The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Yung Kee in Hong Kong

The usual pilgrimage to Yung Kee for tourists... I went there twice over 2 trips, and both times involved a wait of 30min (@3pm on a Sat) to 60min (@6.30pm on a weekday). Its unbelievable how busy the place is at all times. Since I wasn't in any particular rush, I volunteered to do the waiting on behalf of the rest of the party. Making a reservation is only possible if you do it with sufficient notice. Otherwise, join the herd of walk-ins squeezing in the tiny reception area on the second floor.

List of things to order is pretty standard. The only question is whether you want a portion, half or whole goose. *Shinta has decided that instead of ordering half a goose, next time just order 2 portions of the goose leg. That way you get the juiciest, most choice part of the goose. Strangely, the standard was a little inconsistent over my 2 visits there. The first time, the goose was hot with crispy skin and tender juicy meat sandwiching a generous layer of fat. The second time round however, the goose felt a bit overdone and not as yummy as before.

I'm a fan of the cured meats, although the rest of my companions each time weren't, and I had to struggle to finish it all. Next time I'll just order a portion of my favorite liver sausage and not the entire mixed plate. The traditional sausage is not bad as well, but not particularly special. These are of course available for take-away. Just slice it up and put it in the rice cooker, and let the fats drip into the rice as it cooks.... mmmm.....

When I accidentally forgot to order the famous century egg with pickled ginger the first time round, the waiter not-very-gently reminded me about it. These melt-in-the-mouth delicacies don't have the pungent strong taste that haunts many other century eggs. Believe it or not, these can also be bought as take-away in a box of 6, which I ended up doing so for friends back home in Singapore who were craving this particular Yung Kee version of it.

I wasn't particularly keen to order this when they brought it around on a tray offering it to each table (not sure why they did that...), but my friend likes it a lot so we took a plate. It was nice and gooey, but in general a bit too sweet for my taste.

There are a whole lot of other good dishes to order at Yung Kee (the first 5? 6? pages of their menu lists all the accolades they have won), but unfortunately my party was never large enough (or hungry enough) to indulge in ordering anything more than the "must-orders". Next time I guess!

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Yung Kee
32-40 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2522 1624
http://www.yungkee.com.hk/
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The Travel Bug: Sichuan, Chengdu, Jin Li Jie

Was in Chengdu recently for business, but because the hotel was a good 40min away from town, only had time on the first day when we arrived to look-see. The hotel concierge suggested that we head to Jin Li Jie (Jin Li Street) which is an area with narrow ancient streets and traditional buildings.

Everything about it screamed "tourist trap" to us, but we still decided to be good natured about it since it was already late afternoon, and we could grab dinner there as well.

The area itself is not very large, taking at most 15min to complete if you speed walk. We obviously took much longer, pausing to enjoy the stores selling a variety of traditional goods lining the streets.

A few traditional craftsmen were plying their trade, including this guy which created beautiful animal figures out of an edible sweet.

You could stop at the teahouses along the way, and try their noodles (warning: extremely hot with lots of chili oil!!)...

... or try the more interesting grilled meats along a Xiao Chi Jie ("Little eats street"). There thankfully wasn't anything as exciting as what I showed in my post on Beijing, but Sichuan food is either 1) VERY VERY spicy, or 2) VERY VERY oily, or worse of all 3) BOTH!

There were some really pretty areas to walk around, this path led up to a museum of sorts where you could view some historical relics.

You could also purchase one of the red hanging items, and hang it up to make a wish (quite like the Japanese?). If you wanted, you could also dress up in the traditional Chinese costumes and take a photo under it.

The place gets much more exciting at night when the lanterns are lit up. There are lots of restaurants for you to choose from as well, most feature some kind of traditional performance during the dinner as well. (more on that in the next post!)

The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Beijing duck!!!

I love Beijing / Peking duck. There are 3 main restaurants most well known for this, and since this was one of the rare times I was in town, a good friend decided to splurge and take me to dinner at the classy (and more expensive) Duck de Chine.

The restaurant located in a small complex that they call 1949 - The Hidden City. Its an old traditional Chinese house broken up into different restaurants and clubs. It well deserves its name, considering what a difficult time my taxi driver had finding it. He had to call the restaurant twice for directions, before dropping me in a dodgy deserted carpark and pointing me vaguely in the direction of the back door!

