hzrt8w

Hi insomniac! Sorry I wouldn't know. I have always been a Kowlooner.

Day 3: Dinner... Down And Out In Tsim Sha Tsui There is an Indonesia Restaurant on Granville Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Really! "Indonesia Restaurant". That's the name of the restaurant! Take a wild guess what style of food they serve! Hint: Not Italian. The restaurant is on the second floor. They have been around for years and years. When I used to work in Hong Kong in the mid 80's, I loved coming here to get my Indonesian food fix. They are still around! And probably will be for a long time. They have a few comfortable booths. First came the shaved ice with red beans, mung beans (yellow) and green jellies made from pandan leaves. Three colors. Filled with coconut milk. And a bottle of my favorite beer: Tsing Tao. Strange to be drinking a Chinese beer in an Indonesian restaurant, huh? Food-wise: first came the appetizer - Chicken Satay. Six pieces of chicken meat on a skewer, grilled to perfection and served with some cucumbers. The satay sauce is made from ground peanuts, sha cha sauce, onion/shallot and such. The taste was very good. Beef Rendang. Perfectly done. Heavy in coconut milk, concentrated from the cooking. The taste was intense. Spicy. Hot. Sweet. Rich. Tasty. The famous Indonesian/Malaysian dish of "Curry Fishhead". It was a bit boney, and the fish skin was thick and chewy but soft. There were still meats in the cheek area and around the bones. Coupled with the hot curry sauce, it was quite good! I do recommend this restaurant if you like Indonesian food. Dinner for two, about HKD$300 (gratuity included). USD$40. Indonesia Restaurant, 2/F, 66 Granville Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. 2367-3287 (Reviews on Indonesia Restaurant on Openrice.com (in Chinese))

Ah Leung, do you know why they are called "ocean bottom" coconuts? ← I think they had mislabelled the coconut juice. There is something that Cantonese translated to as "ocean bottom coconut" but that is not to be used for making coconut juice.

Pai Pa Ap is one of my favorites. I love it more than regular roast ducks. I agree that the cavity marination seems to be heavy on hoi-sin sauce. I like it as it is roasted dried on both sides: the skin side and the cavity side.

Yes, chewy and hot/spicy. There is a "non-hot" version if one likes. Nowadays they usually sell both versions - knowing that people in Hong Kong in general don't like hot food. I don't know how they make the curry sauce. It seems a bit heavy on MSG.

Day 3: In Between Meals After the Lee Cheng Uk Han Tomb Museum (what a long name!), we strolled along the older residential district of Sham Shui Po and walked to the Golden Centre. I grew up around here. Of the first 20 years of my life, my family moved three times. This is an area where I have keen memories of what it used to look like back in the early 70's. Things haven't changed all that much. Outside of the Golden Centre (a shopping mall for computers, cameras and peripherals), there used to be plenty of hawkers selling small eats on the street. And mobs of people eating everywhere. ALL GONE! There went one of my hopes of still finding hawkers on the street. They really are an endangered species. Government regulations and enforcements have by-and-large caused them extincted. Hawkers are now replaced by small shops selling drinks and snacks. I bought a cup of coconut juice. With foams and shreds of coconuts. The coconut flavor was quite strong. Passed by a shop selling curry octopus. I got a skewer of octopus tentacles in curry sauce. Very common in the streets of Hong Kong. This district is full of shops selling snakes. Look at all the neon signs sticking out from the buildings, all jammed together. Very Hong Kong-like. We passed by this sweet dessert soup specialty shop selling Malaysian burbur chacha. I would love to step inside and have a bowl... if I wasn't that full, still, from the big lunch. After browsing through the Golden Centre, I only picked up a wide-angle/macro lense for my camera. I did, however, picked up plenty of Chinese concert DVDs. We took a bus back to the Tsim Sha Tsui district for dinner. Ah! Found a street vendor selling roasted chestnuts! Just taking the picture? Of course I bought and ate some! What do you think? The vendor mixed the chestnuts with some coarse "black sands" (I don't exactly know what it is.), and "stir-fried" them with sugar (or honey?) for the chestnuts to pick up the sheen. Here was a handful. This way of roasting chestnuts is the best! The chestnuts inherited some smoky, roasty flavor. Marvelous! We passed by another Chiu Chow style eatery (there are plenty of them in Hong Kong) selling similar items. Braised geese, crabs, and many other items. I would love to walk right it and chow down... but... we had a different plan in mind.

