prasantrin

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

Interesting! So it would be used for medicinal cooking? I wonder what it tastes like, other than "bitter". After browsing through Yue Hwa (I was looking for linen bread basket liners for my mother, who neither eats much bread nor uses baskets to serve it, but she really wanted some), I decided I really needed to rest. We went back to Erin's place, and I went straight to bed while she went grocery shopping. Four hours later...I finally crawled out of bed. It was a little late (8pm) and they had been a bit worried if they should wake me or not. I could have stayed in bed till the next morning, but I knew they'd be waiting for me before starting dinner, so I forced myself to get up. Luckily Erin had already purchased all the necessary ingredients for a fabulous dinner at home! Steamed fish with ginger and tangerine peel. This was great, and just what I needed! The fish was perfectly cooked--tender and moist. She adds a lot of cilantro as a garnish (but she eats it all, too). Felix picked up a couple of orders of Thai-style Hainanese chicken rice, too. I love chicken rice, though it was a bit greasy for my stomach that night. And he also whipped up stir-fried vegetables with chicken. It was just supposed to be stir-fried vegetables, but they had some chicken that needed cooking, too. My dessert! This was one of the other things on my "must have" list! Gai mei bao! Erin picked one up for me while she was shopping, since we hadn't seen any good ones, yet. I haven't had one of these since last summer. I love them! I thought this was an almost perfect version--the bun was soft and buttery, and the filling wasn't too sweet. I'd have liked more filling, but I think the amount of filling in this one was probably standard. She picked it up at a chain called St. Honore. That's the end of day 4! Or was that day 3...

I didn't think you'd see that! Ya, get outta here and finish that, and let me finish my HK trip! Your visit to Lin Heung looks just like my visit, and mirrors my experience in so many ways! But I'll get to that later. Snacks...snacks are important. Knowing that, we set out for Tsim Sha Tsui to look for the newly-opened Jean-Paul Hevin at the Harbour City Mall. I knew it was a chocolate shop, but I thought there might be a cafe there, too. I was wrong, and it was just chocolates. Being well-prepared, however, we walked a few more minutes to the Debailleul Cafe I scoped out on the internet, just in case Hevin didn't work out. Erin had the tea set, which included a very pretty cafe latte and these antoinette. I have only found evidence of antoinette as a sweet on the Debailleul website, so I think they must be an original creation. Erin chose two: strawberry bavarois with candied rhubarb and chocolate mousse with almond and pear. Innards She enjoyed them, especially the strawberry one, but she's a sucker for all things rhubarb. I had the symphonie, which was chocolate mousse, mocha mousse, and caramelized almond dacquoise. I love all things dacquoise, but I couldn't really find the dacquoise in this, or the mocha. It was quite chocolatey. I think I would have enjoyed it more had I had been in good health, but it's hard to truly relish your food when you can barely slide it down. On our way to Yue Hwa, we passed the temporary market where Ah Leung had a really good bowl of noodles at the yellow spoon orange bowl place. I was tempted, but we decided against it. We were still full, and I was too tired to eat much more.

Day three--I awoke to a very sore throat and sinus congestion, and most probably a fever, but I couldn't very well let my time in HK go to waste! Our first stop for the day was West Villa Restaurant in Tai Koo. According to chaxiubao's blog, it was voted to have the best cha siu bao in 2006, so I had to go! Look! Peter Green joined us for a guest appearance! (Maybe you'd have to read his Japan travelogue to get the humour in that.) But then he had to leave...restaurant rules, you see. Erin was happy to be there, too. They have a trophy case, but I don't know what the trophies are for. We arrived around 11:30, and the mall the restaurant was in was dead, but the restaurant was hopping! It was quite busy considering it was a Monday (it was the beginning of spring break, but most of the people there weren't really of the age to get spring breaks). I can't remember what this was (some kind of vegetable), but it tasted like it had been doused in Thai sweet chili sauce. We were charged for it, but I think it was only HK$8. Or it might have been $10 and our tea was $8 On this trip, one of the things I really wanted was a good spring onion pancake, so when we saw it on the menu, we ordered it! Imagine our surprise when we got this: This wasn't a spring onion pancake! It was some sort of fried bun! At first we thought we had made a mistake, but we double-checked the menu, and I had definitely checked off "spring onion pancake". Either they ran out of spring onion pancakes and were substituting, or they have reinvented them. It was very very good, though. I'd have ordered them again. Next were the cha siu bao. These were good! The bao was just as light as those at Victoria City, but I thought the filling was much tastier, and it wasn't as sweet (which was a plus in my book, though Erin preferred the sweeter VC version). I've noticed with both this version and VC's that the cha siu is sliced rather than cubed. I usually cube mine, but maybe I should start slicing it. It might be easier to eat. I also noticed that the HK versions I tried don't have as much filling as I like. They have a good bao:filling ratio, but I'd like more meat in the filling. They tend to have more sauce. Either way, this was my favourite cha siu bao of the trip (it was also the last cha siu bao I had). Erin selected shrimp spring rolls. I really liked the wrapper on these--they were light and crispy, but not greasy at all. Do dim sum places ever make their own spring roll wrappers? I'd have thought these were homemade, but I'm not an expert). This was definitely the best version of lo bak go I've ever had. I don't normally like lo bak go because it's usually pasty and heavy, but this was lighter and it had a lot of flavour. They also cut it into smaller cubes before frying it, so it had a good ratio of crispy exterior to tender interior. Very well done! As a special treat, we also ordered a little pigeon. Poor little pigeon head...It was tasty, but greasy. I wasn't up to eating much (sore throat, fever, congestion), so I just had a little while Erin polished off the rest (except his poor head). In case you're wondering, there was no hum sui gok on the menu they gave us, so we asked to order it. There was no way I could leave without having hum sui gok--it's my favourite!!! And when the waitstaff told us they didn't have it, my brow furrowed and my mouth dropped! Literally!! I looked almost like Munch's The Scream except my hands weren't on my face. The waitstaff even chuckled a little at my obvious distress (which I thought was rather insensitive, because I really was distressed!!!)! Seriously, what kind of dim sum place doesn't have hum sui gok? It's too important an item to leave off a menu!! Do a lot of dim sum places not carry it? Aside from this very obvious mis-step, West Villa was definitely my favourite dim sum place, and so far, it's the only place to which I would return the next time I visit HK.

