Stopover

My flight to Toronto leaves from Hong Kong which is why I spent the night at my Uncle's in Tai Koo.

In the morning, we had breakfast in a tiny store near his apartment. Ramen with ham, and a piece of toast and fried eggs for me. I never really developed a taste for these noodles and didn't eat a single packet in university. They say it's so different and so much better in Japan. The Hong Kong slang for a coffee with no cream is tsai fe, or, "vegetarian coffee".

There's in-town check-in for luggage, at the Hong Kong and Kowloon MTR stations. Very convenient as my flight was for the afternoon and I was able to drop off my big suitcase and pick up my boarding pass.

We checked out the restaurant supply street, Shanghai Street, in Yau Ma Tei. Aside from the usual things, my uncle wanted to show me the vegetable cutters. You know how some stir fries have carrot or ginger slices in the shapes of butterflies or fish or the Chinese character for fortune? It turns out they're not laboriously carved by hand as I thought, but stamped from sharp metal cutters.

Lunch was at a fish ball noodle place, where I tried some stuffed beef balls and a drink of chrysanthemum and honey.

Well, that's it for my whirlwind trip. I've been away for a long time and it will be nice to come home. There's things I won't miss here, like the humidity and crowds, but I will miss the glorious food and superb public transit.

Wan Chai

For my last day in town, I wanted to see more of Wan Chai. I started at Victoria City Seafood Restaurant (30 Harbour Road, in the Sun Hung Kai Centre) for dim sum. There was no one when I went around 11:15, so the waiter was quite happy to help me select dishes. He even gave me half-orders (two pieces instead of four per basket) so I could try more things. Winter melon and scallop dumplings, some other dumplings with wood ear mushrooms, crab oil dumplings (vibrant yellow, lots of crab meat), ham sui gok (hint of curry, bits of cabbage, very crisp exterior, and not chewy at all) and a crispy peanut pancake made with sticky rice. Excellent, definitely recommended. Prices are higher than other places in Hong Kong but on par with mid-range places in Toronto.

On the walk back, a big sign saying Chinese Arts & Crafts. Inside were some of the most amazing displays of carvings I'd ever seen, museum-quality for sure, as most of the items had prices ending with three or more zeroes (priciest item I saw: 1.8 million HKD). Mammoth tusk, ivory, ebony, bone, amber, jadeite, camphorwood... The ivory and mammoth tusk carvings were extraordinary especially the tigers and foliage done in minute detail. Do drop in for a look. I don't know if anyone ever buys these things, but a salesman hovered behind me the whole time. Second floor has a huge selection of traditional Chinese clothing.

I made a detour to the Convention Centre where Fashion Week was going on. Behind the hall is the monument to the reunification of Hong Kong with China and the Golden Bauhinia. That's a fun word to say.

Other new words I've learned: shroff and nullah.

I've been trying to get to a place for sweet soups for weeks now and finally got a chance this afternoon. Both Tai Leung Pak Kee (10 Canal Rd West) and Chui Yuen Dessert House (83C Percival Rd) had all the usuals (sweet soups made from nuts, other classics like green bean) but I was actually disappointed. Neither of the ones I tried were very fragrant or nutty. The soups were extremely silky (my uncle says they strain them through cheesecloth) but lacking that fresh roasted taste.

Underneath the Canal Road flyover, I saw a bunch of old ladies sitting down beside little shrines, and a few dozen yellow objects that looked like tigers made of wood. One woman was busy hammering away but when I watched what she was doing, she was hammering a brick with a shoe. Huh?

My uncle told me later that people hire them to curse people they don't like. You tell them your victim's name and year of birth if you know it, pay them about $30HKD then they'll call out that person's name as they bash the brick.

That's much more interesting than pricking a doll with pins.

For dinner, my uncle and his wife and I went to Peking Garden in Cityplaza in Taikoo Shing. I love northern Chinese food even more now. We ate lion's head meatballs, brined chicken, lemon chicken, gao tze, mixed mushroom stirfry and green onion pancake. After the meal, we checked out the grocery in the basement. So many Japanese products! And they sell eggs imported from Australia, New Zealand and Japan! The world really is a small place or else companies are expanding their reach further and further. Many of the brands and packaging are identical to what I see in Canada.

Cell-free

A friend of my uncle's treated his friends and I to dinner at the Ladies' Recreation Club tonight. It's a swanky private club in the Midlevels. We ate outside, on the balcony, and it was quite a view, with gleaming apartment buildings perched on the mountainside overlooking the tennis courts.

