HK Adventure : All the Shopping Craze!

Day 2 of our HK stay was the shopping day. It was a Saturday morning and we were walking in Central HK ( business district).

What a rare sight, HK being deserted. Of course this was taken on a weekend morning when everyone was still reading newspaper and 'yum cha' somewhere else.

Our plan was to take the Mid Levels Travelator and sight-seeing at the same time. The advantage of taking this very lengthy travelator is that we could see inner streets in HK island, with their beautiful decor and not risk tiring our feet. Of course, we had to walk all the way back to our starting point lah. Somewhere during the ride, we saw the former Police Headquarters, which was featured in many old Hong Kong movies and i could recognise it by sight. We also made some pit stops for herbal tea and to a famous bakery for its eggtart.

After lunch, we headed to Times Square for a spot of shopping! We went to the nearby Uniqlo, Muji and Esprit shops. We bought many items from Uniqlo especially, because its price is much cheaper than in Singapore!

After our long shopping, we also went to kay poh in the huge supermarket at the Times Square basement. Iwan and Cat ( uni friends ) met up with us there and brought us for a ride in the Tram from near Times Square. This classic mode of transport is also known as the 'ding ding che' and sitting on the upper level with the wind blowing in your face is a must-do in Hong Kong.

After the tram ride, Kenny and our friends continued on to Lan Kwai Fong for a drink. The girls and I was down there in the afternoon for a walk and the Beer Fest was on that weekend. Kenny had a nice tall glass of beer with Iwan that night. What about me and the girls? Ha Ha Ha...we went shopping in H&M, snatching goods with other HK girls cos the sales at H&M was ridiculously cheap~ What a loooong day filled with shopping frenzy....zzzz....

The Count and Cookie Monster

When i was young, i used to watch a lot of Sesame Street. My favourite character was, without doubt, Cookie Monster. Apart from that, i always thought that my 2nd sister was a little like Count Dracula, cos she has a scientific mind, not to mention a grin like Count himself. Imagine my delight at finding this video!

Hong Kong Chow-down Part 2

On the first night after dinner, we went on for supper at the Australia Dairy Company 澳洲牛奶公司, famous for their milk products. The place was surprisingly full with the locals having macaroni soup ( yes, at night ).

We ordered three double boiled milk with egg white pudding and one yellow almond milk pudding. The almond flavoured bowl was too strong for our liking and the plain ones were OK. A disappointment to me, actually.


The following morning, we were brave enough to try out a local dim sum breakfast, the old-fashioned way. Old aunties wheeled trolleys filled with goodies and you had to brave the crowd to snatch your desired baskets. Boy, it was hard work! This place 莲香楼 ( Lin Heung Teahouse ) is actually highly rated by the locals as one of the few places which still retains the original way of selling dim sum

One of our first basket was Mushroom with minced meat. I didn't try this, as i was waiting for better stuff... xD

Soo Sun managed to grab these : Pig Stomach and on the right are Crystal Dumplings.

The essence of every Dim Sum meal : The CHAR SIEW BAO. They are pretty good, with generous amounts of fillings, enough to satisfy any petty customer.

This was one of my highlights of the meal, you don't see this kind of thing over here. It is actually marinated chicken, mushroom and pigskin wrapped in chinese herb. The chicken piece was fantastically marinated, i could taste the Shaoxing wine taste lingering. To be honest, it tasted like my mama's ginger chicken!

This is something like a siew mai, though slightly different.

Oh yeah...Har Gao! Not a big fan of prawns, but i accomodate Har Gaos cos they are great.

Something sweet? Rice crackers with Maple Syrup.... the taste of this dish is reminisence of the Malaysian candy 'Sha Chi Ma'.... very similar.

Our lotus leaf rice was still piping hot when it came.

Though we were all not sure of what this was, we suspected it to be fish stomach with pig kidney marinated in black pepper sauce. Very flavourful and chewy.

Meat wrapped in fried bean curd skin...

Each time we get a basket, those damn attitude aunties will stamp the appropriate stamp. At the end of the meal, we were only required to present this at the cashier.

HK Adventure : Arrival and Market-Hopping

My friends and I took the 6.45 am flight to HK, landed at the airport in mid-morning. We gathered our stuff and headed to take the express train into Kowloon, where we were to change to a shuttle bus to Langham Hotel and walked a distance to our hotel at Tsim Sha Tsui.