I think it's important to remember there are different levels of "otaku", or a continuum of otaku, if you will. The prototypical otaku is all that you've read, but I think they comprise a small percentage of those who call themselves "otaku". The ones I saw at Melon Books (note, I don't usually spend my time there, I was just showing Peter around. Really!) weren't true otaku, but just people who liked manga (and almost all Japanese like manga, from what I can tell). From the perspective of my teenaged students, I feel being "otaku" is almost trendy, but those who are "otaku" would be on the lower end of the continuum. Now where's the food?

In most cases, it isn't necessary to sift, but for some cakes, you should still sift. According to Rose Levy Beranbaum, I very rarely sift flour when making anything (not because I don't think it's necessary, but because I'm lazy), and prefer to just whisk the dry ingredients to incorporate them. I do use a scale when I bake, and I try to convert all my volume-based recipes to weights. But I still sift when I know there's a need (like when making a lemon souffle cheesecake).

I think the place underneath it moved, too. The business on the ground floor was shuttered, too. Something may have happened with the building or with their lease. But I thought the Causeway Bay was a good location, too. There were a lot of other stores nearby, and it was relatively close to an MTR station! Now it's much too far away to be convenient. Luckily their phone number hasn't changed, but unluckily, they didn't mention their number or new location on the sign outside their old place (we were luckily enough to have their number with us, so we were able to call).

Having a scale does not preclude the need to sift.

After lunch, we walked. A lot. It was good because I could see more of the city through the eyes of people who knew it. But it was bad because I was getting sicker and sicker as the day went on. Plus I had already walked a lot, so I was tired! We came upon this little place in a busy area. We didn't buy anything, but I had a little taste. Just kidding! This place was one of Felix's favourite restaurants when he was a child. In Japan, as far as I know, this type of restaurant isn't very common except in Kyoto or at temples. Felix said it was like shojin ryori--vegetarian food eaten by monks at temples. I wanted to try the hum sui gok, but I was still full! The next stop on our itinerary was Joy Hing Roasties in Wan Chai. It was on my list! Before I get to that, let me say that I had 49 places on my list. It wasn't a "must have" list, just a guideline. Like a "If we happen to be in this area, let's try this place" kind of list. I never intended to try everything on the list. But Felix is the consummate host, and he wanted me to try as much as possible. So despite having just finished eating 30 minutes earlier (if that), we went to Joy Hing. Luckily, it was closed! But I stood in line, anyway, just in case the shutters magically opened! Then we went to Sheung Wan. I had mentioned I wanted to buy a wok in HK, since I thought they'd be cheaper than the minimum US$30 prices I was finding in Japan. According to Felix, a good wok should cost you about $30, anyway, but he was game for trying to find a reasonably-priced one for me. We walked all around the dried fish area. They had some interesting things which I had never seen before. I have to say, the hygiene in these places had be a bit worried, though. As much as I love cats, do I really want some dried fish that had a cat's a** on it all day long? She was a very nice kitty, though What's this big mushroom used for? Here's another kitty. It wasn't as friendly as the other cat, and it meowed at me. But it wasn't a "Hello, nice to meet you" meow, but more like a "If you touch me you're going to lose that hand" meow. I stayed away. We didn't find my wok, since all the wok stores were closed that day (Sunday, and Easter Sunday at that). So we moved on to try to find another place on my list, a Sichuanese place called Man Jiang Hong in Causeway Bay. But guess what? They moved to Central!!!! Without telling me!!! Shocker of shockers! So we took the MTR to Central, and called them again from the station. Turned out they were way too far for us to walk comfortably (they're by the US Embassy/Consulate, near one of the YWCAs, if you're planning on going). But another Sichuanese place, Yellow Door, was in the area so we set off to find it. The directions we got were rather vague, however, and we had no luck finding that place, either. In the end, we had dinner at a really crappy Mexican place in Soho. I didn't mind eating Mexican in HK, especially since I was exhausted, and sick. But this place was really really bad. I would not recommend it, even if you live in HK and are craving Mexican. I think it was called Taco Loco or something like that. Even the pictures I took of my food reflected the badness that was my dinner. That's the end of day 2!