Food was fairly simple. A Thai platter featuring crab cakes, shrimp cakes, and spring rolls followed by samosas were the starters. We ordered Singapore style noodles, Caesar and salmon salads, fish and chips and some other pub-style food. My dessert was interesting, a simple mango and blueberry pudding served with blueberry sauce, but what looked like whipped cream turned out to be coconut cream.

The best part of this place was that cellphones are off-limits. If you're caught with one ringing, it's a $1000HKD fine!

Finally, some peace and quiet.

Thought streams

Many businesses charge you 3% extra if you pay by credit card. This happened to me at the travel agent where I bought my JR Rail Pass the other day. Tip for the budget-conscious.

As of the beginning of this month, government workers will only have to work 5 days a week, hardly a shocker to anyone in North America, but is a big deal in Hong Kong.

Did another search on the Internet and had dinner at Chueng Kee in Wan Chai, a small Peking/Szechuan restaurant on Lockhart Road near Luard Road. The waiter was kind enough to help me pick out some dishes: a kind of chicken noodle soup, very plain thin noodles with bits of diced chicken and bok choy; dry fried green beans (stringy) with ground pork, and an intense mixture of minced chilis, garlic, ginger, dried shrimp, and celery; very tender, fatty, pork ribs in a sweet sauce with a hint of sesame oil.

Afterwards, I walked along Hennessy Road looking for Tai Leung Pak Kee for desserts but, not knowing the address, didn't find it. I ended up walking an entire subway stop, to Causeway Bay where I bought some buns from a branch of Donq in the basement of Sogo.

Why do some websites in foreign languages sprinkle a few words of English here and there? Why even bother, if the rest of the site isn't in English? Maybe it's part of the whole business of SEO.

Tickets and hotels are now confirmed for Japan!

Lethargy

Another late night, so I just picked a restaurant in the mall attached to the hotel. I had steamed scallops with Taiwanese bean curd at East Ocean Seafood Restaurant. The very small and scrawny molluscs sat atop some preserved egg on top of some very tasty tofu. I don't know what the Taiwanese part was. Service was cold and indifferent and the dozens of hanging cardboard signs advertising siu lung bao and crab were not my idea of furnishings.

Dessert was no better. I opted for a dry, unsatisfying pineapple napoleon from the Pacific Coffee Company.

I think I'm just a bit worn out from Hong Kong: there aren't any more attractions I want to see (not even Disneyland), the restaurants are too hit-and-miss without adequate research, and I miss my own pillow. Looking forward to Japan in a few days!

Food and drink

My uncle recommended won ton noodles at a place in Central called Mak's Noodles. The bowl of wontons and sui gows that I had were fantastic, crisp shrimp and wood ear mushrooms with just the right amount of seasoning. The noodles were more al dente than I prefer and there wasn't quite enough broth, but otherwise, an excellent lunch. I also loved how the chef in the front window hammed it up for some tourists who were snapping photos of him performing the very simple task of draining noodles!

On to Ying Kee Tea House. I knew the clerk would try to upsell me especially since I admitted I didn't really know what I was looking for. Ever since I've been in Hong Kong, I've been drinking a lot of pu erh tea, something I've avoided in the past because its dark colour led me to believe it was very bitter. But I've grown to like it and decided to buy a few cakes at the store. I also bought some "monkey pick" tea and a mid-range jasmine. If you go and don't want to spend too much, they also sell teas in bulk. After I made my purchase, the clerk prepared a small pot of tea for me, complete with warming the tiny cups in a bowl of water and straining the golden liquid.

At Watson's Wine Cellar, I was curious to see how Canada was represented. Sadly, the only bottles they had were from Mission Hill. The clerk told me that a bottle of icewine costs $800HKD! He was embarassed to admit that he'd never tried any before. Alcohol is pretty expensive, the liquor tax is something like 100%. But, you can buy booze in grocery stores.

The rest of my lazy afternoon was spent at the ifc mall again, specifically, at Le Goûter Bernardaud. This time, I had afternoon tea set so I could sample a bunch of different things. I got a pot of citrus and pineapple tea (Mélange à 4 agrumes I think) to wash down the various little bites. Pricey, but, hey, I'm sort of on vacation in Hong Kong, right?

