prasantrin

I spent three great days in Tokyo last week, and had a fabulous time! I arrived by Shinkansen at 11am and made my way to Ogikubo where I was to attend a speech contest with a student. I sussed out the area before I arrived, and found a French bakery called Le Coeur Pur. They had another place called Nos Ancetres de Demain, and since it was closer to where I exited the station, I went there instead. It was very small, and had a very limited selection of sandwiches and breads. There was a roast pork meal that was in a take-out container, which you could get with soup, but I went for a sandwich instead. Smoked turkey croissant and cafe creme. I've always believed cafe creme was just a cooler name for cafe au lait, but this was really a latte. I much prefer cafe au lait to latte, so I was a bit disappointed, the sandwich was pretty good. What I really liked was this...for all those wondering what to do with the little cards, wrappers, etc. you pick up from restaurants around the world, this is a great idea! I passed by Le Coeur Pur, and that was really where I should have gone! It was much larger, and had much more variety. Plus they had pastries and cakes! Oh well, next time! After the speech contest (students from my school placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, so the school won a special education prize, as well!), I was starving, so I went straight to my hotel, dropped off my stuff, and did a quick check of bento.com. I decided on tempura, and ended up at Tsunahachi. I wanted to go to Tsunahachi Rin, the higher-end branch, but I was hungry and wanted to eat fast! I was lucky enough to snag a seat at the very small non-smoking counter, and was greeted by a basket of fresh vegetables. I ordered the middle dinner set, the name of which I vowed to remember, but have since forgotten. It was relatively cheap, given that it was just slightly more than Ten-you's (my favourite tempura place in Kyoto) cheapest lunchtime kaiseki set. They have three types of salt, in addition to the usual daikon oroshi and tempura dipping sauce. Clockwise L to R: yuzu, ume, and regular. The kuruma ebi were still wiggling around when their heads were pulled off. I think the scallop may have been alive, too. The first course was fukinoto, ika, and kuruma ebi (with the heads fried separately). The second course was ayu, hotate, and a shell filled with stuff and fried. The scallop was almost perfectly cooked (I prefer it to be a little less cooked than this). The filling of the shell--I remember mushrooms, and I think small scallops or clams. They were marinated in the tempura sauce, dipped in batter, then fried. I enjoyed this dish, though I thought it was a bit salty. And the vegetables--nanohana and what the chef called a "small cabbage". My neighbour's small cabbage was dipped, fried, then cut in half. It looked like a cross between a green strawberry and an avocado. I wish I knew what it was. Before the final dish, a palate cleanser of aojisai? and nagaimo was served. I was asked if I wanted kakiage or anago. I was pretty full at this point, and my neighbour's anago looked like the perfect finishing dish for me. Unfortunately, I didn't realize my neighbour had ordered the cheaper set, which meant his anago was much smaller than mine. I got the whole frickin' anago! But I couldn't let it go to waste, so I ate the whoooooole thing! Here's my chef. Not only do their name tags have their names on them, but they also have their hometowns! My chef was from Iwate-ken, from a town called Nibe or Nido or something like that (二戸). After dinner I dropped by Isetan to browse through the depachika. If Isetan's depachika were a man, I'd marry it. I loved it that much! No pictures, since they have a sign with a camera and a big "X" through it, but I definitely bought stuff!

Ahem....recipe please? I love a good lemon filling!

Your book case is funny--did anyone else notice the pasta maker being used as a bookend? Does it mean you use it so much you need to keep it handy, or that it's barely ever used, but heck, it makes a really good bookend!

FYI--Cui-daore, the place in Namba where we lunched, is closing. According to the paper, the reasons for closure include "the decrepit state of the facilities, changes in the business environment, and the difficulties of managing the family-run restaurant." I didn't think it was that bad! Maybe if they had put that clown inside the restaurant and forced people to eat there in order to have their pictures taken, they wouldn't have had to close.

Oops...Prawncracker's doing the siu yuk, and origamicrane is doing the roast duck? Or vice versa? I vote for whichever one is the siu yuk king.

Have you been to Chiang Mai during Songkran before? It's pretty crazy, but more importantly, a lot of places are closed during that time. Even the Night Bazaar was pretty dead (both in terms of shoppers and open stores). I've not been to the Moxie, but I remember having shrimp toast at a little guest house called Lai-Thai. It was really good. Chris--dont' forget to have roti from a street vendor! We found it more easily in Chiang Mai than in Bangkok. The kind drizzled with condensed milk and rolled tightly (I prefer it without egg). Mmmmm...

