Monday 12/3/2007: dinner at Club de Recreio. When I think of this meal I can only express disappointment at how mediocre the
minchi was compared with
Restaurante Litoral in Macau. Their
minchi was the tastiest I've ever had, and the same goes for the
galinha africana.
Tuesday 12/4/2007: Most breakfasts we either went up to the Conrad's executive lounge or ate the plump fruit and yogurt cups Mom brought down if we slept in. For lunch I ordered an orange gunner (orange juice added to the traditional ginger beer, ginger ale, lime, and bitters) and scrumptious Singapore noodles at Shek O Golf and Country Club, as a guest of Uncle Anthony. We ate on the veranda overlooking the golf course and the rocky coast:
That night we dined in the Kellet Island Bistro at the
Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, where I ate some righteous lamb chops, much better than those at the Venetian banquet on our last night in Macau. I noticed that one of them was a touch undercooked, but it was so delicious that I ate it anyway, and no ill effects followed.
Wednesday 12/5/2007: the family and I met up with Ah Chan by the lions in front of the HSBC building and brought her to
Yung Kee on Wellington Street. We rocked out to -- among other dishes -- preserved eggs with pickled ginger, deep-fried prawns with sweet and sour sauce, barbecued pork, pea shoots with garlic, pan-fried fish fillets, and roasted goose, the house specialty. We drank
Shou Mei tea as an accompaniment, and for dessert I swallowed a bowl of
tzi ma wu, black sesame soup. Afterwards we took the Star Ferry to Kowloon to try to walk off the layers of goose and pig we'd packed on.
Wednesday night we had a late dinner without Dad at one of my favorite Hong Kong juhk joints,
Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop. At least I think that's the name; in Chinese it's 正斗, and it's located at 21 King Kwong Street in Happy Valley. I had my favorite preserved egg & beef congee with
yau tiu wrapped in a layer of
chi cheung fun, and "
zha cheung mien", which you can see in a photo on the HK Foodie link above.
Thursday 12/6/2007: We tried to hit Sushi Hiro in Causeway Bay but our party was too big, so instead Uncle Anthony treated us to the best Italian restaurant in Hong Kong:
Da Domenico in Sunning Plaza. Alessandro took good care of our party: we started with a ball of the creamiest mozzarella I've ever tasted; it had the texture of a fine chocolate mousse and a delicate but rich flavor. We also ordered the same mouthwatering fried scamorza that I sampled there in 2002 and a fresh spinach and ricotta raviolo the size of my plate. There was also a meat sampler (the meats and vegetables are flown in from Rome twice a week by Cathay) and a savory house-made Italian sausage. JC and I walked around in Central and stopped by Man Mo Temple that afternoon.
I had a luxurious mutton korma that night at the Happy Valley Clubhouse of the
Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Friday 12/07/2007: Uncle Anthony took the four of us to his old local breakfast joint in Happy Valley where I'd eaten on previous trips -- Cheung Hing Coffee Shop. We gorged on Chinese style deep-fried "French" toast with cane syrup, condensed milk on toast, pineapple buns,
yin yeung and
ngau lai cha.
We hiked Bowen Road afterwards, all the way down through the aviary in HK Park. Check out this crazy giant pigeon we ran into:
That thing is just cold foolish and madcap! We hit Club Lusitano for a dressy but disappointing lunch of fish curry and
empada; the cheese toast, though, is as good as I remembered.
Friday night Deanne joined our group for a hearty and succulent meal at
The Chinnery at the Mandarin Oriental. Kumamoto oysters from Washington and a fillet of lemon sole, with sticky toffee pudding for dessert. We consumed two bottles of a fantastic Viognier from S. Africa over the course of the evening.
Saturday 12/08/2007: While Mom & Dad went out for seafood in Sai Kung with Deanne and Uncle Anthony, JC & I met up with Katish at
The Press Room on Hollywood Road for blue crab bisque and a frisee salad with bacon lardons. I adore bacon lardons, and while these were good they weren't as supernatural as the sweet and savory bacon at
Square One on Fountain. After lunch we took the MTR out to Hang Hau, so we could see Deanne's new house and say good-bye.
We dined that night at
The Hong Kong Club, the colony's first. I started with half a dozen oysters (3 Irish, 3 Scottish), and continued with a medium-rare prime rib of beef with Yorkshire pudding and baked potato. We were accompanied by a beautifully decanted
Chateau Lynch-Bages (1998). We finished the meal with a selection of cheeses and a delectable Chateau Giraud. Afterwards, JC and I met up with Daisy again for a drink at
FINDS in Lan Kwai Fong, where I'd been treated to the Finnish national anthem two nights before, when Daisy and I unexpectedly stumbled onto Finland's 90th Independence Day celebration.
The food all week was intense and almost always unbearably good. It was also constantly being set before me; I never had the chance to be hungry after leaving Macau. Sadly, I'm now home eating American fare. I had some dim sum on Spring Street only a few hours after arriving at LAX on Sunday, to my great regret. Three weeks of fresh and authentic Asian cuisine could kill an appetite for the best dim sum in L.A., and CBS Seafood is far from the best. My new project -- inuring myself to mediocre cuisine -- begins today.
