7 posts tagged “travel”
a.k.a. shanghai soup dumplings -- heaven in a bamboo steamer! dim sum in hong kong is so good. even the randomly-picked restaurant we wandered into was miles better than anything i've experienced in new york's chinatown (and i've been to more than a few).
if you're not lia and don't live and breathe siu lung bao, here's a short description: thin, doughy wrapper around a ground pork meatball floating in broth, tied off and then steamed. put the whole thing in your mouth and let the whole thing come undone in a juicy burst of flavor. putting the whole thing together is a delicate affair, which is the only reason i can think of for the heinous crime of these being impossible to find in seattle.
still, these will tide me over for awhile. yum!
i realize i complained inordinately about starbucks in my macau entry, so i should put in a good word: i admit, starbucks in asia rocks my world, because they serve tazo mango tea frappucino! possibly the best virgin iced drink ever, and doubly so in the sauna-like conditions of southest asia. seriously, it's like they crushed a frozen mango directly into a cup, and if you've had mangoes in asia, you know things don't get much better than that.
felt kind of ashamed & very ugly american, going into a starbucks every day for a little dose of nirvana. on this trip alone i spent time sipping mango in hong kong, macau, and japan*, and i'm no coffee drinker but i'd go to starbucks every day in seattle if they carried them here. no shame.
okay, just a little shame.
*in japan, they only list short, tall, and grande on the starbucks menu. i didn't even know short was even an option! short coffees come in the cutest little cups, but being japan, they still cost something like forty dollars each.
the portuguese egg tart is the macanese gift to the world. fluffy, creamy, melt-in-your-mouth but with that yummy caramelized top, it kicks the pants off your average dim sum egg custard tart, and if you haven't had one, you really don't know what you're missing.
new york city's chinatown caught onto the fad a couple years ago and, i swear, you couldn't walk fifty feet between shops without finding them for sale. heavenly! unfortunately, i haven't been out east in awhile, and i'm told this phase came and went long ago in hong kong, and so they're nowhere to be found there. one might come to the conclusion, like me, that the only course of action left to take would be to sample the goods in their home turf. but be warned: macau's appeal may be elusive at best.
a decade or more in the past, before the handover to china, i imagine things were pretty charming -- with the colorful colonial architecture around largo do senado, narrow, hilly alleys lined with chinese shops, and the corniche, described in a guidebook of the past as "the most romantic ocean stroll in southeast asia." all of it seems slightly perverted now; with acres of reclaimed land growing, tumor-like, out of the coastline, huge hulks of imported las vegas emerging from the concrete ("wynn," proclaims the new glass-and-steel monstrosity, a perfect replica of the one in nevada, and further down, a full-scale replica of a roman fishing port). even the picturesque, colorful buildings around senate square reveal themselves to be mere illusion, as you pass through the doorway of a beautiful, ancient church into an ultra-modern, ultra-generic... starbucks? mcdonalds? further down the street we see one, a free-standing facade, ready to accept a new heart -- the kind that runs on battery power.
so turned off after a couple hours of such exploration in hellish heat, we were back on the ferry before we knew it. as we sailed back over the south china sea, video screens showed a trailer for poseidon, and i realized we'd completely forgotten to locate tarts.
better that bit of macau not be in me than have any bit of me in macau, i suppose...
(but i am still bitter)
culture shock: the women in hong kong's version of the dove campaign
for real beauty are all super-thin and tiny.
correspondingly, shopping for clothing there almost requires one to be a u. s. size 4 or smaller.
as promised, a mcdonald's trip report, featuring the chicken and beef fan-tastic sandwiches. first thing to notice is the packaging, which resembles a large fry cup, sealed on both ends. the sandwich is removed by pulling on a tear strip about a third of the way down, which leaves you with a convenient carry-and-eat case. as you might be able to tell by looking at the photos, mcdonald's has succeeded in making the "official" menu pictures of these sandwiches frightneningly unappealing. too much texture, i think.
the formed-rice "buns" are savory and surprisingly unmessy, imagine grilled patties of mushroom risotto and you'll have the general idea. the chicken fan-tastic contains a battered breast filet with a strongly seasoned crust, as well as mayonnaise and lettuce. at times the flavors of rice and batter come in conflict, but overall -- pretty tasty. the beef version contains slices of beef and grilled onions in "teriyaki" sauce, though i use scare quotes because i couldn't taste much flavor from inside the sandwich at all. here the strong flavor of the rice patties are a deifnitely minus.