All that was forgiven when the food came though. The Peking duck arrived whole and was swiftly carved up into thin crisps little slices. It's self wrap here, either in the thin popiah skins, or in the special biscuit for a little extra cost.

Hot soup is always delicious in sub-zero temperatures. Even if its just the basic simple "dun4 tang1" (soup of the day).

I liked the lamb quite a lot, it was soft and tender and cooked in a nice mix of garlic and onion. Unfortunately it got cold really fast.

In order to be "healthy", we also got some beancurd. I don't remember much about this dish except that there wasn't a bad dish at Duck de Chine!

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Duck de Chine
Gong Ti Bei Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100027
Tel: +86 10 6501 8881
http://www.elite-concepts.com/Promotions/1949/DuckDeChine.htm
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The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Beijing, the forbidden food???

Just next to my hotel was WangFuJing Street, a large pedestrian only shopping area. While Oriental Plaza was filled with expensive high-class international brands, WangFuJing has the large local departmental stores selling more affordable fashion and local food items. Other than the large high rise buildings, I spotted this little side-alley that looked interesting...

It was lined with food stalls displaying skewered meats ready for grilling.

On closer inspection... well... Even though I am normally quite adventurous when it comes to trying food while travelling, I couldn't bring myself to try this one. I wasn't sure what the meat was either, but I heard that dog's meat was common here.

Did you spot the scorpions and seahorses too?

The starfish looked really pretty though. I wonder what they taste like! Next time if I come with a more experienced friend, maybe I won't be so afraid to try it. Maybe...

Supper

1.30am, Saturday morning
Newton Hawker Center
Supper with friends
- BBQ stingray
(1 large to share)
- BBQ chicken wings
(1 each)
- Oyster Omelette
(1 large to share)
- Small squid
(1 large plate to share)
- Beer (640ml each)

3.00am, Saturday morning
Totally knocked out (thanks to the beer!)

Food Bytes: Customised Ice Kachang...

On a hot day, my favourite place to go is Adam Road's dessert stall. Have found its opening times to be irregular, so I'm quite glad every time its actually open.

The place is recommended for its ching teng, but what I usually like to order is the ice kachang. Except that its not really ice kachang, but its my special order of "ice-kachang-kosong-with-only-lychee-and-only-brown-sugar-syrup-and-extra-milk".

I love the ice there because its super fine and soft, not horrible hard crystals. It does depend sometimes on who the person at the ice machine is though. The last time I went there, I polished off 2 bowls almost all by myself!

The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Sorry! (+ Update 28 Jul)

Yes I know, one whole month without a blog entry is a really long time for me... Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about it, nor have I given up on blogging. Just that I've been travelling a lot this past month and so I 1) have too many things to blog about and therefore am too lazy to start; and 2) am too busy having fun to blog about it.

Am in my favourite city currently (no prizes for guessing where), and I just had a really excellent day with one of my best friends, rounding off with dinner together with her hubbie. Before the meal started, he asked me whether I wanted to take photos of the dishes (which were really very pretty). I thought about it for 2 seconds, but finally said no, because I am really having too much fun here to want to think about interrupting it for photo taking or for thinking about blog entries.

Plus honestly there are really too many good restaurants here and way way way too little time for me to even begin writing about them. In fact, I don't think I will even be able to go through my usual "must eat" list on this trip, because I am only here for a few days before moving on to the rest of Europe for work... =(

Here's the status so far:
1) Salt beef sandwiches at Selfridges
Status: DONE!
Comment: Not just at Selfridges, but at Harrods too! The one at Selfridges is much more salty compared to Harrods, which is good if you like your salt beef with a bit of kick. Some may find the less salty one more palatable if they are not a fan of cured meats. Both are good though!

2) Roast duck from Goldmine
Status: DONE!
Comment: Just as good as always. Goldmine didn't exist when I was living here, but opened only "recently" when the chef from 4 Seasons left it and opened his own a few doors down the road...

3) Dim Sum / Scallops / Crispy seaweed / Lobster noodles from Royal China or Chinatown
Status: Pending DONE! All!
Comment: Might not have time to eat all these items unfortunately. What I crave the most surprisingly, is the "crispy seaweed"!!! That stuff just melts in your mouth. Am not sure why they don't sell it in Singapore. If I get a chance, will definitely take a photo of it for this blog.