Prawncrackers: Beautiful duck! When you roast your duck did you hang it vertically? Do you have enough room to do so in your oven (what kind of oven do you use)? If not, how did you hang the duck?

Nasty, nasty! Patience, Grasshopper!

You can order plain rice separately if you like. Though it's not on the "menu", they would probably charge HKD$3-5 (USD$0.40-0.70) for the plain rice. Sorry I couldn't remember the name of of the "fast food" jook place in Hung Hom. I wouldn't recommend it in any case. No worries. There are plenty of these in Hong Kong. Virtually one around every corner - far more than Starbucks! Ask your friend's husband in Shatin and I am sure they know a few in the neighborhood.

Yes. They inherit a bit of the braising sauce (lo shui), which is mainly dark soy sauce with five spices and other herbs, on the surface of the eggs. The eggs are boiled with shells on, then the shells are cracked and the eggs continue to be boiled over slow heat (braised) for an hour or longer to pick up the flavor from the sauce.

Day 3: Lunch... The Quick And The Fat The itinerary of today: visit the Lee Cheng Uk Han Tomb Museum (李鄭屋古墓). The Han Tomb was discovered back in August 1955 when they prepared the site for the Lee Cheng Uk Estate (some low-rent housing). The government decided to preserve the tomb and built the estate around it. They constructed a small museum to house the small tomb and to display some unearthed potteries. More info about Lee Cheng Uk Han Tomb Museum on the Wiki Here is the museum marker. It is off the beaten track a little bit for most visitors to Hong Kong. The museum is small. We finished the tour within an hour. I think it's only worth visiting if you have more time for your stay in Hong Kong. But... before touring the tomb and browsing the unearhed potteries and stuff, we needed to fill up our stomach first. We just saw this small hole-in-the-wall outfit on the way to the museum after we got off the bus. It looked promising, I thought. "Kum Kee" (my translation) - specialized in Chiu Chow style braised goose. Look at what they were showing behind the glass - duck tongues, pig ears, goose wings, goose kidneys, tofu, chicken eggs, etc.. When I saw the 2 big braised geese hung behind the glass... like them, I was hooked. This is the one. This was a take-out shop mainly. They have only 4 chairs and one small table attached to the wall. Talk about hole-in-the-wall! This shop probably takes the concept to the whole new level! The menu... ah... there it was! Laminated and taped to the glass. The prices were incredibly cheap. The braised goose was HKD$56 per katty (one katty is about 1.3 lb). I was afraid that between the two of us we wouldn't be able to finish half a goose, so I ordered half a duck instead. Only HKD$35 (about USD$5.00). This is a typical setting in the restaurants for the working class patrons: a cup of generic tea, a pair of chopsticks and a spoon. We had a plate of chicken over rice. The chicken was incredibly fresh and tasty. It was served with a little bit of pickled vegetables. This was the half braised duck dish. I also added 3 braised chicken eggs. The thin slices were duck breast meat on the top. They handled the showmanship pretty well. The big slices of duck breast were laid on the top. After those were gone, it revealed the rest of the duck: boney dark meat. This meal was a pleasant surprise. Hole-in-the-wall outfit, yes. Tasty? It was fantastic! And the incredible part was the price. The total came to HKD$60 (USD$8.00) - including my can of Coke. No tax. No service charge. That's what I love about these old shops in the lower-rent residential areas. The real deal: delicious food at an incredibly low price. "Kum Kee" Braised Goose Shop: on (about) 52 Tonkin Street, Sham Shui Po District, Kowloon.

The Chinese characters are: 煎堆 Cantonese pronounciations: "Geen" - Like the liquor Gin, just elongate the "eeeee" vowel. "Dui" - That's a hard one. Like the "OY" in Oyster, but put a "D" in front of it.

