Chef Sham H.K. Vinegar Trotters @ Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre

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I have wanted to try the pig's trotters from Chef Sham H.K. Vinegar Trotters for the longest time, but somehow, I would always ended up having something else while at Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre.

On this visit, I made up my mind and marched my way to the stall to order myself a bowl of black vinegar pig's trotters and a bowl of rice.

It was a younger Chinese man who took my order but it was Chef Sham himself who served me. The stall made enough pig's trotters to fill a large vat which could last them probably several days. When an order is received, the trotters would be fished from the vat and transferred to be reheated over a stove in a claypot.

My order of black vinegar pig's trotters was served bubbling in a claypot. The smell of the black vinegar was pungent, and bursting with sweet and sour flavors. Just inhaling it alone is so invigorating.

There were three chunks of pig's trotters and a hard boiled egg, along with several knobs of bruised ginger.

Cooked till soft and tender, the trotters have a little of everything - skin, fat, meat and bones. Most importantly, there are no prickly hairs.

The black vinegar is more sweet than sour but there is a bottle of vinegar on the counter for customers to help themselves to for a sharper taste. Chef Sham uses the Chan Kong Thye (aka doggy brand) black sweet rice vinegar which he proudly displays all over his stall.

The black vinegar pig's trotters ($6.80) with a bowl of rice (50¢) came up to $7.30 which I feel is a little high considering the trotters are quite small. And the hard boiled egg's texture feels rubbery perhaps due to a chemical reaction with the acidic properties of the black vinegar.

If black vinegar is too heavy for you, they also have black bean pig's trotters, nam yu pig's trotters, angelica mutton soup, sesame oil chicken and more.