Buddhafied

Chinese hot pot

(Top to bottom, left to right) Little Quinton doing funny face; Ray trying to get food in the mist; Me being extremely not photogenic; steamy hot pot; my dipping sauce; the tray that holds the ingredients of the dipping sauce; seafood; meatballs; more food.

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Little Quinton took me for hot pot tonight.

Have you ever had Chinese hot pot? It's like a meat fondue but with more varieties on the ingredients and the broth.

Wikipedia:

[Hot pot] consists of a simmering metal pot of stock at the center of the dining table. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table. Typical hot pot dishes include thinly sliced meat, leafy vegetables, mushrooms, wontons, egg dumplings, and seafood. The cooked food is usually eaten with a dipping sauce. In many areas, hot pot meals are often eaten in the winter.

I usually host at least two hot pot dinner, back in Vancouver, every year. Accompanied with excessive alcohol and PS2 (will become Wii when I go back next year), the parties usually led to some pretty memorable nights.

Anyways, this is the first time I get to create my own dipping sauce for my hot pot. I chose hot chili, garlic, green onion, sesame oil and soy sauce. I was pretty impressed with my own creation: just spicy enough but without destroying the flavour of the food. We've ordered tons of food and everything was extremely fresh, nothing like those all-you-can-eat stuff. I was particularly impressed with the presentation. I mean, look at those meatballs lining up like little dominos.

It was great food, great service and great companies! Totally worth to use my first of two quotas at the beginning of the month. Thanks for bringing your bro to a nice restaurant, little Quinton. So, Japanese food next time?

Summer desserts

It was a rather relaxful day today. We went to ShenZhen yesterday for our usual weekend torture, so today Mom and I decided to chill out at home for a bit. I only did two practices and afterward I took a very long nap.

During dinner, our landlord came up to our flat and gave us some souvenirs from the opening season of the horse Derby. Since my parents have a very good relationship with their landlord, they suggested to go visit the dessert house in town. Me who has nothing better to do decided to tag along and see what's the fuzz is all about.

It's still rather hot here in Hong Kong, though the temperature did fall from the mid 30's to around high 20's, so I wanted to eat something refreshing. The place has many selections to choose from and I got a fruit bowl with kewis, melons, mangos, herb jellies, and some other stuff I really don't know what they are. When you grew up in the Chinese culture, you learn to eat things without really asking what they are. Dad got about the same thing but a smaller version, and Mom got this bowl of thing that didn't look that appealing... I didn't bother to taste it.

I can't believe it's September already... I've been here for almost five months... Life is going to be very different when I go back. I miss Vancouver.

Akamaru Noodles Factory: Kung Tong

I went out with little Quinton today to pickup the Transformer Bumblebee figure that was onhold for him. According to him, it is a hard-to-find item and is being sold at a premium price right now. Toys R Us Hong Kong has an exclusive on the item so I asked mom to hold one for little Quintion. We literally had to hide it so other people won't see us picking it up, I was worried that people might steal it from us and then rape us. Well... maybe not the raping part, but we were two cute boys holding a huge freakin Toys R Us shopping bag, so who would'nt want to look at us. He posted a few photos of the toy at his blog: Ultimate Bumblebee in box, Bumblebee in action.

Since Quinton is the food-guru of Hong Kong, I asked him to recommend a place for dinner, he suggested Akamaru Noodle Factory at APM, Kung Tong.

There was a huge lineup when we got there. Quinton said it usually not as busy around 6pm, but I guess it's the second last weekend before school starts, lots of "kids" are out to do their last bit of shopping before their new torture semester starts. We got a seat after 15-20 minutes, which was not that bad.

So the idea is simple, you choose the type of noodle you want (udon noodle in soup, cold udon, etc) and there's a huge variety of side-dishes to choose from. We chose fried chicken wings, sweet Japanese-style scramble eggs, seeweed and deep fried pork. Since I haven't had cold soba for a long time (I believe the last time I had it was on a JAL plane about 5 years ago) I gave it a try.

The food delivered very fast, which was great because I was hungry. I was surprised at how large the portions are given the price was very reasonable. Everything tasted great and I have to give them kudos for the udon. If you know me well enough, I am very particular about my noodles. Whether it is Chinese style or Japanese style, I need them to be fresh, chewy and dense; the udon here sure didn't disappoint me, my stomache couldn't be any bigger when I finished dinner. Quinton was worried that I might fall asleep during my lecture since I was so full!

Everything was only HK$79  (which is around CDN $11), very inexpensive!

The only weird thing is that the restaurant space is being shared by the sushi restaurant next door (they even use the same cashier counter), however, you can not order from the sushi menu. The couples waiting in line infront of us thought that they can order from both menus and were rather disappointed when they find out (well, especially after waiting in line for 15 minutes).

Other than that, another great recommendation by little Quinton. 5-stars!

Vancouver food blog?

After doing a little research with Vivian, we're thinking of starting up a Vancouver food blog. I'm very surprised that there hasn't been more useful blogs regarding on the subject. I'm thinking of doing it as an add-on to All About You Productions. We'll get a few our our friends who like to eat, give them a login and password, and off they go and snap photos and give comments about the food they taste. The benefit of doing it as a blog is that it doesn't have to be totally professional; afterall, it is a private blog. But I think it can potential grow into something big.

Anyone who wants to sign up as our food writer, leave a comment!

Morihachi Yakiniku: Causeway Bay

I don't get to go out for dinner a lot these days, but once in a while I'll give myself a day off. My best friend Jason and I went out to have some Japanese style barbaque last night. We thought we'll meet anyway regardless the typhoon singnal since we have only seen each other once since I came to Hong Kong.

Thanks to little Quinton's suggestion, we went to this place called Morihachi Yakinku (I supposed it can be translated to 'Morihachi grill beef'.) The price was slightly to the expensive side, but heck I only get to go out like twice a month!

We ordered three types of meats: grade-A beef, ribs and lamb chop. We get to barbaque them on top of this mini-grill thing. It's different than Korean style barbaque in which the grill is a wire-like surface rather than a iron-plate. We also ordered a green salad, daikon with beef soup and a kimchi cheese stonegrilled rice. Everything was very delicious and we had a wonderful time catching up. (And all those scandalous stories he had during his Filipino trip... XD)

We then went and walked around town and chat at Starbucks for abit, where I had a venti Caramel Macchiato and Jason had a Mocha Frappuccino.

It was a great night, despite the pouring rain and the wind. Of course I didn't get home till after midnight so I weren't able to wake up for my practices this morning. I did catch up in the afternoon though. So, I still have one more quota this month...