Post-Perth Holiday Blues

That photo above shows what’s left of my chilli tapioca chips that I brought back from Perth.  Ugh.

GM and I are supposed to be on diet because we both put on so much weight from the loads and loads of wonderful food we had in Perth but I can’t help eating a tiny (okay, quite a substantial) bit of these chilli tapioca chips every day.  Especially after a work day.  They’re kind of almost my last source of comfort that I managed to take with me and are helping me with my post-holiday blues at the moment.

As you can see, my supply is quickly depleting.  I guess once the packet is finished I will really be back to London mode.  Sigh.  I don’t mind being in “back in London” mode because I will have to get on with my life eventually and seriously need to lose the snacks and stop looking like a beer barrel but my sisters bought the chips for me knowing how much I like them.  It’s like the chips represent my sisters in a small way, and I don’t want them to finish.

I want to write about Perth but the trip was amazing in so many ways that I don’t even know where to start.  And also, out of my readership of four, two of you were there with me so does anyone even still want to read about the trip?

The worst thing about a holiday is having to go back to work and a normal humdrum life afterwards.

ME x HK

Hong Kong.   I like the place again.  We spent 3 days there this time and I want to go back soon!

It helped that we stayed at the Langham Place Hotel which has a fab location.  Our room faced Langham Place shopping complex which was quite pretty at night.

It’s still the same as before with the bathroom having a glass wall so one can watch tv in the bath.  Or someone can watch one shower?  Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

We arrived in HK really early in the morning and couldn’t get into our room yet so we went for a walk in Langham Place.  We went all the way up to the topmost level and this was the view down to the main foyer.  It was really high and we were standing on a bit of staircase with glass sides so I was getting a bit weak-kneed looking down.

Our first meal was kaiten sushi.  I’d heard this restaurant was good from reviews on the net.

I thought of Jo and had to eat this.  Unagi sushi with some pink stuff in the middle.  It was good.

The roe was GM’s and the uni was mine.  The roe had a thicker sac than normal and were harder to burst.  The uni wasn’t that brilliant but was better than nothing.

Fried oyster.  It looks kind of oily in the pic but it was actually really good – piping hot and very fresh.

Foie gras sushi.  In the net reviews most people liked this but perhaps they don’t get to eat much foie gras in HK and don’t really know.  I wasn’t too fond of it, it was a weird combination to me, the foie gras wasn’t brilliant and the sauce was too sweet.  The gold leaf was impressive however.  Didn’t taste of much though.

This was their signature egg sushi.  There are rave reviews of this on the net and I wavered between having it or not as I couldn’t see how egg would be that spectacular but in the end I ordered it.  I’m glad I did because it was really good!  The egg was freshly made, thick, bit creamy and sweet.  It was seriously quite amazing egg.

For dinner we bought takeaway from Dai Gar Lok because we were quite tired.  I had 5 treasure rice.  The 5 treasures were char siew, sausage, chicken, cuttlefish (those orange slices on the top) and salted egg.   It wasn’t as good as I remembered but then in previous years GM and I used to buy our farn hup (rice boxes) from Maxim’s.  I think Maxim’s does better 5 treasure rice.

GM had a char siew and roast duck rice.  Also not brilliant.

The next morning we went to a congee restaurant for congee.  This place also received good reviews on the net.  That’s how I work in HK these days; read the reviews and pick out the restaurants before even setting foot in the country.

We had pei dan sau yuk jook (century egg and pork congee).  It was good but then most jook in HK is good, they do jook like nobody else can, it’s a fine art.  Perhaps you’ve noticed that GM and I were eating quite a lot of pork even with the swine flu about but according to the health pamphlets given out at the airport, pork is safe to eat as long as it has been cooked at a heat of at least 70 degrees celsius.  Jook is boiling hot and a person could die from burn wounds if they got jook poured over them so we thought it was probably safe.  The slices of pork were really tender, mmm.  As for char siew, that section of pig had probably been bbq-ed till it didn’t know itself so we guessed that was fine too.

We had bor lor yau for tea.  Same place as the one we went to last October.  This time the bor lor yau wasn’t quite as good because the bor lor bao hadn’t just come out of the stove like it had last time so the butter wasn’t as melty.  The bread was still fantastic though; soft and fluffy on the inside with a crisp, slightly sweet crust on top.  This time we also ordered egg tarts as those were meant to be good at this place also.   And they were indeed yummy; the egg custard was smooth and not too sweet, the pastry was slightly flaky with a kind of melt-in-the-mouth-ish texture.  The best thing is that they were warm so it felt like we were eating all these fresh baked goods.  Nothing is better than freshly baked stuff.  GM really loved those egg tarts.

