, lizards or mice. Chinese believe that these exotic ingredients have magical power, especially for men. The wine is limited production and is stored inside recycled Blue Girl beer bottles. (Yes, Mr. Kau likes Blue Girl.) Some of them do not even have labels. Their prices are also expensive. A bottle of snake wine costs $160 to $180, depending on their function. A bottle of deer tail wine costs $300.