Love in Hong Kong - Pauline Teutscher (1983) - Yucca De Lac, Shatin

Here's a first for this blog. The Yucca de Lac restaurant was a very popular eatery throughout the 1960s and beyond, and featured in several local Cantonese films over the years, but this is the first time I've seen it in a foreign movie production.

Located on a hillside opposite the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the place was famous for its huge outdoor terrace with quite spectacular views over Shatin Hoi. This was long before the reclamation that filled up the sea and replaced it with...erm...the Shatin sewage treatment works. This place sadly closed just prior to my permanent move to Hong Kong and so I never got the chance to visit (when I came on holidays, I had no idea of its existence). Sometime in the mid 00s the owner sold up and the land was bought by a property developer who managed to squeeze 21 luxury townhouses onto the former terrace site. The sloped driveway up to the new development though is the same driveway used to access the restaurant when it was in business and the new development is called "De Yucca"

I believe the company behind the brand had already opened up a short-lived branch in California and have recently - just last year in 2022 - opened a new HK branch on the Peak. But honestly, I think 90% of the original place's appeal must have been the large al fresco dining terrace and the views it afforded, something I doubt can be replicated in the new branch, even if it is at the Peak.