#69 - Happy Hannukah / Merry Christmas / Joyous Kwanzaa / Happy [insert relevant holiday here]

Have just experienced one of those unfortunate and irritating things about automated "smart" whatever things these programs do - i.e. lost the post and all the clever, witty things I wrote about over the last couple of days.

I'm not sure I can face writing it all again - not to mention I can't remember what I wrote so I will have to try to reconstruct it using the photos I had for this post.

Packing and Moving
The day after I got back from Germany, it was back to reality.  I had to sort everything.  The movers packed all the things going back to Australia and when they were finished, there was a distressing amount of stuff left in the flat - it hardly looked like a dent had been made.  The rest of the day was spent packing, schelpping things to a friend's house for storage and throwing away rubbish.  I'm not quite sure how much crap can accumulate in such a small space.  Luckily for me, I had made dinner plans with a friend from LCB for that night, which gave a welcome cut-off time for all the moving and packing nonsense.  It was much needed and we had a delicious Mexican meal at a place called Lupita just off the Strand.  They even made guacamole in front of us, which brought to mind a scene from The West Wing in which President Barlett has a conversation with his daughter about guacamole in a restaurant in LA.  We had the fresh guacamole with the chips (the fried cheese in the bottom photo came with guacamole which was already made in the kitchen.

Don't quit your day job...
In which I discovered I will never be a criminal mastermind...one of the things that could strike fear into any traveller, no matter how seasoned, is the thought of having to make a connecting flight through LAX with an international to domestic transfer and a short amount of time in which to do it.  When the time is about 3 hours and one has to clear customs and immigration after picking up one's bags to switch from an international to a domestic flight, the anxiety level escalates dramatically.  This becomes an exponential thing as the first (international flight) becomes later and later - in our case, an hour late.  Somehow I got through the disorganized customes and immigration, collecting my boarding pass for the second leg from a British Airways groundstaff member and it looked like the connection might end easily.

The only problem came with the second security checkpoint - LAX has one of those body scanner things and given that a lot of doctors say they don't know how much of the bad x-rays or whatever go through you, I thought it would be better not to chance it.  Pat down finished, there was (I thought) undue interest in my bags.  In my defence, I had only slept about 6 hours out of the previous 48 hours so it took a little while to see what they were seeing when they pulled my quick cure salt out of my bag:  1kg of white, powdery substance in 2 layers of plastic baggies, one of them a zip lock.  Then I twigged.  Oh - white, powder...I asked the security guard what it looked like in the x-ray.  "Very interesting" was the answer.  Luckily the security guy had had confit duck before, so that made the quick cure a lot easier to explain.  He laughed when I said, "This is what comes of even contemplating cooking for your fmaily over the holidays!"  and I had no objection to there being no testing of the quick cure.  Guessing they must have decided that no one would be stupid enough to schlep a kilo of a naughty white substance in their carry on...

Cleared security just in the nick of time - just enough wiggle room to grab a bottle of water in the airline lounge, then it was time to board for home.

In which we channel Dorothy
There's no place like home.  We didn't even have the smell of jet fuel tainting the air when we landed - warm, flower scented air as soon as we stepped out of the gates and into the terminal.  Managed to overlap with Brother #2 and family - my first night was their last.  I had to laugh as my nephew picked me up and twirled me around.  It's always nice to be greeted so enthusiastically by a handsome (and buff) young man - even nicer when you know that you're on his list of favorite people who always merits a hug and a kiss.  On the right is one of the beautiful and rather common sights.  I can generally count on seeing a rainbow in the late afternoons most days.  It used to be on the way home from the ballet studio, but since the studio moved, I now just look up the hill from my little balcony.

A couple of days of catching up with friends followed my arrival.  One of the things you can always count on over the holidays is that people somehow make their way back here.  It might not be often or on a regular basis, but sooner or later we come back.  I suppose part of it is that it's a great excuse and place to take a break from cold and dark days when one lives somewhere where the days tend to get quite short as the year draws to a close.  Any of that is more bearable if you are heading for warmer climes...

'Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house, little creatures were stirring.  My little niece was restive and not inclined to go to sleep because Santa was coming.  She had started making some cookies for Santa but it was temporarily put on hold while my sister tended to my new nephew - at which point I took over supervision of Santa's cookies.  My white hairs multiplied by a magnitude at several points - once when the 2 year-old picked up the blade attachment for the food processor before I could stop her (luckily by the plastic handle) and again when her hand got too close to the moving parts of the stand mixer.  Eventually she lost interest (when it was time to cook the cookies) but only after she added the chocolate chips to the cookie dough.  The quality testing of the chocolate chips was a big hit.

It was almost midnight before both kidlets were finally settled in for the night at which point my sister and I finished wrapping various presents.  I then went back home where I had a few more presents to finish wrapping - possibly a good time for jet lag to hit.

Christmas morning dawned too early for those of us who had been awake until 5am.  This jetlag thing from the opposite side of the world is just not that conducive to a good night's sleep on local time...a few bites of breakfast, then I toddled down the hill to watch the opening of Christmas presents.  My niece was very excited that Santa had eaten the cookies and drunk the milk.  Here is one of the little dresses I bought in London - they were so cute I couldn't resist buying several of them.  Lucky for me she wants to wear all of them although it's a bit doubtful whether she meant all at once (each dress was greeted with the comment "I want to wear it Mommy").

2nd Breakfast
And then came my Hobbit impersonation.  How can anyone turn down an offer to make them breakfast?  My brother-in-law kindly offered, extending this month's tradition of having meals cooked by other people's spouses.  In this case, 2nd breakfast was "hapa rice" (2 parts brown rice : 1part white rice), Portuguese sausage and eggs scrambled with vegetables.  FYI, eggs needed just a little something to give them a little kick.  I tried Tobasco (the best one), Frank's Red Hot or something like that (it's the one they use for Buffalo wings) and the ubiquitous Vietnames "cock" sauce - the plastic bottle with the green top and a drawing of a rooster on the front.  Father and daughter then went to a basketball game, which left my sister and me free to prepare for the afternoon.

Attempting to cook...

We had set up the vegetables at my sister's house so that there wouldn't be any issue as to space / stove / fridge / time while I tried to cook with my gimpy hand.  Thank goodness for shortcuts - I used canned tomatoes and a mandoline to help with all the slicing.  There were 5 people attending who were unable to eat gluten, 3 of whom were also allergic to eggs and 1 of whom was vegan (but willing to make an exception for Christmas dinner).  I was a little stuck for ideas until my sister said something about stuffed cabbage, at which point I tried a variation of the stuffed cabbage we did at school.  Then it was a matter of praying that it would turn out ok - there was a terrible moment when I tasted the tomato concasse and found it too acidic / flavorless / un-tomato-y.  I adjusted with a little sugar, but it was too much sugar and on went the adjusting.  Eventually satisfied with the taste of the sauce, I readied the rest of the mise en place.

The only thing is that I very carefully assembled the stuffed cabbage lasagne / gratin bayaldi with the outside of the cabbage facing out - that is to say, the wrong way out.  I blame the lack of sleep and jetlag for the snafu.  It turned out ok although I could hear a chorus of Chefs' voices in my head when we ate it that the zucchini was undercooked and the assembly uneven, not to mention it wasn't hot.  As a trial run, it could have been better but it could also have been worse.  For the moment, the notes I have are to cook the zucchini longer before assembly, drain everything much better, to have the cabbage with the inside of the leaves facing out, to make more tomato sauce and to heat the thing for about 15 minutes before service instead of 10 minutes.  For whatever reason, we always seem to end up with not enough tomato sauce and it needed rather a lot of adjusting the seasoning and acidity with red wine, salt and sugar.  It ended as one of those things where the people you cook for enjoyed the food but by the standards which I now expect of myself, the dish was lacking in several crucial ways - hence the chorus in my head of what feedback I would expect for the dish.  I remember early on that we were told that the chefs expected perfection.  Of course you never achieve it but that doesn't mean that you don't strive for it anyway, or else why would we be there?

Dinner was the usual food extravaganza for 15 people.  There was a very large turkey, a ham and a backup turkey as well as all the fixings and several side dishes.  Also as is usual for us here, appetisers were poke (pronounced "pokay" for those of you who have not been to Hawaii) with beer and tortilla chips with hummus.