4) High Tea at Covent Garden or somewhere similar
Status: Unlikely to complete Not done
Comment: All my days are already booked... Most definitely no time to do this =(

5) Mussels at Belgos
Status: Unlikely to complete Not done
Comment: Have not been able to do this on my past 3 visits!

6) Mr Burger at Trailer of Life
Status: Impossible to complete Not done
Comment: They only open around... 8pm was it? And I'm only doing a day trip there.

My usual "must do" list is an absolute nil for the Arts (no time), but faring much better in terms of the shopping (tail end of sales are on!). I've already visited 5 different Zaras cos the range at each is different. And today I just learnt that they update their stock every week!

Anyway, stayed tuned for August when I have more time and will update on the delights of Hokkaido in summer.

Food Bytes: A hidden little seafood place (Hup Choon Seafood)

Gosh its been so long since I wrote a food blog, that I've almost forgotten how to do it! Well anyway, *Shinta and I were out hunting for carpets, when we found ourselves hungry and lost in an unfamiliar place at Bukit Timah. That was when we stumbled across Hup Choon Seafood, a che char stall near Hua Guan Ave.

First thing we did was to order drinks. I noticed a lot of people drinking their homemade ice lemon tea ("ILT"), so decided to try that, while *Shinta went for the lime drink. Well the lime drink turned out pretty usual, but I really liked the ILT. It was just the right balance of tea (bitter), lemon (for a twist) and syrup (sweet). Unlike a lot of other ILTs, it managed to avoid being too tasteless and diluted, or too cloying sweet from excessive syrup. Even people who came to order da pao food, also specially ordered the ILT to take away.

Not having been here before, and due to our really poor command of dialect, our final order turned out to be anything but a "balanced healthy meal". First was the deep fried pork that was reccommended by the stall auntie. Apparently they don't have this every day. The bright brown crispy pieces were deliciously hot with large chunky pieces of meat inside.

This was followed by the prawn paste chicken. Good fried chicken is hard to get right, because usually even if the batter is nice and crispy, the meat inside might end up too dry. This however was also hot, crunchy while being very juicy and soft on the inside. Sadly, we would have enjoyed it a lot more if it weren't so similar to the pork, and the next time we go there, we will definately order just this instead.

Cereal prawns are my favorite, so if we're eating at a seafood restaurant.... While these were of acceptable standard, they really pale in comparison to the butter prawns from No Signboard that I started to crave.

Last order was a seafood fried rice. *Shinta pretty enjoyed this dish, and I had to say it was not too bad, with chunks of prawns and assorted seafood pieces.

Overall its not a bad place for a meal. Probably wouldn't bother to drive all the way up to specially go there, but if you're in the vicinity and want to avoid the expensive restaurants dotted along Bukit Timah, you can definately consider this place!

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Hup Choon Seafood
Binjai Park Tel: +65 6468 4081
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Food Bytes: Breaking all the rules for it (High Street Tai Wah Pork Noodles, Bestway Building)

Thought I should write a quick note about this place since its the only place that I am willing to make all sorts of exceptions for:

- Not complaining about the lack of aircon
- Going there 3 weeks in a row
- Ordering chili with my noodles
- Queueing up

Although Bestway Building is just a short walk from Tanjong Pagar MRT, its on a side rarely frequented by passer-bys and therefore casual walk-in customers are probably rare. Previously a school, it became a TV studio for a while, and is currently serving as the office for a variety of small businesses.

What makes the place interesting, is the little food court right in front of it. This is where my favourite pork noodles (more commonly known as Bak Chor Mee) can be found. High Street Tai Wah Pork Noodles is one of the outlets run by the youngest of the 3 very well known brothers and their families. Other branches include the one at Crawford Lane behind ICA Lavender MRT (run by Brother #2), Hong Lim (run by Son of Brother #3), Vivocity (run by Son of Brother #1). I don't know if Brother #1 has a stall too, so drop me a note if you know where it is.

I've tried all the stalls except the Vivocity one which is new, but my favorite is still the Bestway Building one. Its horribly horribly crowded on weekdays, and even when I worked a short 5min away, I never could bear the long and extremely slow moving queue. So *Shinta and I usually go around 11am on Saturdays only. Each bowl is freshly prepared, and he does each one individually (no production line or mass cooking), so the wait is always long. If there is even so much as 2 people in the queue in front of you, except to wait a good 10-20mins.