I get it. It was really good, but not really worth $100 unless someone else is paying. I feel that way about a lot of things.

Evil, evil woman! I think I might actually prefer Winnipeg's VS's har gau, though. That's something, isn't it! I'll have to try it again when I'm home, though. I wonder if I can go through their entire menu just ordering seafood items...

You could probably just tack it on to the Hong Kong reports topic, since that's where a crapload of individual reports were merged into one topic. How were the blt sandwiches? I find Japanese bacon to be too flaccid to be used in sandwiches. Does Cathay have the good stuff?

It's lunchtime! After leaving Felix and Erin, I browsed around the area for a bit (including the red light district!), then headed to Wan Chai. I was on a mission to find Victoria City Seafood Restaurant, which I think some people refer to as Victoria Harbour. Or maybe it's an entirely different restaurant. The directions I had said to take the footbridge from Wan Chai Station to SHK Centre. Well, following the arrows to SHK Centre (if you can even find the arrows) means spending no less than 30 minutes walking around in circles. Oh well, it's not like I didn't have time to kill! I finally arrived around 1:30 and asked for a table for one. I was told it would be about 20 minutes, which was fine since I was still full from breakfast. But then who should call but Felix! Turns out services finished earlier than planned, so they were free to join me! I changed my "reservation" (I use that term loosely, since no one took my name, and everyone I talked to just nodded and then walked away without a word...) to a table for three, and waited around. They finally arrived around 2, and we could eat! Of course we started out with sweets. Truthfully, I don't really like egg tarts, but I didn't order these. Felix had been told they had just been made, so he thought they would be a good choice. The crust was flaky, but a bit too delicate for my tastes. The crust, to me, had the lack of body (I don't know if that's the right term) often found in a just-microwaved crust, but I'm sure that couldn't have been so...right? The filling was light, but I also thought the flavour was light. So light that I didn't notice much of it, but then, I don't eat egg tarts enough to know what kind of flavour they should have. Next was char siu in pastry. Again, the pastry was delicate, but seemed almost microwaved with its ease in falling apart and almost sogginess. The char siu was a bit sweet, but I liked it. We also tried to order char siu, and baked char siu bao, but they were all out of both of them! Steamed char siu bao--I probably enjoyed these most of everything we ordered. The bao was light and airy (why aren't my bao ever light and airy?), and the filling was flavourful, though I did think it was a bit sweet. It was much saucy-er than my filling, and much redder, too. And of course we had my beloved hum sui gok. These were perfectly fried, and I loved the casing. They had a much stronger leek flavour than others I've had, but not in a bad way. They were on the small side, though, and there was a higher casing:filling ratio than I usually like, but the flavour of the casing made up for that. We also had xiaolongbao, which Erin liked, but I thought were just OK. I'm not a huge xiaolongbao fan, though, so that may have tempered my enthusiasm for the dish. And har gau--good-sized shrimp in the filling, but not enough flavour and the casing was too thick and not delicate enough. And fried milkfish with pepper salt (or some kind of salt). Perfectly fried, but perhaps I was expecting too much in terms of flavour. All the flavour came from the salt and soy(?) dip that was provided. In all his 30-something years, Felix had never eaten at Victoria City before, though he had heard of it. He said the food was above-average, except for the har gau which was just average. I would definitely agree with his har gau assessment. As for the rest of the food, I would put it at just slightly above average overall, but as far as individual dishes go, the baked items seemed microwaved to me, putting them below average. Only the filling of the hum sui gok and the bao of the steamed char siu bao were solidly above average. And the rest were just slightly above average or average.

Cornbread mix??? I didn't see any cornbread mix! Was it around the brownie-mix and flour area? We went during peak shopping hours and I was trying to get out of there as soon as I could, so we didn't browse very much. I didn't notice that the prices were any lower than usual, but a lot of the stuff we bought was stuff I don't usually buy (i.e. they weren't things I normally know the prices of). Here are some examples of the prices for the imported goods we bought: Best Foods Mayonnaise Y588 Kirkland Toilet paper Y2438 Kettle chips Y668 Kirkland Albacore Tuna Y1398 They're about the same as before, aren't they?