No pics of dinner because we had Mos Burger!  I found out that they don’t get the Spicy Mos burger in HK but by then I was really craving a Mos burger so I had a Mos cheeseburger instead.  GM had not just a Mos burger but also a spaghetti bolognaise from Italian Tomato because he was craving spaghetti.

Remember the congee place we went to?  I said it was a congee restaurant but they also did dishes with rice.  In fact, most of the customers seemed to eat a rice, accompanied by a big bowl of soup.  Whatever everyone else was eating looked so good that GM and I went back the next day for brunch.  We ordered a set meal of two dishes and a soup for HK$106.  We had sweet and sour spare ribs (oops pork again), stewed beef brisket with radish and some kind of gourd with salted egg soup.  The soup was really tasty, the dishes were pretty good too.  The whole experience was amazing because it was so HK, from their gruff waitresses and clientele to their cantonese dishes on offer to their all-chinese menu that GM and I took a long time reading.  We really enjoyed the food and the experience.

For our last dinner of the trip GM had this chicken and mushroom rice as a starter.  It was quite tasty, I liked the veggie bits in the rice.

Then he had TWO of this spaghetti bolognaise from Italian Tomato for his main course.  It’s the same spaghetti as the one he’d had the previous night, he’d enjoyed it so much that he had to have another two.  Actually it was really very tasty.

I was craving mince in a tomato sauce too, but preferably with rice and not spaghetti.  Luckily Dai Gar Lok had something like that on their menu so I bought this minced beef in tomato sauce with a fried egg and rice.  This was really really good.  It could be because I was craving it, but the tomatoey beef flavoured with creamy egg yolk and mixed with white rice was absolutely gorgeous.  I loved this meal.

For dessert we had japanese potato salad and salmon sushi.  That whole box of salmon sushi on the top left was GM’s.  The potato salad was quite good because they mixed little fish roe in with the mayo and that gave it an interesting dimension in terms of both texture and taste.

And now for the dessert series!  The following are the desserts GM and I had over the course of the 3 days.

This was my dessert of mango, banana, atap chee, dried longan and those tadpole egg looking things whatever they’re called in iced coconut syrup.  It was okay but could have done with more ice.

GM had mango and pomelo bits with tofu fa (beancurd jelly).  He quite liked it, I didn’t.  I think I was feeling hot so I really wanted something really cold and this was meant to be a cold dessert but was only refrigerator cold and not ice cold.

Both desserts were from Honeymoon Desserts or whatever they’re called.

This was from another dessert chain, Hui Lau Shan.  I prefer the desserts from this chain I’ve decided.  This was GM’s mango and pomelo dessert and it was nice, just cold enough.

I decided to be exciting and order this egg white boiled with bird’s nest and hasmar (suet kap gou).  Hasmar is apparently made from dried fallopian tubes of frogs.  Niiiiiiiice  (o__O)  Anyway I thought that it was going to be a soupy type of thing but nope, it came as a set jelly, warm.  Not my most favourite thing and I won’t be ordering it again anytime soon.

In the background you see GM’s chicken wings.  He also had carrot cake which, for a dessert place, was surprisingly good.

This was another dessert from Honeymoon – sweet potato and dumplings soup.  I liked this one although the soup had quite a heavy ginger flavour.  The dumplings were filled with peanuts, no other fillings, which was disappointing.  Generally though I enjoyed this dessert, it was hot and soothing.

I bought a pack of mentaiko fish sausages but I can’t tell you if they were any good as I haven’t eaten them yet.  I’ve brought them home with me.

One of my favourite buys from HK this time – Converse with pointy toe.  Nice?

I also bought a load of cutesy stuff.  GM goes shopping in Wan Chai and there are a few toy shops there selling lots of this kind of stuff.  I love going there.

Another one of my best buys!  This banana soft toy is so cute!  It’s about triple the size of a real banana and I love it haha.

Apart from that I am also pleased with a bag I bought and two umbrellas, especially the one I bought from Sasa which is white with a leopard trim.  I forgot to take photos of them though.

I really enjoyed our 3 short days in HK this time; the food was good and the shopping was good too!  Must go again soon!