Anyway there are a million reasons why I love these noodles. The vinegar is excellent, the chili is really yummy (I ask for less chili), they are generous with the minced pork and the pieces of liver are cooked just right making them soft and tender. I love the pieces of lard and the fish that comes with it. *Shinta usually generously passes me the additional fish he gets with his $5 bowl since my $4 bowl doesn't have enough for me.

This fish is also used in the filling of the pork balls and the dumplings that come with the noodles, and that's what makes the 2 items really different from other places. Sometimes instead of ordering noodles, I just order a bowl of pork ball and dumpling soup. Yummy!

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High Street Tai Wah Pork Noodles
12 Prince Edward Road, Bestway Building #01-16
Hours: Mon-Sat 9.30am - 2.30pm
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Food Bytes: "Touch the Heart" for a great price! (Hua Ting, Orchard Cafe)

I find it quite surprising that a business hotel tucked in the rather dodgy end of Orchard Road, would have such good restaurants. Although the address gives it as being along Orchard Road, Orchard Hotel is unfortunately situated a good 15min walk from the MRT station, and behind a rather infamous shopping center. Nevertheless, don't let that stop you from trying out the eating places here.

Orchard Cafe on the ground floor, is quite well known for its buffets. It's quite a cheesy place (don't expect anything romantic for your date), but it boasts a very good selection of seafood (oysters!), western and local buffet menu for sub-$60. In addition, what I absolutely love about the place is its selection of cakes.

When I attended a 2 day conference there some time ago and ate at the cafe for lunch, they had this super embarassing introduction of their new cakes by getting their male staff to do a catwalk in with the cakes, complete with dimmed lights and cheesy music. Of course most of the business crowd ignored the poor emcee's pleas for applause, but when the staff/models went around offering a taste of the cakes to the customers, they were greeted warmly with high praise for the cakes.

Anyway, we were at Orchard Hotel ordering the CNY takeaway menu from the chinese restaurant there, and decided that we might as well sit down and enjoy a dim sum lunch. Let me start by saying that I was very very impressed. Hua Ting is known for its fantastic Cantonese cuisine, but what struck me most was that for a very good 7 course dim sum lunch for 2 pax, not only did we have enough leftovers to take away for one person's dinner, all that was for less than $40! (discounts with UOB credit card)

The restaurant is on the second floor of the hotel, and has many small private functions rooms suitable for business lunches. We spotted no less than a well known permenant secretary having lunch there too.

They served us with a dried beancurd starter, that for the first few seconds after you put it into your mouth, deceives you into thinking it is bak kwa. It was not too tough and made quite an interesting dish to snack on while waiting for your dim sum.

We decided to order the slightly different, non-traditional types of dim sum. We both loved the "Baked roasted pork belly polo bun ($4.20)", which in addition to the melt-in-your-mouth crispy top, also had 2 large pieces of roasted pork insides.

Unfortunately we were very disappointed with the "Pan fried US prime beef bun ($4.20)". I was expecting a large (or at least medium!) slab of beef, but instead there were only very very small little chopped up bits of beef and tendon hiding inside a thick pao.

I liked the fried items slightly more than *Shinta did. The "Deep fried scallop pastry with onion and garlic ($4.50)" was very unusual, with tons of garlic inside, while the "Deep fried bean skin roll with prawn ($4.80)" was very very crispy and filled with big juicy prawns. What impressed me the most was that the little strip of seaweed around the middle was very very fresh.

*Shinta liked the "Pan fried carrot cake with conpoy ($3.90)" which was much less oily than other versions sold elsewhere.

I didn't get to try the "Steamed glutinous rice with abalone ($5.20)" because *Shinta finished one of them without offering me a bite (cross!), and I was way too full to start on the other one.

I had accidentally ordered the "Steamed bun stuffed with lotus paste and salted egg yolk ($3.90)", thinking it was the oozing-custard kind. What came tasted more like a mooncake without the usual bread-like exterior. It was not too sweet and nicely ended off the meal.

Another reason why I'm pleased with the restaurant, is that they give out carpark coupons to their customers. That's probably the least of the reasons why to come back here again, but still the little things impress me!

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Hua Ting, Orchard Cafe
442 Orchard Road, Orchard Hotel Singapore, S(238879)
Tel: 67396666
Hours: 11.30am-2.30pm, 6.30pm-10.30pm
www.millenniumhotels.com.sg/orchardhotelsingapore/index.html
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