Walled city, spiral, orchestra

There was a review on the Web about a Thai restaurant in Kowloon City so I decided to make a trip out there and check out the Walled City later. I took a minibus on my own this time, armed with a route number and a street map 13 years out of date (it still showed the old airport nearby). Passengers were telling the driver where to let them off, but I didn't know how to say the street in Cantonese (those six tones can make a world of difference). Fortunately, someone called out a street I could recognize and I got off near Lung Kong Road which is where Golden Orchid Thai Restaurant is.

The menu had a note saying they don't re-use coconut or pineapple shells for serving their dishes. Seeing that implies that there are some restaurants that do recycle their leftovers. I ordered a dish written on the blackboard, roast duck red curry with rambutan and pineapple. Not bad, but not worth the trip out here. Beer's cheap though, a bottle of Singha only cost me $15HKD. When I was snapping a photo of the restaurant's interior, I had the camera turned to face me and I had to take several shots because my arm kept getting in the way. After a while, a man tapped me on the shoulder and asked whether I had a particular interest in him because I seemed to be pointing the camera in his direction. I explained I was just photographing the dining area and would gladly erase the picture if he wanted. He grunted and went back to his family.

Over at the Kowloon Walled City Park, I was pleasantly surprised by the peaceful and beautifully landscaped surroundings. There weren't many people there, mostly old men sitting around having a smoke and chatting with each other. Highly recommended, and do read the story behind its existence.

I walked to Lok Fu station and then took the subway to Langham Place, a mall in Mong Kok. Two things I was looking for: a chocolate buffet at the Langham hotel restaurant and Muji, which I read about from a post from kottke. The mall has an annoying thematic feature: a superlong escalator takes you from something like Level 7 to Level 11 and you have to walk down a set of spiral steps to get to the intervening floors. BWG discusses it here.

At The Place, I sat down for what I thought was an afternoon dessert buffet. But after two plates of chocolate sweets, I realized the entire restaurant was available to me. Unfortunately, I wasn't very hungry, so I wasn't able to eat very much of the congee (made to order), dim sum, salads and desserts. This would be a great place to go with a group of people, it's bright and spacious and buffets offer something for everyone. It's only available from 15:15 to 17:30 though.

Over at Muji, I wasn't very impressed by what I saw. It seemed like a mix of Umbra and IKEA, lots of translucent plastic storage solutions. Or maybe Caban. Then I saw the off-white clothes (no labels!), bath and beauty products, pens and pencils, snacks and freeze-dried food. What kind of store is this!? I'll have to check out their flagships in Tokyo.

In the evening, I went to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre for a Tchaikovsky concert. There was a sign at the box office saying that the show would go on: it turns out that this was their last concert of the season and as luck would have it, the air conditioning was broken and had only been fixed earlier in the day. It was so warm they needed fans on the stage and the musicians used clothespins to keep their music on the stands. The hall is really ugly: forest green seats and wood throughout. Musically, the orchestra sounded fine, with a very powerful brass section (but maybe that's because I was seated in the balcony above them).

PSA, forbidden fruit

"Use one less plastic bag? I can do it!" -- television ad showing people putting toys, produce and electronics in their own, reusable container

There are a lot of public service ads on TV and in the public transit stations. Stuff like "end racial discrimination" to "2 servings of fruit and vegetables per day" to "don't handle raw poultry, let's prevent avian flu" to "don't gamble excessively".

Then you get television ads like this one: iGallop (YouTube).

I left work at quarter to 8 tonight, so I went straight to Silvercord, a business/shopping building in Tsim Sha Tsui. In the basement, they have a fantastic food court (here I go again with the praises of mall eateries). Japanese, Korean, regional Chinese and Malaysian were all represented. I got some Balachan fried noodles with shrimp from the Singapore Nanxiang Restaurant which wasn't all that exciting, they went to light on the seasonings.

For dessert, I got mango and durian pancakes from Honeymoon Dessert which has branches all over Hong Kong. Let me start by saying they're actually thin crepes filled with lots of whipped cream and fruit. The mango one was delicious but the durian... Oh, how the forbidden fruit has tempted me for many years, with its promise of heavenly taste if one can get past the hellish exterior. This was my first experience ever and it wasn't a good one. Upon tearing open the plastic container, a strong onion-like smell hit me. It got worse as I cut into the crepe and exposed the flesh to the air. Vile! I'll give it a second chance at some point as I've heard different varieties have their own unique charms, but I'm not in any hurry.