My eldest brother made the roast turkey.  There was gluten free gravy and gluten free stuffing.  I found some of the gluten free alternatives to food rather disappointing because either the taste or the texture is usually not as nice as the normal one.  One of our guests also made mochi (pounded glutinous rice, sometimes with stuffing) and colored it - with the effect that it blends in with the plate.  Find the mochi on the tablecloth on the right...quite a good camouflage, I thought.  Given the amount of contributions, I thought we did quite well with consuming most of the food on the night.  The turkey leftovers were gone by the next day except for the carcass which is slated to make broth for a turkey stew I am going to try to make.  BS isn't a huge fan of soups but he will try a stew...

There was also a mini cask of rum.  Not some gimmicky thing or a scary home made attempt but rather proper rum which was stored in an aged French oak barrel (or something like that).  I'm hoping I said this correctly - I don't speak specialist alcohol language.  All I know is that generally alcohol makes everything better (and sometimes the food too).  This was to go with the figgy pudding - I've forgotten the song but I know it's one of the latter verses of "We wish you a merry Christmas".

It was wonderful to spend such a happy night with friends and family.  So until next time, may you have as wonderful a holiday and family time as I have.

#23 - Things I don't understand about the UK...

There are a few things that have puzzled me since my arrival in London and I still haven't worked them out.

Miscellaneous
For instance, why does the deodorant/anti-perspirant need to work for 48 hours?  Camping or being somewhere without hot running water and soap for a certain period of time (like my apartment when the boiler pressure turned off) is understandable.  But if you are home and have access to a shower/bath - why?

And speaking of boilers - mine wasn't working the other night.  It was late, it was freezing and I was tired from class.  I eventually figured it out - there was a certain amount of desperation because the boiler controls both the hot water and the radiators.  Also, because I cannot get into my bed when I am dirty.

Differences in language can be amusing too.  In the US, saying someone is "spunky" usually refers to their personality.  In Australia, it refers to their appearance, in a good way.  In the UK, apparently it refers to...hm, how to put this...male bodily emissions.  So not a compliment here to say that someone is spunky.  There's also a whole thing on thongs, but I won't get into that.  Suffice to say that between the US, Australian, South African and Hong Kong interpretations of the word, it gets interesting.  The conversation in our locker room, by the way, was in reference to rubber slippers.

So - words that can cause confusion, depending on where you are:
thongs, slippers, spunky, next week (geography seems to determine interpretation).  Feel free to add any suggestions to this list because I am too tired to think of any more.

Liquid soap - they have the usual arrows (one way makes the pump pop up, the other way makes it go down and you can usually lock it down).  I haven't been able to make them work, so I just refill the one bottle that got unlocked (but a friend who lives around the corner) and refill that.  Yes, I am not smarter than my soap pump.  Who cares?

OCD is only a problem if it functions with your normal daily functioning.  I haven't done the research (if you do, I will believe you as long as your source isn't Wikipedia).  Anyway - I had tutorials for my Cuisine and Patisserie classes yesterday.  My Patisserie mentor told me to stop cleaning so much (in response to my question as to why I am so slow in class).  He said, "in the time you've taken to clean, you could have made something."  Which is true - I am going to test it next week and see if I get pulled up on it.

Am very disorganized.  Everything looks so organized, but it's all a facade.  Nowhere is it more apparent than in the kitchen when I have neglected to collect the other 3 bowls you will need when you got the first two.  It seems the chefs all have eyes in the backs of their heads.  They seem to see everything (and they talk).  Apparently they notice when we make 5 trips to the sink area to get various pieces of equipment.

Fashion - I think I am sartorially challenged.  Spending most of my time in uniform makes for a lazy attitude towards every day dressing (I walk 4 minutes to class, change, then might go out for quick dinner with friends before coming back home).  Total time spent traipsing around London in street clothes on a school day:  10 minutes - 4 hours...anyway - back to my point.  During the 4 hour window, I have seen many inappropriately short skirts.  A (male) taxi driver told me that is the fashion now.  See?  Fashion challenged - I am being told what is in by a taxi driver.  So I thought I was being a granny but one of the younger girls in my course (she turns 19 in a month) also made the comment that the girls in London dress like prostitutes.  Might be a bit harsh, but accurate nonetheless.  If you have to keep tugging the hem of your skirt/dress down (and you don't have to lean a little to do it!) then it is probably too short, and possibly too tight.