(incidentally, two sandwiches is a bit much. the rice makes these much heavier than your average bun-equipped fast food sandwich. recommend finding a group of like-minded adventurers if you want to try both...)
anyway! fans of onigiri and omusubi probably need no further convincing. but i think the real winner here was the small nestea honey pear iced tea which i washed down my bites of sandwich with. i detest normal lemon nestea, but this flavor was super-yummy. if only we had it stateside!
as an aside, hong kong mcdonald's also have a "grilled chicken burger" on the menu, which it turns out is a sandwich containing cantonese soy sauce chicken breast, complete with skin. looked really good, but was not equipped to give it a try. i think i've exhausted my tolerance for fast food this trip, so unless there's special demand, we'll stop here.
tomorrow: off to the mainland, expect internet access to sporadic at best, so please don't worry if i disappear for a bit. drop me a line so i won't be lonely when i log in, okay?
this painting hangs in the hotel room in kowloon. i find it relentlessly unsettling.
food here is really, really good. it kind of makes you forget that it's such a sauna outside that the simple act of walking kind of bleeds out any nourishment received while eating. thus the routine becomes one of walking between restaurants, sampling the goods. but I've a feeling that this is how one best experiences hong kong.
today was just footing it between tsim sha sui and mongkok, sampling dim sum and fruit desserts (i'm in love with the mangoes here -- they're so good!). admit to browsing the clothing racks too. kowloon is very much urban -- at least along nathan road, there was no evidence of vegetation and a solid sea of high rises blocked any view of the gau lung (nine dragons) which give the peninsula its name. amazing how very much new york city's chinatown really replicates this place! the feel is uncannily similar. am looking forward to visiting hong kong island or the new territories (tomorrow's goals are sai kung and lantau island's big buddha), where supposedly nature is still much in evidence.
and just so you know it's still me writing -- a mcdonald's report. have not had the opportunity to sample any of the local dishes, but in addition to containing intriguing-looking dishes like korean bbq flatbread and a breakfast ham-and-egg burger, the menu contains something called a chicken fan-tastic sandwich. which, if you know any cantonese at all, has probably already brought an image to your mind. it's a chicken sandwich with glutinous rice patties instead of buns. longtime readers will recognize this as a neon epiphany natural, and we'll certainly strive to bring you a report on this important taste sensation as soon as humanly possible.
...and we're off! wish me fun!
haven't cooked nearly enough lately, so i think i'll opt out of today's qotd. though i do make a mean maple-ginger glazed salmon, or so i've been told.
how many outfits? i'm very nervous about my upcoming trip. three weeks! i can't remember the last time i took such an extended voyage. i have no idea how to pack for such a thing. pack for heat, they say, but don't forget to pack for cold too! will i be able to launder there? my friend j tells me that in china it's often easier and cheaper to just buy new clothes when the old stuff gets dirty than it is to wash things. i find this kind of advice very intimidating.
am living a paradox as far as preparedness goes. the rough guide to china and fodor's hong kong are already being devoured in earnest; i love travel guides and maps, love the smell and feel of discovery by paper and the opportunity to meet a place in the flesh already feeling like an old friend. i remember my rough guide to egypt (i heart rough guides above all others), already dog-eared and read cover-to-cover twice before i'd even set foot in that ancient kingdom, maps covered in tentative, often revised, footpaths of pencil. checkpoints every half hour. but this time i'm at a bit of a loss. though hong kong is free for exploring, china will be fully chaperoned -- no room for wandering off the trail. haven't even had a chance to, or perhaps have chosen not to, learn the itinerary to see which locales will be hit, though one can only assume the biggies: beijing, xi'an, shanghai... in such a huge country, i thought it best to let others run the logistical hurdles. but now am feeling pangs of regret at not being able to plan the ins and outs of the trip myself.
(i really am an insufferable micromanager, aren't i? i wonder how people stand to be around me!)
calm down and let it flow, she says, my better judgment. it's out of your control, and if you forget something, well, that's another adventure for the memoirs. but all i can do is think: how many outfits?