With check-in behind us, we freshened up and were raring to go!!! Look at Soo Sun's happy face, excited to shop for bags, clothes, shoes and wedding stuff!

First destination was Ladies' Street, where street vendors sell everything you can imagine possible, especially pirated goods. The fake goods were exceptionally good, saw a fairly good imitation of my Harrods bag....haha.... Bargaining is a must here, but make sure you do it quick before they get irritated.

I was posing for photos while my friends were snatching stuff in Cotton On. My friend Sixian wears Cotton On pumps and they were going for a low price there.

This was taken at Temple Street, after our dinner at the Jordan area. The skirts of the area is filled with sleazy pubs and entertainment centers. Kenny and I went back for an early night, considering we were up at 3.30 am the morning for the flight, while my two over-zealous friends continued shopping till 11 pm.

Hong Kong Chow-down Part 1

This is a first of a series of crazy binging eating during our Hong Kong trip. Well, enjoy and don't read all these posts with an empty stomach!

We were absolutely starving because we landed at 10.45 am, cleared immigration, made our way to the hotel and headed to Mongkok and was ready for lunch only at 2 pm. My friend, who planned our trip, had recommended Fuk Kei Porridge Place 富記粥品.

Both of them ordered Roast Goose with Char Siew (叉鵝饭) rice. Their Roast goose was very oily and fatty. Ha Ha, my friend had to pop some pills to absorb all those oil she had planned to consume during this trip.

This was my order! Fishball porridge....but their fishballls were actually lumpy and harder, unlike those we find here. I love their porridge, which was cooked to a sticky and gooey mess. Really smooth and easy on the palate.

This was Kenny's order : Pork with Century Egg porridge. The texture was similar to mine, and really great tasting.

Soon after our shopping escapades, we were hungry again and so had a tea time snack near Ladies Street. Name's 萬家燒餅皇.

We had couple of cream puffs, these are similar to those you get here, like Beard Papa's. Fluffy and not cloyingly sweet.

Our dinner was PERFECT! We went to this famous 'Cheong Fun' place somewhere in the middle of Mongkok called 堂記腸粉專門店.They only serve Cheong Fun, so they've become experts in making them.

This is the Fresh Prawn Cheong Fun, very succulent prawns inside and the rice wrappings were divine!

This is our Roast Duck and Beef Cheong Fun. We had another plate, the Char Siew and Pork Liver Cheong Fun, which we all enjoyed to the max. I don't think i can ever go back to local Cheong Fun anymore =(

Girl's Sunday

Apart from making brownies, we also meddled around with butter cookies. The recipe says Nutty Cookies, but we decided to stick with Chocolate Chip Butter Cookies.

Add sugar and butter and mix them together till the colour and texture turns light and fluffy.

Add in sifted flour and corn flour

Throw in the chocolate chips and mix till they are all over the place.

Keep the dough into the freezer for about an hour. Get them out later and shape them into small balls and bake.

This is what the cookie turned out to look like. Now, where's my best bud, Cookie Monster when i need him?

After all that hard work , it's time for our own dinner. Since the oven was already warm, don't waste the residual heat. We popped two frozen pizzas into it.

Meanwhile, we prepared an appetizer before enjoying the pizza. One of us cut the beancurd and century egg, while the other blends the sauce.

Time to enjoy our dinner + DVD...Ta-ta....

Scoring Brownie Points

One fine weekend, i packed my bags and headed to a land i've never been to : Potong Pasir . My colleague's parents were away in Hong Kong and so she invited me over for a girl's baking afternoon ( after our successful sleepover pyjamas party in the past ).

She is a career-nut...purchasing a balance that strongly resembles those kind we use in our labs. Anyway, contrary to our lab roles, in her home she was the one instructing me to weigh the baking powder.

Here's the chocolate block she had gotten ready for our brownie.

Put chocolate block and butter into a bowl and melt in the microwave oven.

Stir well to ensure that they've melted well. Mix sugar in and continue stirring. Giving it a James Bond twist, i like my brownies stirred, not shaken.... *lame*

The alcoholic in me is working up again....just a dash of Kahlua into the mixture....muahahaha... Oh, and we also added 4 eggs.

One of us add sifted flour into the bowl while the other stirs furiously as the mixture gets more and more coagulated.

Next, pour the mixture into the tray and sprinkle some chocolate pastilles onto the surface.

Now, we bake and we wait while the heavenly scents start to emanate from the convection oven.

Looks a little wrinkled but pretty good huh?