Eat & Drink

Hot Tables

Sankinn Taiwanese Hot Pot

There is much to enthuse about at Sankinn Taiwanese Hot Pot, which opened recently to much fanfare. Located in tmtplaza, the large regional mall in Tuen Mun, Sankinn is operated by Taste Gourmet Group, a fast-growing local restaurant operator which has added several restaurants across the city in the past two years, featuring new and enticing dining concepts. That is certainly the case at Sankinn, our culinary destination this month.

The décor of the spacious restaurant is strikingly Taiwanese. The entrance is lined with old Taiwanese photos, landscape scenes and nostalgic memorabilia from train stations, old shops, a historic post box, and so on – all Instagram-ready. Inside, wavy curves dominate its design and fitout – partitions, ceiling and wall decorations, tables and seating accommodation. The restaurant offers an airy view of the mountains looming in the distance. Food stations are lined up offering buffet items that include snacks, Taiwanese canned drinks, salads and selected hot pot items.

Sankinn offers a selection of all-you-can-eat menus and nine soup bases to choose from. The soup base options include the much-touted Beauty Soup, Herbal Drunken Chicken Soup, Sour Cabbage Pork Belly, GreenPeppercorn Mala, which we chose along with the velvety Beauty Soup. Both soup bases are good. The mala base is spicy and flavourful but much less oily than the Chongqing mala hot pot.

For lunch, customers can choose from several 90-minute all-you-can-eat menu sets, depending on the cuts of meats and seafood selected. We chose the Premium Wagyu Beef Set ($298/adult, $228/children/elderly – promotional price only). The selection of meat includes various Wagyu beef cuts such as beef blade steak, chuck flap, beef rib, beef plate, beef brisket; lamb meat roll; US grain-fed Iberico pork; Matsusaka pork; bone marrow; seafood items such as fish maw, sliced grass carp fish, squid, whelk, cuttlefish and many others. This is a sumptuous feast – and plenty of it!

Included in the menu is a wide selection of Taiwanese snacks and street food for which the island is famous. They include lo shui (marinated) favourites such as Lo Shui Egg, Tofu, Pork Intestine, Beef Tendon, and Pig Ear, Taiwan Scallion Pancakes, Scallion Meat-Bun, which is juicy and filling, Oyster Omelette, Taiwanese Salty Chicken, along with deep-fried delicacies like Chicken Cutlet, Pork Cutlet and Crispy Fried Skin.

The desserts are unmistakably Taiwanese – Milk Brick, Jiufen and Shifen Sweet Taro Ball Desserts, and Sweet Soup and Sweet Potato Balls are all featured. The same goes for drinks, which includes popular canned drinks and bubble tea. Sankinn is currently offering free bubble tea for each guest who orders a hot pot menu set priced at $248 and above.

As a parting gift, you can pick-up a picturesque poster and send it to your friends. The poster can be dropped off at the restaurant’s own mail-box and Sankinn will send it out for you for free.

Taiwan is popular travel food destination for Hong Kong residents. While traveling there may not be possible because of Covid restriction, a visit to Sankinn is the next best thing to being there, and a pleasant remedy for those that crave all things Taiwanese. Give it a try; we highly recommend it.

Address: Shop 3229, 3/F. tmtplaza Phase 1, Tuen Mun, New Territories