Back to food
Somehow this week has whizzed by and I now have to update more photos.

I can't make soup...no time to take pictures of my chicken and mushroom soup (the soup wouldn't thicken...but the chicken julienne was nice) or the potato and leek (?) soup with julienned vegetables (watery soup flavorwise, but the first time my julienne was acceptable)...



French Onion Soup
with burned croutons

More troubled soups:  burned croutons on the French Onion soup because I forgot about them, and soup a bit bitter because I overcooked the onions.



Beef consomme
with too-brown savory crepe

Beef consomme was still a little too oily and the crepes were too brown.  Agh!  I will never make soup!!!

Basic Breads:
Soda bread and dinner rolls

Basic bread and cakes
Went a bit better.  The bread tasted a bit boring but everyone I gave rolls and bread to seemed to like it - possibly because it was made with a certain something (like, I don't care as long as it's pretty).

Basic cakes:
Lemon cake and madeleines

Cakes - were edible.  A bit too much baking powder in the madeleines resulted in air pockets, but otherwise any stuck edges were on the side not being presented.  I tasted one madeleine and a tiny edge of the cake - the one and the edge were enough.

   





Sienna eating a madeleine

SO & Sienna came down from Oxford to visit their friend Bernice. We managed to meet for coffee before lunch - so Sienna got to do some tasting. Evidently the madeleines have met and passed kid testing - she ate three immediately.


Some research:
Comparing to my test eclairs...

    



Wouldn't you visit this store?

 

This week - more meats and stuff...

A dish to help practice butchery because my chicken fricassee was way behind schedule - where does all the time go?

Poussin with apple compote

The poussin - had problems with potatoes.  I can't cook potatoes either - this is the third time something has happened to them - I hate potatoes!  and forgot to trim the drumstick ends.

Luckily JK and ML each had some spare potatoes so I could plate because mine were not cooperating.  The apples were a bit tart for Chef J, but I thought they were perfect...cut through all the butter and cream.  Oh well - still developing the palate (is that a good thing?)

Then it was offal - yech.  I tried them in demo and told the chef that if I liked liver or sweetbreads, I would have loved the dishes.  As it was, I hated them both.  So today we had to make them...I'm not sure whether I smelled the liver or the sweetbreads while we were in the kitchen, but any residual hunger I might have had from tasting the amazing sole from demo before (on the list for next week) was completely buried.
 

Chef EB refused to taste anyone's liver because he had already done 3 classes worth of tastings today.

Veal liver
with onions & sauteed potatoes

I don't blame him - my one teeny taste yesterday was enough to turn me off liver pretty much forever.  I can confirm that my policy of refusing to eat anything that has ever been on my dissecting table (or a variation of said item) is completely sound, along with the certain discrete exceptions (i.e. fish).  So the liver was well done, as per Chef E's directions, the onions burned to a crisp and beyond repair (I checked my photos from the demo - should have stopped when I had originally stopped) and the potatoes were good except they needed more salt.  Maybe everything needs more salt because we are always so hot in the kitchen that everyone pretty much sweats buckets.  Yes, yes, I know - ladies don't sweat.  Well, we're not ladies - we're chefs!  And I defy anyone to stay cool, calm and collected (and not to sweat) when it is 40 degrees C / 100 degrees F in the kitchen with the clock ticking and the dishes misbehaving.

Veal sweetbreads with
asparagus tips and parisienne potatoes

The sweetbreads (say what?) were beyond yuck - they looked like brains.  Just because something doesn't have latex running all through it like in our fetal pig which we had to dissect for 4 weeks, doesn't mean that it doesn't smell bad or look good.  They also feel kind of rubbery, but not firm - a bit squishy, actually.  So I can make it look pretty on the outside, but this one, which was super thick, should have been cut into small escalopes, then breaded and fried.  As it was, Chef E tasted the potatoes, asparagus and jus - bitter jus and the asparagus had been peeled too much...but the potatoes were good (ok, maybe I don't suck at potatoes quite as much as I thought I did).

So we finished class on time (even me!) and everyone headed to the pub for a drink.  There was a deep sigh of relief as we started drinking down our various beverages (Coke, beer, Pimms...)  I had run out of water during the practical so have been chugging for the last couple of hours.

