Yaik Sang – now romanised as Yixin – was co-founded by WONG Jim Wan and partners in 1963. The flamboyant Wong was also proprietor of Winner House Hotel in North Point.
Photos in the main private room in Yixin reveal a debonair hotelier restaurateur immaculately turned out and with a ready smile. Yaik Sang attracted its fair share of the rich and famous of Hong Kong and showbusiness.
The restaurant was one of the places to see and be seen. The main draw though was – still is – the delicious Cantonese cuisine and dim sums. Although the restaurant was popular, high rental and some of the partner’s retirement, led to Yixin’s closure in 2002. Thankfully, that lasted but a year because a filial daughter of Wong revived the restaurant (and whose son Derek To is now involved in Yixin).
Yixin is well known to Hong Kongers of an older generation who revere classic Cantonese cuisine. It is situated in Wanchai which boasts a high concentration of some of Hong Kong’s most famous restaurants. A younger crowd is also finding its way to Yixin. They go there to celebrate dishes they have grown up with.
Lemon Chicken is reputed to have been created at Yixin which, therefore, makes it one of the most recent additions to the lexicon of Chinese dishes. There are scarce few restaurants in the world where we can say we are savouring a dish first created in the kitchen from which it emerges. Go Yixin Go!
G/F • Shanghai Industrial Investment Building • 48-62 Hennessy Road • Wanchai
益新美食館 • 灣仔軒尼斯道48-62號上海實業大廈地下及地庫