J'ai faim

A 45 minute commute doesn't leave me a lot of time to make it in time for the early set dinners many restaurants offer here. After taking shuttle bus, train, subway and escalator into Soho, I walked into La Terrasse just in time. The restaurant has a tiny bar up front, an upright piano in the corridor and a partially open kitchen. It projects a cozy atmosphere, but the air conditioning didn't seem to be working very well.

The maitre d' was very pleasant and suggested a Viognier from Pays d'Oc to go with my meal. From the set dinner menu, I chose the salmon, which had neither citrus nor capers but the slices were very thin, without any fishiness, and the basil olive oil was excellent. And bread, the first dinner rolls I've eaten in weeks! Too bad about the heavily salted butter though.

I chose the sirloin for my main, which came with some nicely done vegetables, including an oven roasted tomato and a small pile of scalloped potatoes. I've eaten better cuts of meat but it wasn't too chewy.

The only choice for dessert was chocolate moelleux, a word I didn't know, but when the plate came, it dawned on me: molten! The cake was very nice, with a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream and some kind of almond wafer.

For the price, the dinner was just average, but the total bill was inflated by the glass of wine and cup of tea I had. It's nice to have the choice of a French restaurant when you want it.

Illiteracy, Peanuts

A lot of my research on places to eat have been done on the Web. I've made a wiki to keep track of details that I can update wherever I have Internet access. Unfortunately, I don't have a printer, nor do I want to pay outrageous amounts to print out pages at the hotel. Of course, pen and paper are sufficient to write down the evening's restaurant choice, but I often forget to do it.

Such was the case tonight in which I wandered around Prince Edward looking for a BBQ pork place. I only knew the English name (Wing Hub Lung Roasties Specialist), but the sign that looked like the right place only had Chinese characters. After doubling back, I was tired of lugging around my laptop and ate at a small mom-and-pop type place instead. The dish of Fujian fried rice was decent enough, with squid, chicken and vegetables. Cheap too.

The weekend Post magazine mentioned a Charlie Brown coffee shop which sounded like a place to drop by. It's funny, Snoopy and Garfield haven't faded in popularity in Hong Kong. In fact, there's a brand new movie about the lasagna-loving cat. I was the only customer at the Kwong Wa Street location (since I couldn't find the main one) so I had my pick of seats.

Let's just say that if you're a Peanuts fan, or you want to say you've been here, you might get a kick out of the cafe. Otherwise, you'll be disappointed. The food and coffee are very mediocre. I had the signature Charlie Mocha, a double espresso topped with chocolate whipped cream, and two desserts: a white coffee mousse cake, and a fruit-topped pastry. The former was alright, but the latter was disappointing.

Bienvenue, averting gum disease

I wasted an evening walking around New Town Plaza in Sha Tin tonight looking for a congee place. Although the mall is undergoing some renovations, it's still terribly designed, with elevators that go only between two floors, or escalators that skip levels. There was a big city'Super, an upscale grocery, selling jars of Bonne Maman chestnut jam for about $35HKD. If it wasn't for the weight, I would have bought a half dozen to take home!

In the end, after scoping out all the restaurants, I went with what looked the most interesting and ventured into La Fleur Vietnamese Cuisine. Big White Guy has a good writeup about what it's like there. I really did hear the waitresses calling out the greeting while leading guests to their table.

I was about to order the sampler platter with spring rolls, rice rolls, etc. but noticed lots of other people eating what looked like lamb chops. The menu called them pig's legs but they were really skinny and tasted more like chicken.

Picking your teeth in public is pretty gross, but it's quite common here. Everyone does it behind the privacy of their hand or with their mouth closed. After your meal, you'll always be given a toothpick, whether from a little dispenser, or individually wrapped in the disposable package that also has a Chinese spoon, napkin and fork.

Numerology, kung fu

When you get a cellphone, you get to choose the phone number. Stores often have billboards with a list of available digits. Those containing 8s are considered lucky as the word for 8 is a homonym for the word meaning prosperity. Even the real estate listings indicate whether a home has an even or odd lot number. I would have thought the buildings didn't have floors with 4 in them (four sounds like death) but most do.

Speaking of housing, all listings here tell you the price per square foot. $20000HKD isn't uncommon.