I hope it's origamicrane doing lots of siu yuk! (that's just based on the pork, though, not on the scenic shot)

Ma Ling is the kind my friend buys, I think! She showed me a can--white and blue? She said it's really good (as good as the stuff can get ). And I think she feels the same way that you do about it. I used to like it thinly-sliced and fried so it gets really crispy, eaten with freshly-cooked rice. I'm tempted to try it again, especially since a co-worker from Okinawa gave me a can of KLIK, but I'm afraid. Fengyi: haw fruits!! So that's what haw looks like! I used to eat haw flakes a lot when I was a kid (the little round disks). I loved them, but I don't like them as much now. Erin said the ones we had weren't very good, so I wonder what they taste like when they're actually good. v. gautam: I think I may have seen snakefruits in Bali before. I thought they seemed familiar, but I couldn't place them. I don't think I tried them, though. Well, that's just another reason to go to Bali again! hzrt8w: I just wasn't in the mood to eat any more, but if I had been, I think I'd have tried the head. Erin hasn't quite made it up to the "eating heads that look like heads" level of eating, yet. But give her a few more years, and I think she'll be able to do it! I think the "experiencing HK of the past" aspect of Lin Heung is the primary reason people go there. The little food I experienced (other than the hum sui gok which was good but very cold) wasn't that good. It's also cheap! I think you can find equally cheap dim sum elsewhere, but for most tourists who will most likely end up at higher-end places, it's certainly an experience. As for the hum sui gok at West Villa--Erin wasn't sure if they had said they didn't have it (period), or if they didn't have it (anymore ie. were sold out). We scoured the bilingual menu, and couldn't find it anywhere (we looked for both the Chinese and the English names). It may have been on the Chinese-only menu which we didn't really look at, but why would something like hum sui gok be on the Chinese-only menu? Someone at another table what what looked like hum sui gok, but it turned out to be some fried thing that you dip in broth. I wish we had tried it, but we didn't know what it was! A friend and I are thinking of visiting HK again soon, so maybe I'll have the chance to find out!

A Japanese friend went to Kiddyland to check it out, and she thinks the rule is specifically for collections that are limited edition (aren't they all limited edition?), or those which are low in stock. So one should still be able to get an entire set at once, depending on the set. I still want to get the entire Kyoto set (if it's still around), but I was finally able to get the entire Pierre Herme set at the Pierre Herme store at the Isetan depachika!! It's so cute! I haven't unpacked everything, yet, and probably won't (I lose a lot of things), but I'm so happy to have it! And that Police concert wasn't quite what I had hoped for (they wouldn't let us stand up much less dance where we were sitting!), but I enjoyed it, anyway!

My friend and I were at Isetan Shinjuku yesterday, and I picked up some macarons for a taste test (caramel and coffee flavoured). In all I had 5 caramel, and 4 coffee (some places had both, some either or). The contenders were Chez Cima, Henri Le Roux, Jean-Paul Hevin, Pierre Herme, Sadaharu Aoki, and Dalloyau. The winner in the caramel division was Chez Cima--perfect burnt caramel flavour and nice chewy texture. The winner in the coffee division was Pierre Herme. Strong coffee flavour, though there was a wee bit more filling than I like. Of course I couldn't let them go to waste, so I had to finish every last crumb. The test began at 7:00am, and it is now just after 8:00am. I feel sick...The things I do for my fellow eGulleters!

Thanks for the food recs! This is very timely, indeed! May I ask where you stayed? I think I'm going there in December (or Malaysia, I haven't decided, yet), and am looking for recs. I think you should do a travelogue!! Hint...hint... Did you go to Phnom Penh, too? I'm thinking of trying to go to both.

I'm not sure what you mean. Could you clarify?

I didn't want to start a new topic since I'm only in Tokyo for a short time, but I like Tokyo a lot more than I remember liking it 10 years ago! It's a good thing I don't live here...very reasonably-priced tempura last night, treats from Henri Le Roux for breakfast...what more could a girl want?