Day 3: Breakfast... There Will Be Blood Day break. After the jet-lag sleeplessness, I finally managed to get some good night sleep. I wanted some jook (congee) for breakfast, just like old time! We wandered into the neighborhood Whampoa residential buildings. I was hoping to find some old style jook specialty restaurants along Mo Wu Street in the older neighbood of Hung Hom. Disappointedly, I found none. At the verge of dispair, I saw a fairly new jook specialty "fast food" outfit in front of me. They serve the old fashioned Cantonese jook "fast food" style: pay the cashier, get the tickets, get your food from the counter, put them on a tray and sit anywhere you want. A bowl of "Zhee Hung Jook" (pork blood congee). The pork blood was quite fresh: soft and liquidity, not like those I got in the USA where the pork blood cubes are hard and solid. However, the jook base lacked the essential flavor. That's the problem with these new restaurants. The mastery is still lacking. It's safer to go to those old restaurants who have been around forever and ever. A bowl of "ngau yuk" jook (beef congee). In Hong Kong, beef congee is understood to be made with ground beef, mixed with deep-fried mung bean threads. I don't know what's with the Chinese restaurants in the USA. Whenever I ordered "beef congee" or "ground beef congee" (doesn't matter), they would give me these congee made with cleaver-chopped beef (not ground). And never (so far) with deep-fried mung bean threads. I don't know why that is. It is something so simple to make. I just don't know why it was never done the Hong Kong way. An order of fried crueller, cut. One good way to have it is to let it soak in the hot congee for a minute and eat with the congee. A plate of steamed "cheung fun" (rice noodle sheets). Topped with sesame seeds, sweet sauce and sesame sauce. A bit of hot sauce on the side. I think this is uniquely a Hong Kong creation: "Zha Leung" - deep-fried crueller with steamed rice noodle sheet wrapped around it. This is a very popular breakfast item in Hong Kong. Topped with some dark soy sauce. Crispy fried-dough texture wrapped by soft rice noodle texture. Isn't that weird? After stuffing ourselves with the above items, my wife didn't pass up this opportunithy to have a "jeen dui" [Cantonese], or "see doi" in Toisanese(??). The dough is made from sticky rice flour, deep-fried and coated with sesame seeds. The filling is a little bit of "lin yung" (grounded lotus seeds). It's sweet and chewy. A dessert, sort of.

"Lo" literally means "old". In Chinese (not just Cantonese) it's more like "good old" and not referring to age. It doesn't have a negative connotation. "Fan" is a generic label for foreigner. Now back to the regular food programming...

Affectionately? Oh yeah! I am one of the commoners. Son of a working class single father raising four kids, I only dined at places for the commoners in Hong Kong growing up. In Hong Kong there is a whole range of restaurants in different price scales, from the commoners', the elites' to the obscenely, outrageously over-priced. High prices would pretty much guarantee good service, and usually (but not always) food deliciousness. However, there are gems to be found in many hole-in-the-wall outfits. It is good to experience places in different ends of the price spectrum to understand our culture.

Day 2: In between meals... The Mandarin Connection Right outside of City Hall, I ran into an ice-cream vendor. Still doing this the old fashion way... The ice chest was attached to the frame of a bicycle. The image of my father taking me to City Hall and buying me an icecream cone immediately flashed back in my mind... that was almost half a century ago. Father... this one is for you! Icecream cone from the Dairy Farm. The taste changed very little over the years. Now that there is more chocolate covering the top. Just as good as I remember. Can't eat icecream without some soda! My old friend: Cocacola! It's good that companies like Coke do very good jobs in quality control. The soda is bottled locally in Hong Kong... but Coke around the world would probably taste the same. Hong Kong (China) is doing all kinds of preparations and promotions for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Note the "Olympic"ish and "08" in the can's design. We passed by The Mandarin Hotel, Central in the afternoon. Nope... too full to have an afternoon tea there (though it would be a good idea). I was awed by the dessert and chocolate they displayed on the counter. Some chocolate cakes. Okay... that's ordinary enough... A pineapple. What's so special about that? Well, look closer... this was not a real pineapple. It is a pineapple made with candy/chocolate (I am not sure which, or may be it's a combination of both). A "Ronald Abram" shirt. Made of white and regular chocolate. Some "golden frog" buttons. Very cute! The most impressive piece was this one. They show-cased a Chinese legendary figure "Sheung Ngall" (the one who flew to the moon) made of chocolate and/or candy. Very nice indeed. In Day 2's evening, I met up with my high-school buddy whom I have seen for 20 years. He took me to a private club for a dinner and dance party (ballroom dance: e.g. tango, cha cha, waltz, fours, etc.). During the party I met up with more high school classmates... people whom I haven't see for over 30 years! All under one roof! Together we celebrated one of our high-school teacher's 70th birthday. It's amazing how much they have changed (the look), and how much they haven't changed (the character and the voice) over the years. 30 years of your life passes you by like minutes. So... lesson learned - enjoy every minute of life when you can. Eat, Eat Well, and Eat Well Often (my motto)! Taking pictures were discouraged in the club. Sorry.

