Flick and I went to a cha chaan tang for breakfast this morning, right on Jordan Road. I was looking for one of these eateries, serving approximations of Western food, but cheaply and fastly. For $99HKD, we each got a HK-style milk tea, toast, an egg and cheese omelette, oatmeal porridge with lean pork and corn, noodles with spam and a wiener, as well as an omelette sandwich on white bread. An interesting experience, but I'm too used to a Western style breakfast (tea/coffee, pastry, fruit, cereal, etc.)
My Dad is celebrating his birthday today, and he wanted to go to Din Tai Fung for lunch. This is a famous chain from Taiwan with outlets all over Asia. Their specialty is xiao long bao, pork dumplings with soup. We went to the outlet in the Silvercord building in Tsim Sha Tsui. The meal here was outstanding: we had several kinds of dumplings, spicy cucumbers, a marinated fish dish, sesame noodles... Highly recommended.
Afterwards, we walked through nearby Kowloon Park, checking out the old trees, the hedge maze and the sculpture garden. As it started to rain, my parents went back to the hotel but Flick and I continued on, stopping to feed Gabe at a coffee shop (blech: avoid the smoothies at Pacific Coffee Company, as they don't use real fruit), then browsing in an outlet of Muji, the Japanese chain carrying labelless knick-knacks, pens, furniture and food items. The baking nerd in me bought some candied yuzu peel and candied iyo tangerine peel (I don't even know what this is).
My uncle took us to a hotpot restaurant for dinner, to continue celebrating my Dad's birthday. Budaoweng has several locations in Hong Kong and is a combo sushi and hotpot restaurant. The interior has a very Japanese feel with paper screens separating booths, and sake barrels everywhere. The granite countertop had two holes cut out to accommodate the induction burners heating two pots of broth. We got to make up our own dipping sauces from the provided containers of chili oils, green onions, garlic (raw and browned), satay sauce and more. Our assortment of "boilables" included eel, fatty beef, lamb, skewered prawns, fish balls, tofu and various lettuces and mushrooms. At the end, when we were nearly bursting, my uncle ordered wontons and noodles to finish up the broth. As if that wasn't enough, he also brought a cake (a chestnut cream one from Italian Tomato) that the restaurant served for us. Unfortunately, Gabe couldn't last through the night, and the food didn't agree with Flick, so she had to take him home a bit early, which was a bummer.
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