De-offaling...


My dinner after all the awful offal

I took the longest shower ever - getting the feel of the greasy smoke, even if only in my imagination, took forever.  Then it was scrubbing the day off before I could even think about dinner.  So - the results of looking at innards for two days in a row:  yes, I cooked.  Yes, this is kind of an attempt at presentation, but I really couldn't be bothered.  There's all kinds of fussing about to make things pretty and put them in shapes, which is fine if you are getting graded on it - or being paid lots of money to look it that way.  At home, it's just more dishes to do and I have to do my own dishes - so just as soon throw it all together.

So until next time - no more offal!

#3 – Hong Kong (Days 1 – 3.1)

In which coffee failed to kick start a brain and we had to search for food...
The day before yesterday started off with a whimper.  I went looking for the dim sum/yum cha place down the street recommended by the driver of my taxi from the airport.  I checked with the hotel front desk and they said that there was a better place just up the street.  No one takes bookings for yum cha so S, J and I should just show up and get a table.  The directions were something like, “You go up to this next street outside that door.  Turn left and it is a couple of blocks down the street, on the other side of Hennessy Street.”  This all sounded good in theory, but it helps if you can remember the name of the restaurant and whether it was before or after the McDonald’s.  In my defence, I’m not sure the coffee kicked in at all that day.

Thank goodness S and J were such good sports.  Eventually we found the place and we also managed to pass a shop where J had to get a couple of things, while I tried to remember what the concierge had said.  S suggested we should try the other direction since the one in which we were currently proceeding had brought us back in a circle (and bad memories in my mind of wandering the streets of London last April for an hour only to return to my starting point).  Well done, S!

Holy laid back dim sum, Batman!

Lei Garden(s?) is apparently part of a chain of restaurants, one of which is famous for molecular something-or-other and requires 72 hours notice.  This place lacked the feeding frenzy atmosphere which is often a part of the cart service and we watched with some bemusement at the older gentlemen reading their papers at some of the other tables.  We ordered off descriptions on the English menu.  I’m not sure that this helped because we couldn’t match all of the dishes to our list when food started to appear.

Given that the English menu provided us with about 4 dishes once we had ruled out the ones with pork, which I generally refuse to eat, the fried dishes and the ones that just sounded weird, I decided to be adventurous and went with J’s suggestions.  We may not have known what we were eating, with the exception of the prawn dumplings, the lotus rice, the prawn rice noodles and the fried turnip cakes, each dish bore as little resemblance to its counterpart in a Western yum cha place as I do to my brothers.

The dumplings were a little smaller than those at many yum cha places in various Chinatowns so you could pop the whole thing in your mouth without looking like a squirrel with a mouthful of nuts, only less cute and furry.  For another thing, the roast pork left us speechless except for J’s insistence that if I tried one thing on this trip, it had to be this pork.  My prejudice against pork is that I don’t like the way the meat tastes.  As long as meat doesn’t taste like meat (beef, chicken, pork) I will eat it.  Pork generally tastes porky unless it has had so many preservatives, salt and other bad-for-you stuff added to it that it is just a vehicle for those other things.  So the highlight of this meal was the one thing that I thought I would absolutely hate.

I don’t know what they did to this but – the skin (?) was crispy and light, kind of like a really good tempura batter.  The meat didn’t taste porky and the bite didn’t have that awful greasy feel in the mouth with a lingering aftertaste.  Somehow they had cooked it so that the fat had rendered itself out without drying the meat and all you felt and heard was the crunching of the golden crust along with some salty goodness in small pieces about the size of petit fours when you are at afternoon tea.  J then had to go to a work function, leaving S and me to do some girly bonding.

Window shopping is only incidental

There was some window shopping at various locations (Times Square being one) and several other ones in the guide books.  I can’t remember their names and it was all incidental anyway as our mission was pretty simple:  get a birthday card for one of S’s friends in keeping with their tradition, find some postcards for me, which was surprisingly hard, have some ice cream (mmm, Haagen Daaz – ok, I have no idea how to spell that) and buy some household groceries for S & J.  My quest to replace my concealer has also been surprisingly unsuccessful to date, but that is for another day.