My uncle and his wife took me to Pak Loh Chiu Chow Restaurant in Causeway Bay tonight. We started with a cold poached fish served with a salty bean dip. The next course was shark's fin soup (which I ate uneasily as I didn't want to be impolite but do worry about the way they're harvested). Then, battered shrimp and water chestnut balls, squid and fish, served with kumquat dipping sauce; duck egg omelette with melon; satay beef with Chinese broccoli; and Chiu Chow-style oyster congee. Dessert was a thick taro paste soup and red bean and lotus seed dumplings.

Both before and after the meal, they served us very strong tea in tiny eggshell-like cups. There's so much about tea I have to learn.

Old school, hardship, peak interest, gyoza

I made a return trip to Tai Cheong this morning and had a cappuccino in a nearby cafe. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that I'm in Hong Kong: the Pacific Coffee Company could have passed for any other North American java joint, right down to the background music, magazines, menu choices, etc.

My uncle gave me fair warning -- "Do you mind if it's dirty?" -- as we walked over to Lin Heung Teahouse, a really old dim sum restaurant. It was lit with naked flourescent tubes, cooled with ceiling fans, populated by locals and looked like it hadn't been renovated in 50 years. We had to find our own table: the waiters ignored us while we searched for a (shared) table with two empty places. Not everyone gets chairs: there are stools stacked everywhere. Everyone had their own little tea bowl to steep their leaves and roving waiters poured boiling water into them periodically. I ended up spilling most of my tea onto the increasingly dirty tabletop, can't get the hang of using the lid. I can't say I enjoyed the dim sum but got to check off a few more pork parts (liver, stomach) that I've eaten while in Hong Kong.

We checked out a few more streets with vendors selling bird's nest, dried seafood and teas, before stopping at Western Market which mostly had fabric vendors. Taking the tram back, we saw a huge crowd of people under the HSBC tower.

A large number of Filipino women work in Hong Kong as cooks, housekeepers and nannies, living with their employers on working days (Mon - Sat). On their day off, they congregate in huge numbers to chat, take naps, paint each others' toenails, play cards. I saw them outside churches, on sidewalks, in malls... and on the ground level underneath the HSBC towers. The government and public opinion feel that this is acceptable as the women don't have anywhere else to go. Why would the bank allow them to hang out on their property? The building department grants them permits to build taller skyscrapers if they make the area at the base a public space. My uncle said that the Filipinos are quite considerate in leaving the area clean so it works out for everyone. There's something wrong with this picture. Those in the service industry have a difficult life as it is, so to be turned out onto the street seems a terrible insult.

One of the things everyone tells you to do is to take the funicular (what a great word) up to the top of Victoria Peak. It's quite a ride as the steepness of the climb is quite thrilling. What's more amazing is that there are actually stops along the way. My uncle and I took an hour-long hike around the peak which has a couple of lookout points and it was worth it, save the mosquitoes. The view of Hong Kong is astounding. The seats face the top on the way down, which I thought was funny until I realized you would fall out of your seat otherwise.

I went back to Sogo in the evening to look for a bilingual Tokyo atlas and stopped by the basement again. Had a so-so dinner of curry and rice, miso soup, gyoza and guava juice

Art of tea, a park, fisheye

A tip from eGullet Forums led me to a leisurely meal of dim sum at Metropol Restaurant in the United Centre in Admiralty. The dining area is massive (the table numbers go up to 400) so I didn't have to share a table and was able to do lots of people watching. Decent variety of food, and they have stations in the centre where a bunch of women cook up plates to order: congee, various savoury and sweet cakes, stuffed peppers and eggplant, etc. The trolleys come by often and the waitresses were very pleasant. Definitely give this one a try.

Afterwards, I made my way to the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, a stately building with a nice collection of teapots and good writeups about the history of tea in China. There's some amusing poetry reflecting on the nature of drinking tea that's worth a read.

At Hong Kong Park, they had an exhibition of lotus flowers, which didn't impress me all that much. I walked through the enclosed aviary which was quite impressive, as you stand on wooden walkways high above the ground. The dense palms and other foliage provided cover from a sudden rainstorm. Showers here are strange: they begin without warning, dump a good deal of rain on you, then the sun comes out again, all within ten minutes.

Next stop was the ifc mall, a huge sparkling retail space with all the big names in European fashion. Only the super rich can afford to shop here: the stores were mostly empty. The mall is definitely a nice place to relax, with big open spaces, a rooftop terrace, lots of interesting restaurants and coffee shops. In the Oval Atrium, a jazz trio was playing crowd favourites (mostly Sinatra and jazz standards).