The polite, PC way would be calling the "Sai Yun" (West People - westerners).

It's a mix. Most restaurants for the commoners are still serving dim sum with carts. The more "showier" restaurants do the menu ordering ritual. And every few minutes, they send a waitstaff to bring out some "specials" from the kitchen on a plastic serving tray to entice diners. The new trend is that some restaurants set up "cooking stations". Like laksa said, they are bringing the kitchen out to the dining room. They use the cooking stations to deep-fry or pan-fry "stuff", like bell-pepper/egg-plants/tofo stuffed with fish cake, or beef organ kind of thing.

Was this in USD or Canadian dollar? (I guess in today's rate it doesn't matter. ) Not in HKD I am sure. The figure certainly depends on what one orders. I mean... suckling pigs, crab roe dumplings and XO sauce cheung fun would definitely cost more. I agree that your figure is a good estimate in general.

No problem at all. Maybe I will include some info on the meal's cost for the readers in my posts. I am a computer consultant, which means that I can be eating candie bars for lunch and dining in a five star restaurant in the same day as a matter of life. In my last trip to Hong Kong, we ate at pricey places as well as hole-in-the-wall outfits. As long as the food tastes good, everything else to me is secondary. Most of the meals were just for the two of us, me and my wife. And you can probably tell from the pictures. The lunch for two at Maxim's Palace costed about HKD$550 (around USD$70), with 10% customary gratuity included. I hadn't been to too many dim sum (yum cha) places in Hong Kong during this trip. As much as I love dim sums, I couldn't have it everyday and I loved to experience other food as well. So I really can't provide much of a comparison. I haven't been to Fuk Lum Moon (inked for next trip). I agree with canuklehead that the dim sums at Victoria City are "showier" - quite tasty and very good presentation (e.g. XO sauce pan-fried cheung fun). I like Maxim's Palace for its traditional dim sum offers, a very modern, spacious, comfortable seating with a view (Remember the "Lin Hsang" tea house that Anthony Bourdain's been too - it's rubbing elbow crowded and they had to go to the kitchen to get some dim sums; Or that I have heard horror stories of the rude waiters at "Luk Yu".). There are plenty of brand names with good reputation. I will cite some but I haven't been to them for years and years. Flower Lounge East Ocean Fook Yuen (et.) The Maxim's chain has pretty good reputation for their many different locations (I had another dim sum lunch at their location inside the Hong Kong International Airport. The dim sum was pretty much just as good.) Perhaps you can try them upon arrival or departure to/from HKG. RE: "gweilo" The literal translation of it in Chinese means "the ghost (male)". It means "foreigner(s)". This term is used so often over the years that it seems there is no more derogatory meaning (than a century ago).