If you were to ask us what we talked about, we would be hard pressed to tell you anything more than “some upcoming travel plans, moving, being unable to find things because they are under boxes, infuriating telecommunications companies, just stuff”.  Guys, think of it this way.  It’s a way for those of us, who are unfamiliar with the words “gym” and/or “exercise” in connection with ourselves, to burn a few calories.  I understand the ice cream didn’t really help, but that was so not the point.  It’s our bonding time.  If you’re lucky, we might remember something that you need/might like/mentioned, so you get triple the fun:

1.                   we’re happy, which should make you happy;

2.                  we are doing our version of exercise, but which we doesn’t feel like exercise; and

3.                  you might get a treat.  Or not.

Ladies, I’m sure you all see where I am going here.  Gentlemen, just go with it.  It’s a lot easier for all of us when you don’t argue.  A wise man whom I heard at a wedding advised his new son-in-law, “The key to a happy marriage is encompassed in two words:  yes dear”.  It sounds so sensible, I definitely think it’s worth a try (at least occasionally) although yes, I do realise that this recommendation is biased in my favour.

There is one odd thing about shopping in Hong Kong:  although many of the shopping centres are connected by elevated walkways and seem designed to keep you in them all day (if only by virtue of the fact that you could get lost and wander in expensive circles all day) not many of the doors are automated.  In other words, they are not Mommy-and-stroller (or even slightly handicapped) friendly.  S and I weren’t sure if this meant that you were supposed to have a nanny to mind the kidlets while you go shopping, or whether it all stops when you have kiddies.  If anyone knows the answer, feel free to share.

Michelin star Sunday

Dinner had been booked at a ramen place called Mist, about which S and I both wanted to try after reading about it in several magazines.  Mist is, according to Time Out Hong Kong, one of two Japanese restaurants in HK to be awarded a Michelin star (www.mist.com.hk, 4 Sun Wui Road, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, 2881 5006).  The business card says that it is a member of the Paul Martin Noodle Club.  I don’t know what that is but I want to find out...

Mist was amazing – it managed to stunt my generally satisfactory repertoire of superlatives and left S, J and me groping for words.  J’s fish tartare was a white fish (perhaps yellowtail?) mixed with avocado and something else to make it look a bit creamy.  This was then served on a red cabbage/endive leaf, which resulted in eliciting noises which are only appropriate when eating divine food or...well...so anyway, my smoked scallop salad then arrived – the smokiness of the scallops permeated the entire dish, the scallops themselves just barely cooked through and all of it topped with tobiko and some kind of dressing that I can’t describe.  More inappropriate noises ensued.  I thought this could be the perfect first date, as long as you are prepared to be unable to move at the end of the meal.  Mara, I really could have used your input last night!

S’s starter was a baked mushroom medley.  The mushrooms included the king mushrooms, shimeji, possibly others, all torched then topped with torched panko crumbs and some kind of “herb sauce” which bore a large resemblance to pesto...there was some cheating as J is not supposed to have gluten, but I think S’s and my inarticulately happy mumblings goaded him into taking just a teensy bite.  He managed to restrain himself with one more teensy bite, but it was a heroic exercise in self control.

This all happened before the main event:  the ramen which was the subject of the Time Out article.  The noodles are slightly thinner than is traditional (according to the write up),  made from wheat sourced from 3 separate locations in order to get the texture (?) right (according to the restaurant’s blurb).  There were 4 types or broth:  miso, karamiso, ume-shio and one other which I currently can’t remember, being in a complete food coma.  Our noodles arrived and after the first spoonful, there were insistent exchanges of “you have to try this, this is amaaaazing!” with which everyone gleefully complied.  My ume shio also had some kelp (as described by the enthusiastically helpful staff but which appeared to be like mozuku, only green) hidden under the shiso leaf and ume.  The ume was large and sweet, which seems like a contradiction given that it’s been pickled.  It added that extra zing to the chicken and konbu stock (Time Out’s description) which elevated my light broth from merely really delicious up to “worth a special visit”.

The karamiso broth was richly flavoured without being heavy, the noodles’ delicate appearance belying their ability to stand up to the robust broth and our inability to inhale the noodles as quickly as the man seated to my right who finished his dinner before I had made a dent in mine.  Bear in mind his dinner arrived after mine as well, but I just couldn’t keep up with the slurping to my right...anyway, the noodle was still as al dente when I chased the last couple around the bottom of my bowl as they were when I took my first bite.