I ate at Miso, a Japanese restaurant in Harbour City, run by the same company that runs Thai Basil. The food was just average but I did get to watch one of the chefs painstakingly scale, fillet, skin, slice and arrange a small sashimi platter.

Fresh guava and mango juices are everywhere. Sweet.

If you get a chance, I would recommend trying to watch a movie at the Hong Kong Space Museum. They have an OMNIMAX screen which left me with my mouth open the whole time. The distortion of scenes projected near the top of the dome makes for some interesting effects. I watched "Mysteries of the Nile", a short documentary about a team that sailed the entire length of the world's longest river. It was nice to be able to lie down on a chair after a day spent walking through Hong Kong.

Escalators, terrible Thai, entering the Fong

My restaurant review radar must be malfunctioning because I had a terrible dining experience tonight. Where, the magazine that is found in hotels worldwide had a decent blurb about Soho Spice and their website looked good, so I made a last-minute reservation for a late dinner. I took the Midlevels Escalator up to it and walked into a dark narrow room. I opted for a table at the back which turned out to be open to the sky above, with a view not of the stars, but of laundry and air conditioners from the surrounding flats.

My first disappointment was noticing the menu was different from the outdated Where review and the online version. Where were the dishes that I wanted, soft shell crab in rice paper rolls, grilled lamb salad and pumpkin custard? I ended up getting a mango juice and deep-fried soft shell crab in chickpea batter. Blech. Watery, canned juice and a greasy bland crustacean. I suppose it was my own fault for not ordering anything with vegetables but halfway through the crab, I was sick of it.

Thinking I would make it up with some fruit for dessert, my first choice was the blood orange jelly with tropical fruit and mango sauce, but they didn't have it. When I asked about the selection of ice creams, the waiter told me, "Chocolate and vanilla."

You've never seen me pay a bill so fast.

I took the escalator all the way up to the top then walked back down. The whole area is quite grungy, dimly lit in places and difficult to navigate, maybe it's nicer during the day. I made my way over to D'Aguilar Street while pushing my way through a crowd of soccer fans. As there is a large contingent of Canadians in Hong Kong, and because it's an excuse to have a party, Lan Kwai Fong was celebrating Canada Day early. There were Canadian flags hanging, people wearing white cowboy hats, flag tattoos, stickers with witty sayings like "Hockey: better than sex" and "Kiss me, I'm Canadian" and even dancers in the street (the women wearing cutoff T-shirts, the men in cowboy hats and hockey sticks).

At your service

It seems all I write about is food but I'm here for another week so there's lots of time for sightseeing later. Went to Causeway Bay again, this time, to Farm House Restaurant in the AIA Plaza. When I motioned with one finger to the girl at the front desk, she took me over to the elevator, pushed the button for the next floor then walkie-talkied my impending arrival to someone upstairs. Huh.

The doors opened directly into the dining area and a hostess took me to my seat and asked me a question. It took me two tries to realize she was asking for my surname. For the rest of the evening, the staff addressed me as "Mr. Fung"! I explained to the head waiter that I couldn't read the menu but that I had heard of one of their specialties, stuffed chicken wings. We decided on that, as well as a bowl of soup so that I would have room for dessert.

After I placed my order, two dishes of appetizers magically appeared, along with a pot of tea. My cup was refilled the entire night by the super-attentive staff, and I purposely poured my own even when it wasn't empty so that they wouldn't keep coming over. The waiters were really quite good: when I coughed (something I do when I feel self-conscious) into my napkin, a box of Kleenex was quietly brought over. When I asked for more water to dilute the tea, a brand new pot and teacup replaced the ones on the table. This level of service makes me a bit uncomfortable but I'm glad there are places that know how to treat customers well.

The chicken wing was very crispy, with deep mahogany skin, the meat a bit dry and chewy. They served it with two sauces, including an XO sauce made by the chef and sold by the restaurant. As I was eating, someone brought the soup in a lidded ceramic bowl. No sooner had I removed the lid than it was whisked away by a waitress. I could feel them trying to anticipate my every move so it was a bit of a game to keep them waiting, heh.

Before dessert, the head waiter offered me a plate of fruit jellies. I'm pretty sure he said they contained bird's nest but it was hard to tell. I decided on the almond milk in papaya, a delicious infusion made with ground almonds. The papaya wasn't very fragrant nor sweet, but it made a fine container for the milk. An all-round good experience, highly recommended.