Day 2: Lunch, a dim-sum experience We went to Maxim's Palace in the City Hall, Central, for lunch. This place is famous for their dim-sums. It is located on the 2/F of the City Hall facing the Victoria Harbour. Normally this place offers a gorgeous, close-up view of the Victoria Harbour right from the dining room. Unfortunately, as you can see, the government is working on a construction project. They have torn down the old Star Ferry Terminal and Queen's Pier right outside the City Hall and are building a harbour-front pesdestrian walkway very similar to the one outside of the New World Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui. The construction work would probably last for a couple of years. Meanwhile, what we saw was the close-up view of cranks and barges outside the dining room. You can order items from the menu. Or... They push the dim sum carts around with Chinese name tags. The waitstaff speak some English. I saw a mix of local Chinese and foreign visitors. Sight-seers, friends' gatherings, power lunches in suits and ties... a big mix. The item that almost universally used as a representative of dim sum: "Har Gow" (shrimp dumplings). There is an old Chinese saying that says: if you want to know whether a restaurant makes good dim sum, all you have to do is to taste their Har Gow. If they make this item well, you can eat there with confidence. This item is not too hard to make, but hard to make well. The chef's mastery shows. The dim sums at Maxim's Palace are indeed very good. I always avoid eating spring rolls in Chinese restaurants in North America, especially at chop-suey style places. But I love the Hong Kong style spring rolls (egg rolls). The skin is thin and crispy. The fillings are usually shredded chicken, black mushrooms and bamboo shoots. Mini "Nor Mai Gai" (sticky rice and chicken wrapped in a lotus leaf). They make these Nor Mai Gai smaller and smaller over the years. When I was small, one order contained only one wrap - but the size was huge. These days, they shrink the Nor Mai Gai to half-palm size. The taste was pretty good though. I could taste the true lotus leave flavor in the rice. "Cheung Fun" - steamed rice noodle sheets with shrimp filling in a pool of diluted, sweetened soy sauce. Here are some dim sum dishes that are harder to find in the USA. This one was "Kwun Tong Gow", a dumpling, Cantonese style. It is kind of like Shanghainese style Xiaolongbao. But the size is huge. One big dumpling in an order. "Meen Fa Gai" ("Cotton" Chicken). They steam a few pieces of chicken with black mushrooms and a few pieces of fish maw. The fish maw looks like a piece of cotton. Thus the name. "Gai Zhut" (Chicken "bundle"). Pieces of chicken, crab meat (imitation), fish maw and baby corns wrapped by a small beancurd sheet and steamed. "Gai See Fun Gueon" (Steamed rice noodle sheets with minced chicken and some shredded cloud ear fungi.) This one is more common: Cha Xiu Bao, steamed bao with BBQ pork filling. This condiment was provided with the soup dumpling: red vinegar with shredded ginger. Many people in Hong Kong like to eat soup noodles with red vinegar. Besides the added flavor, they believe in taking in some acid (vinegar) to neutralize the alkaline (soda) used to make noodles, or else one would develop kidney stones. I couldn't pass up this opportunity and ordered some suckling pig. As you see, only skins. Hardly any meat attached. Crispy, fatty, very flavorful! Kissing all my diets goodbye. I found that there was a trend where many eateries (high-end, low-end, they all seem to do the same thing) provide plasma TVs in the dining room. Sometimes I found it odd. I mean... in a place like this, who would be watching the TV in the dining room anyway? Oh well... The restaurant was promoting all kinds of freshly squeezed fruit drinks. I couldn't pass this up! A combination of kiwi and watermelon. Very good! This one was grapefruit and mango. They push the dessert cart around with all kinds of gohs and sweets. I am normally not a dessert person. But I was attracted by their mango pudding. Very strong mango flavor. I love it! When you order dim sums from the carts, they stamp on the dim-sum card so that at the end, they can tally up how much you need to pay. 11 dim-sums plus the suckling pig! I felt like a pig myself! When we arrived Maxim's Palace, it was 11:30 am. We got a fairly good seat close to the window. As we were leaving shortly after 1:00 pm, I saw a mob of people waiting outside the dining room - meal time in Hong Kong. The rush hour starts shortly before 1:00 pm. Maxim's Palace, City Hall, Central, Hong Kong.

Thank you very much for all your kind words. I will just keep going... For those who are interested... One bowl of wonton noodle soup, beefball noodle soup, etc.. Going price, as of November 2007: HKD$17.0, which is about USD$2.25. In the United States, the going price for a bowl of wonton noodle soup, about USD$4.50 to $5.00. Though the bowls (portions) are probably 40% bigger. In London, a bowl of wonton noodle soup now is about 7 pound (???) (is my guess based on my visits). I just remember the price was about twice that of the USA. I have no idea how much a bowl of wonton noodle soup would cost in Australia or Japan or other European countries (but it would be interesting to know).

Gotta give the oscar to the right person. It's fmed who posted the pictures. I agree that I have made those scallion pancakes at home before. Very far from what they make in the restaurants. I am not skillful enough... Would a good home-made Mexican tortilla recipe work about the same? They are very similar. Just add some oil and chopped green onions.

No I didn't have any roast goose in Shatin. Only roast pigeon. I wouldn't know where to go for that. Years ago the roast goose in "Sum Tsang" (the "deep well" - a little bit northwest of Tsuen Wan) was quite famous. The roast goose at Yung Kee is probably the (or one of the) best.

Lung Wah is famous for their pigeons for over 50 years. Their roast pigeons (which we ate for lunch) are pretty good. They have all sorts of pigeon dishes, plus other Cantonese stir-fries. Their location is really out of the way these days (because of the railroad). I would not recommend to make a special visit there because many restaurants make roast pigeons which are pretty good too. But if one is in the Shatin area, it may not be too bad. Taxi drivers can drop you off somewhere across the railroad but you need to walk up the pesdestrian overpass to get to the foothill where Lung Wah is. Kind of hard to find (especially if you don't speak/read the language). If you desparately want to go, PM me and I will draw you a map.