I could go on further about all this except that S, J and I looked at each other and then booked our seats for Tuesday night (my last night in HK) before we even asked for our bill for Sunday’s dinner.  We also requested the exact same seats, rather than the banquettes and tables in the restaurant.  I promise not to bore you with a second rendition on Mist but rest assured I will enjoy it just as much.

We had been seated by the counter instead of the tables because we booked late, but this actually added to the experience.  I unashamedly stood up on the rail on which you can rest your feet while sitting on the tall stools, to look over the counter and watch the chefs.  Every once in a while one of the waitresses or chefs would come over to us and explain what they were making (the ramen sushi, the spoons, the chiba pork...) which were then delivered to another table.  I love how chatty people get when you are genuinely interested in what they do.

The service was excellent, friendly and very attentive (although no bonus points for clearing our dishes before everyone was finished). I’m debating bonus points for the white gloves worn while setting out the cutlery for our appetisers, but then I thought maybe that was a requirement for a Michelin star.  Or it could be a wanky affectation and I just have no idea.

Dumpling noodle soups and SoHo Monday

It wasn’t chatty at Mak’s noodles earlier yesterday at lunch (Wellington Street, SoHo – with an article by Anthony Bourdain of No Reservations proudly displayed under the plastic cover on our table).  S and I had had a bowl of soup noodles each and shared an order of green vegetables and jah jiang mein (basically Chinese spaghetti Bolognese with chili).  I love Hong Kong sizes – they are small enough that you can try several things, especially if you eat a lot.  On the way out we paused by the front window where you can see the three chefs plying their craft – one dipping and cooking the dumplings, one taking those dumplings and/or noodles and cooking them some more and possibly doing other esoteric things to them, the last one ladling the appropriate soup/sauce on the dumpling and/or noodles.  They did, however, wave goodbye to S and me when we finally tore ourselves away from the front windows.

The broth for the (shrimp) wonton noodle soup was everything Bourdain promised – shrimpy, rich, moreish and no greasy feel in your mouth afterward.  The broth that came with the jah jiang mien suffered in comparison, being a bit heavy on the fish and leaving an oily feeling coating your mouth.  We didn’t have any more of that stock but ended with our noodles and more pork sauce, where only salty, sweet, slightly crunchy and spicy deliciousness remained.

S unfortunately did not feel well in the later afternoon and had to have a quiet night home to recuperate for today.  In the meantime, I had made arrangements to catch up with another friend, PD whom I knew from Sydney.  We started with drinks in SoHo (Peak Bar), then went to another dumpling noodle soup place for dinner.  He had offered several options for dinner but I thought we should do what he would do on a normal night.  How else to make the most of having a local to show you around?

PD let me order, but I had gotten used to the smaller portions and...whoops.  Too much or not, we managed to get through most of it although I wrote most of this while in the midst of a food and jetlag induced coma.  Our dinner was delicious and I am still taking mental notes although that space is rapidly running out.  One wonderful bonus about catching up with PD was that when conversation turned to coffee, he could recommend one that serves Australian coffee!  Not only that, we happened to walk past it on our way to after dinner drinks at one of several local watering holes so he pointed it out on our way past.

I couldn’t tell you what we talked about either.  I think there was something about jetlag, keys and our respective solutions to a dilemma involving both.  The garrulousness that I remember is still alive and very much in evidence, as is his palpable air of contentment.  There was some talk about what his life is like as an expat, etc. etc.  I believe that we discussed the meaning of life but did reached neither a satisfactory nor agreeable answer.

It is now Tuesday morning and my last day in Hong Kong.  Tomorrow morning I will have to wake up at some ridiculous hour and get to the airport to fly to London.  I trust there will be little or no traffic as HK doesn’t seem to really wake up until after 10am.

In the meantime, it is time to see if I can find the cafe with good coffee on my own.  At least I know where it is and kind of remember what it looks like.  I hope it won’t look too different during the day!  There are high hopes as Toby’s Estate is served at a couple of my favourite Sydney coffee places.  By the by, PD, did we have a time frame on the wager and suit fittings?  I’m trying to figure out if September is too soon and whether those final three months will make much of a difference...