The picture of us is missing! How sad! I hope Yoonhi didn't mind the picture of Scud in front of the inappropriate bar sign. I was thinking that it was probably one of those bars like in Lost in Translation--you know, with the dancers on the table. For those wondering (which is probably no one), potato chips, cotton candy, and Mexican food don't mix. I thought the tacos were the Tinga--chicken, beef, and pork in chile tomato sauce, says their website. And my pound cake was excellent! Humph!

As an aside, the guy who wrote the theme song for Astro Boy (called "Tetsuwan Atom" or sometimes "Atom Boy" in Japan) spoke at the school I work at a few months ago. He's quite a famous author and poet in Japan (and he also translated the entire series of the Peanuts comics into Japanese). His visit ended with the entire school (and him) singing the theme song for Astro Boy (in Japanese, of course). It was very cute!

And it ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. Day 5 was my last day in HK. My flight was leaving at 4:30-ish, so we were able to get to Central for one last attempt at dim sum. I checked in at HK Station, so I could get rid of my luggage, but that took a lot longer than planned (they were seriously understaffed at the Station airport check-in counters). We didn't end up at Lin Heung until just after 12! That means it was packed! Peter Green posted pictures upthread, and that's pretty much what we saw, too. It took us a bit of time to get a table with two seats, but we managed with the help of one of the staff. All cramped in, we waited for carts to roll by. That was our first mistake--waiting. We didn't notice till we had been there for a bit that people were getting up and going to the carts as soon as they saw what they wanted. But we were trying to be polite. Unfortunately, it was our politeness (or wimpiness) that led us to miss out on the cha siu bao. Anyway, I felt really uncomfortable here, not knowing what to do most of the time (and this is why I didn't take any pictures here). I think I would have felt more comfortable with a local, and Erin's sort of a local, but a FOB local (if one year can be considered FOB). She's been to lots of local dim sum places, but usually with other locals, I think, who can take charge. At this place, you really needed to be aggressive, and neither of us are really the aggressive types (I can be when I'm annoyed, but here I was just uncomfortable). We did get some cheung fun (shimp). It was different from other cheung fun in terms of flavour. The noodles were really well done, and they had a flavour sort of like tea. Erin really liked them. We also had some shumai, or what we thought were shumai. Erin thought they tasted like beef balls. I didn't really like them. They were too soft and mushy. I did try to chase after a cart which I thought had cha siu bao, but by the time I got to it, all the cha siu bao were gone and they were filling the cart with some kind of bao which I think had siu yuk inside. The only other thing I remember having were...my beloved hum sui gok! As soon as we sat down, Erin asked a staff member about them, and he said something like, "Not now." But about 20 minutes after we sat down, he brought them to us! They were perfect--the casing was perfect, the filling was perfect...only one thing marred them...they were cold. Not just lukewarm, but cold. Interestingly, though, they were not greasy at all. Just cold. Oh well, at least they were cooked! And they were perfect in every other way! I do have one picture. Only because they were too beautiful not to shoot. After Lin Heung we walked around for a bit more, then I went off to the airport early. I had read a lot about the quarantine regulations which had been instituted after the SARS epidemic, and I was a bit worried I'd get caught in that. Luckily, I got through without a problem. I thought I'd try to find one last cha siu bao, or one last cocktail bun (or both!), but I kind of felt like puking, so I refrained. All in all, I had a great time in Hong Kong. I had the best hosts, and some of the best food. But I have to go back and have all the food I didn't have during trip!