I ran back to the Sogo department store (14 floors!) to check out the food hall in the basement before closing. Impressive: three chocolatiers (Leonidas, Godiva, Lucullus), prepared food stalls, fine tea vendors, grocery with many imported items, bakeries, liquor store and more.

If only I had a kitchen.

Big bird

My taxi driver this morning missed a turn and then actually turned off the meter while he doubled back. Is this normal? There's also a sign inside the cabin that welcomes passengers to suggest a route to the driver.

Tonight I got a ride all the way out to Sham Tseng, a coastal area whose name means "deep well". On the trip over, I could see the magnificent bridges connecting Lantau Island to the rest of Hong Kong. My checklist of restaurants included going to Yung Kee for roast goose, but my uncle's friends said that it's mostly geared towards tourists whereas Yue Kee was popular with locals.

You would definitely have to live in the area to find this restaurant that's right next to the side of a mountain via a winding single-lane side street. Dinner was just so-so, everyone lamented, and included: roast goose with crispy skin, deep fried "white rice" fish in spicy batter, greens with fermented tofu, beef cubes stir fried with red pepper and mango, eggplant and ground pork, stir fried intestines with sweet pickled vegetable and squid in soy sauce. All the dishes were drowning in oil.

The practice of rinsing out ceramic cups, spoons and bowls with hot water or tea is something that we occasionally do in Canada if the place seems grungy, but here in Hong Kong, even the restaurants expect you to do it. They provide big bowls for you to discard the waste water.

MTV Asia: music videos are a lot more fun when you don't understand the lyrics.

I got a lift back to the Tsuen Wan MTR station, and ducked into an adjacent mall. One snack vendor was selling dried fruit (kiwi slices!) and nuts, jerkies and other bite-sized munchies, an impressive array. No photo, as I've been hesitant about taking pictures seeing as how many shopkeepers have waved me off recently.

Maybe I should play the innocent English-speaking tourist card more often.

Noise, pork bellies, pages

You can't escape beeps and rings if you take public transit. At the East Tsim Sha Tsui KCR station, there is a soft old-fashioned telephone ringing sound that I keep mistaking for my cellphone. I have no idea what it is. As the doors are about to close on the subways, a rapid electronic tone signals that your arm is about to be crushed. All of the surface crosswalks sound a beep slowly when you shouldn't cross, and then switch to a rapid pulse when it's safe to do so. No pleasant chirping or ding-dongs.

As if that weren't enough, every stop on the MTR or KCR is announced, in three languages and the voice helpfully tells you which side the doors will open on. Further warnings caution you not to fall in the substantial gap between platform and car. Televisions in the trains broadcast the news during rush hour; there is even a quiet car that spares you this intrusion. Then there's the constant cellphone ringtones...

Tonight, we went to a Hakka restaurant in Causeway Bay. It was decent, but not spectacular and we were quite rushed. Among the plates:

• pig ears
  
• chicken feet (cold, crunchy skin, not so tasty)
  
• steamed chicken
  
• deep fried large intestine (it smelled like ammonia to put it mildly)
  
• stewed small intestines
  
• sweet potato shoots with garlic (apparently, the greens from when the sweet potatoes sit around too long and sprout)
  
• winter melon soup (served in the melon itself)
  
• deep fried tofu
  
• deep fried duck with taro (one of my favourites)
  
• braised pork belly with sweet preserved mustard vegetable (mui choy) (delicious)
  

I've had the last two dishes before several times; I didn't know they were Hakka specialties.

Since we were disappointed with the dessert offering, my uncle and his wife took me to the nearby Yee Shun Milk Company for a steamed milk pudding with ginger. The pudding is a very silky custard, but not set with gelatin or egg whites. Absolutely wonderful.

Typhoon Signal No. 1 was hoisted today according to signs outside several malls. I don't really know what that means, but I do know that if No. 8 is raised, everyone is supposed to get back to their hotel as fast as they can and hope for the best.

I dropped by Times Square tonight, a towering structure with 9 floors of retail and offices above. In a bookstore called Page One, I was extremely impressed by the depth of their selection. Mirvish Books on Art in Toronto has books on design, but I've never seen coffee table books about product packaging and DVD case design there! I picked up a great cookbook on dim sum which may finally allow me to make my own egg custard tarts.