Neti pot. I don't think a Yeti needs a pot... For the last week I've been sick as a dog, and am finally on some super-duper antibiotics (so super-duper I don't even want to say what they are). Interestingly, I've been pretty much able to taste everything (as far as I know) throughout this past week. Although my sinuses are congested and my nose has been running, I've been keeping my nose relatively clear through use of a neti pot. What I've noticed is that I haven't been able to stomach strong flavours. I was in Hong Kong during the first half of my illness, and the roast goose almost made me upchuck at the table. The last time I was sick like this, I tried to make tom yum, and that also made me feel sick to my stomach.

Ah, so that also explains why a couple of weeks ago I had such a hard time finding butter. Even Daiei was completely sold out, and the other grocery stores only had the Y400/200g blocks (and up). I'll stock up next time I find some.

Costco--what the heck happened to butter? I went the other day and they had a million different kinds of margarine, but the only "butter" they had was the 1/3-cut stuff in a tube! It was a very sad day for me, indeed. I guess I won't be baking as much as usual!

Kim or kbjesq--which mac and cheese recipe was it? I'm always looking for a new one!

I haven't been having any problems. I would guess it's a blip with your ISP.

Where's the picture of the umeshu sorbet? I want to see what it looks like. I can't seem to find mine...I know it's somewhere...

It was fugu hire shu--the sake with the fugu fins, usually served hot. Silly man, it was "white ears for white cats" and "black ears for black cats". Although I suppose some kinds of dogs might have similar ears. . . It was good--light and not too sweet. IIRC it was some kind of sakura mousse cake, but I think they do chocolate desserts best. I do love that chocolate shop, though. I need to get out there more often!

I wonder if that's the place my friend's husband mentioned. We were discussing roast goose while we were eating at Yung Kee, and he said he thought the goose at another place was even better (I can't remember the name, I only remember it had "Kee" in it, and it was near where my friend teaches). I'll find out and post about it when I get to my last meal. Since I wasn't detained at the airport, I can continue posting about my meals! I should add that I hope you all forgive my transliterations. I know they may sometimes be way off, but I really do try! Day Two also happened to be Easter Sunday. My friends were going to attend Easter services from 11 till 2 or 3 (Easter services are long at their church because they usually have baptisms on that day, too), which meant I'd be on my own for much of the time. I was thinking about going to Victoria City for dim sum (alone! How sad!), but then my friends suggested I go to breakfast with them near their church, and then I could wander around on a full stomach before we met up later. Their church is right by the Prince Edward MTR, so we went to a small local place called, I think, Sai Kee. It was full of locals of all types, and it specialized in congee. The place reminded me of a place in Macau I ate at 10-ish years ago where someone horked on the floor while I was eating my dessert. Luckily, that didn't happen here. You can see all the fried doughnuts and stuff in front of the restaurant. I was there primarily for the one at the bottom left. I can't remember what it's called, but it translates to "Cow's Tongue", said Felix. I loved them when I was a child, but the place in Winnipeg that sold them stopped making them. They're sweeter and not as chewy as yu tiao (which I also like, but I would dip them in sugar, not eat them with congee). Felix and Erin--Erin and I worked together until a year ago when she and Felix moved back to HK from Japan. Cha siu cheung fan--it was OK. I thought the noodles were a bit thick, and the cha siu and sauce weren't as flavourful as they could have been, but it was good enough. Most of our meal--and no, I didn't eat all this by myself! We shared everything, of course! Except the congee (I don't really like congee), and the cold soy milk (mine--Erin had hot soy milk). And of course we had to have two orders of these! They were a bit greasy, but I enjoyed them. Anything fried is good, after all! All that food only came to about $7, and it was enough to fill the three of us (plus I had a bit of leftover sweet doughnut for a snack later). Before Felix and Erin went to services, they showed me around the area a bit, or at least showed me two very well known barbecue places. Then Felix pointed the way to the prostitute area (I'm still not 100% sure why he wanted me to see it...), and I was off!

Thanks for finishing it! I feel I can rest easy! About the very expensive soup--did you think it was worth the price paid? It was very rich and flavourful, but was it $100 worth of rich and flavourful? Fried pomfret is one of my favourites, and those prawns! I'd probably have eaten two, even if my hosts hadn't insisted! Looking forward to your next trip! (I hope you and Henry will honour us with wedding and honeymoon food shots, too!)

It wasn't sweet. I thought you had fruit for dessert? Or ice cream? I can't remember now.

Mmmmm...I love the salted caramels chocolates from Sahagun. I also really love the Pepitapapa. (as an aside, we're still waiting for Taiwan, hint hint )