After we sat in the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel for a little while (I needed to recoup some energy), we headed to Central. Our dinner reservation was for 7:30, but we managed to push it up to 6. I really don't think I could have lasted out there till 7:30. I was really tired, and I kept wanting to stop and rest. Once in Central, we went to a big mall (I can't remember the name, but it's attached to the Four Seasons Hotel, and you can get to Hong Kong Station and Central Station from there). We went grocery shopping, or at least grocery window shopping. You can get far more foreign foods in HK at a much more reasonable price than you can in Japan! It almost makes me want to live there! Not only are the local foods really cheap, but the imported foods are reasonably-priced, too! It's an ex-pat's dream! No pictures of that, though. I started to get tired (again), and I also hate malls, so we went to a nice-looking tea shop. Erin had some kind of hot rose citrus or mint tea. I liked it, and would have been happy with it. Erin liked it at first, but the more she drank it, the sweeter it got. They should have allowed it to be sweetened to taste rather than add the sweetener before serving. It was pretty, though! I had lime iced tea. Once I mushed the limes in a bit, I thought it was OK. I mostly wanted the coolness of the tea, and I thought the citrus would help my cold. Then I realized that since I don't even like lemon in my tea, I probably wouldn't like lime. I'm a little slow sometimes... But it was pretty, too. After our rest, we marched off to Yung Kee. Finally! Some roast goose! It look us less time to get there than we thought, so we were about 30 minutes early for our 6:00 reservations. People usually eat later in HK, but this was about right for my usual eating schedule. What pretty menus! One regular menu, and one seasonal/specials menu. I can't remember which was which. One last picture of us! But you can also see our tea (jasmine) in the foreground. They serve hot tea in stemmed water glasses. I thought that was strange, but Erin and Felix said it's the usual way in HK at restaurants like this one, but usually only at dinner. The famous roast goose! We only ordered a regular portion, which is 1/4 of a goose. I still had most of my sense of taste, and I'm not sure what the difference in flavour was between this and roast duck. I'm sure I must have lost the ability to taste nuances in flavour, though, so perhaps that's why I thought there wasn't much difference. I thought it was well-flavoured, though. I would have eaten more, but when I'm sick, I can't stomach strong flavours as well. Felix really liked the goose. He said it was very good, and the flavour had a long tail. He thought there was one place where the goose might be better--a place called Keung Kee in Tai Wai. But now he thinks it's not better than Yung Kee's, but as good as theirs. Pea shoots were on the menu, but when we tried to order them they said they were out. Instead the waiter recommended these: We also ordered stir-fried grouper (I think) with ginger and spring onions. this was my favourite dish! The fish was perfectly cooked, and perfectly flavoured, I thought. And we ordered yeung chow fried rice again. This version was much better than the Tung Kee version we had. Look how big the shrimp were! We didn't get the preserved egg (Felix said they asked if we wanted it, but he said no), which was OK with me. Had I been feeling better, I'd have been more up to it, but I don't think I'd have enjoyed it much that night. During the meal, I commented to Erin and Felix on how I'm always sick during our last meal together, as I had the exact same illness at our tea party last year. Coincidence? Or are the heavens conspiring against our parting from one another?

After lunch, we took the MTR somewhere, but I can't remember where. I think we caught the ferry to go to the other side where the Peninsula Hotel is. Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway... I thought these subway advertisements were appropriate given my "condition". Subways are very educational places in HK! Here's another good one on washing machine safety. Erin and I were wondering, "Are washing machines really that dangerous in HK?" Dryers I understand, but washing machines? Then we went to the Walk of the Stars! I don't know if that's the official name, but that's what I'm calling it. Bruce Lee fan, anyone? I like him. Look how wimpy John Woo's hand prints are! I'm sure I could kick his butt! Jackie Chan, however, has good solid prints. He's a real man's man! Just in case you thought I didn't see anything, here's a scenic shot of the city. Actually, in the very first shot I posted of myself, if you look really carefully you can see the skyline through the fog. But you have to look really really carefully. (I swear it was there when we took the picture, though!) But enough of the sightseeing, here are a couple of pictures of the candied fruit on a stick we bought. I didn't like it. It was kind of dry, and it didn't really taste like anything. What were these things? They had seeds in the middle, so I don't think they were berries, but they sort of looked like berries.

Wing Hub is at 392 Portland Street, and Guangdong is just a few doors down on the same street. My friends' church is on the corner of one of the PE MTR exits! It's a small world! Which side of the station did you live on? Not toward the red light district, I hope! Sea coconut? That's the one we were talking about earlier, isn't it? The one on the sign of the coconut juice Ah Leung drank. So that's what it looks like! Snakefruit is certainly a good name for the reptilian fruit! Except it was rougher than a snake, I thought. Sea cucumber kind of looks like dried cat poop, too, doesn't it? I know, I know, I have a mind like a juvenile... I know, I'm a trooper! The things I sacrifice for all of you! I'm almost done, too!

Awesome! Sounds like he'll be opening just in time for the eG Chicago party. Hmmmm...ideas, ideas...

Our next stop was lunch. Both these places were on my list, and we devised a way to eat at both. First we went to Wing Hub Lung Roasties in Mongkok (near Prince Edward MTR) to get some xiu yuk. They supposedly have the best (or one of the best) xiu yuk in town, and I wanted some. We got a small portion to go, but that small portion was HK$50! It was more than I would have paid in Winnipeg! Then we walked a few doors down to Guangdong Barbeque Restaurant. It supposedly had the best cha siu in town. We were going to eat here, but we still weren't that hungry, so we decided to share a plate. Look how moist and tender it looks! I snuck a look at the siu yuk while we were there, and added a few pieces to our plate. The cha siu was very moist, and very flavourful. I would have liked a few more crispy bits on it, as the crispy bits are my favourite parts, but the cha siu itself was the best I've had. The siu yuk was also very tender and moist. I think they could have done a better job injecting some flavour into the meat, but that and the cha siu made for a very good lunch (the cha siu plate was only HK$20!). The funniest thing happened here. Throughout this trip, people have spoken to me in Cantonese. I'm mostly SEAsian, but have some Chinese blood running through me, so it's an honest mistake, but I speak none of the Chinese languages. Erin, on the other hand, is most definitely not Chinese, but she has a flare for languages and speaks Cantonese well enough to get by. At Guangdong, the staff who took our order spoke to me (in Cantonese), but Erin was the one who placed the order. As we were leaving, she came to our table and again looking at me, started speaking, nothing of which I could understand. Erin replied to her, and we left. Turns out she was telling me how nervous she had been when she saw us walk in, because she couldn't speak English, so she was afraid Erin would speak English to her. She then told us she was very relieved when Erin spoke to her in Cantonese and that she wouldn't have to try to speak English! Little did she know she was talking to the wrong person...She still should have been afraid, but of me, the Chinese-looking one, not the gweilo!

I think it's to lock the pump down when it's not in use. Press the pump down, push in the button (it slides to the side, I think), and the pump will stay down. Or it's to stop the spinner while something is spinning. One of those.

Now I was really full, so we had to press on. No excuse for not walking given how much I was eating! We came upon this market, so strolled through just to browse. What kind of fish are these? And these? Poor froggies Leaving the market (we didn't make it to the upper floors), I found a store selling peanut candies. I knew I didn't have the energy to get to the place Ah Leung went to where they were freshly made, so I picked up several kinds here. We finally got to the market. I couldn't believe the variety of fruits available, and the prices!! What I would give to have a place like this in Japan! Just look at those mangoes--it's been so long since I had a decent mango! And papayas, too! Little kiwiberries--there was one in the fruit tart we had at tea at the Four Seasons. We were intrigued by them ("What are these? Baby kiwi?" went the conversation), and found them here! What's the fruit in the bags next to them? And what are these? They looked like something I'd like. We picked up some coconut juice to go. And what are these? Some sort of pickled things? Are they cooked in certain dishes, or eaten as sides? I think the third picture might be buddha hand citrus, judging by the appearance and the character for "hand" I see. Lots of prepared sweets for sale, too. We bought three sticks of the candied fruit. These were interesting. They weren't as smooth as reptiles, but they looked like them! And I thought these looked like preserved larvae.

I'm on a roll, and I hope to finish this before I leave for Tokyo tomorrow (and before Peter invades again)! Day 4 (I'm pretty sure it's Day 4) Breakfast was simple--just another coconut bun that Erin picked up with the gai mei bao. It was bigger, but I thought it wasn't as good. It was drier, and there was too much bread and too little filling. The filling is the best part, after all! Then we went on our way. I think we went to Mongkok, but I could be wrong. We were going to the outdoor market, and also the flower market (I have to see something other than food, after all!). But then I got side-tracked along the way...Look at this pretty bakery! I left with a pineapple bun, another kind of pineapple bun, and a bun that Erin said was a cocktail bun. It wasn't, but it was still a good piece of bread. Then we found a stall selling all these different things. Where else but HK can you get your offal fix and your crepe fix at the same time? Moving on...oops, I got stuck again! Who can resist a display of cocktail buns? It's impossible, I tell you! There was less filling in this one. Not bad, but the St. Honore one was better. I also had a pineapple bun--the special kind with a stick of butter in the middle (butter is good, but I didn't care for the bun too much), and some tea. Erin had a luncheon meat sandwich! We all know luncheon meat is just another name for spam! Erin has developed a liking for it since moving to HK, but shhhh! Don't tell anyone! It's one of those secret guilty pleasures! We sat for a bit, then decided we needed to move on.

I'm interested! Is this really almost the end? I feel like I've missed most of it! Must catch up somehow...