Goodbye to Hong Kong; Hello Taiwan

Today we are leaving Hong Kong for our tea trek thru the neighboring island of Taiwan. Our time here has been too short and somewhat frustrating – rain, rain, rain. In fact, there is so much rain in parts of southern China that people are being evacuated as mudslides are endangering roads and houses. Some regions of the New Territories outside of Hong Kong are closed to travelers and residents of these areas are clamoring to stay despite being told to evacuate.

There is also devastating rain in Sichuan, adding more problems to the earthquake misery. Reuters News reported an earthquake in northern Japan. Ten years ago there was an earthquake in the central region of Taiwan, where we are headed. On many occasions something major has happened while we are traveling – the Chernobyl nuclear diseaster, 9/11, etc etc. Let’s hope not this time.

We accomplished much of what we set out to do in Hong Kong- visit tea shops and continue our tea education. But other things on our ‘to do’ list vanished like the sun. Next time.

Lost in Kowloon; Saved by Sichuan Cuisine

 

Today has been a challenging day. We awoke to very hot weather and dark, glowering skies. The rain and wind began as soon as we hit the streets and while we had our dim sum breakfast the weather worsened. Just what Hong Kong does not need, more drenching rain.

I got a little cocky ordering dim sum this morning, which, of course, led to our being presented with an order of chicken feet and fish maw that I did not mean to order. Fortunately, we had custard buns and dumplings to save the day. You can be sure that I won’t make that mistake again !

We had some business appointments across the harbor today in Kowloon. Because of the rain we opted to take the subway rather than the more picturesque ferry across the harbor. Nevertheless, because of all the walking involved, we still arrived wet and disheveled.

I really dislike Kowloon – I find it difficult to navigate, and places are hard to find. Street addresses are chopped up and many businesses are located inside of shopping centers or business centers, all of which are vast and disorienting. We wandered inside of one of these places for nearly 50 minutes and still had not found our destination. Asking for help is useless – even the shop clerks do not know where anything is. Oddly, as we trudged on, we passed hundreds of shops, all laid out by type of business. It began to feel disorienting and right out of a bad movie.

For instance, at one point we were surrounded by upscale childrens stores. A land of fantasy, colors and foo-foo dresses. Then we entered the electronics zone, then the flashy ready-to-wear-designer clothing stores with oversized photographs of overly made-up models looking like they were in pain, then the cell phone floor. When we hit the gifts-that-no-sane-person-needs-zone we fled back into the rain and the oppressive humidity. It was all mad and maddening.

We finally gave up trying to find our destination, but did find a wonderful Thai restaurant where we had a terrific late lunch. Should you find yourself lost in the Harbor City Ocean Terminal, look for a Thai restaurant named Sweet Basil. If you can find it, it dishes up very nicely prepared and delicious food in a very peaceful and restful environment.

We paid a visit to the offices of the Arts of Asia magazine to say hello and to present the publisher, Mrs. Nguyet and her son Robin with a copy of our book for her library. We have subscribed to this gorgeous magazine for several years now, and wished to show our appreciation for all of their efforts and for all that we have learned from them. Then we dashed back to Hong Kong on the ferry.

But not before paying a visit to the Chinese Arts & Crafts Store. These stores have always been a wonderful place to find lovely Chinese silks, etc. But, boy, have times changed ! The rampant inflation and rising prices in China’s new boom economy has made everything soooo expensive here. Table runners that I purchased two years ago in China for 15.00 US were selling here for 200-300.00 US. The gorgeous silk duvet cover that I purchased for 250.00 US back then is now selling for 1,000-2,000 US. And forget any of the Jingedgzhen porcelain items or the hand-made crafts – insane pricing. But, a good dim sum feast can be had for 12.00 US and the trams still only costs HK 2.00 or about 35 cents a ride, so some things still remain a bargain here.

Dinner tonight was at our favorite Hong Kong restaurant – Da Ping Huo- a little place run by a married couple that specializes in homestyle Sichuan cuisine. They have become quite a popular place now, so I made a reservation well in advance. I like returning to familiar places and finding things pretty much the same as I remember. In this case, the couple looked the same, but like us, just a bit older.

There is no menu here – guests arrive at the appointed time and service begins. Everyone in the restaurant is presented with the same dish at the same time – a fantastic succession of 12 palate challenging dishes that have been cooked by the lady of the house. In a small-world kind of experience that seems nearly impossible in a go-go city such as Hong Kong, we were seated at the same table that we sat at the last time we ate dined there. Same people, same table…it was a comfortable moment in a sometimes overwhelming city.

Her cooking is inspired, and the dishes range from lightly spicy to mouth-numbing. The meal is presented in a well orchestrated sequence of dishes, each featuring playful flavors and tastes designed to keep the spicy/hot level from overpowering one’s palate. Hubby runs the front of the house and charmingly appologizes profusely for interrupting every time he arrives with the next course. He also announces the spiciness level as he sets the dish down on the table. Some of the dishes are red, red, red in color, but he is always right – many of them are not as hot as they look. But they are all feature wonderully complex sauces that are playful as well as tasty. Everyone gets excited when the MaPoDofu dish arrive – meltingly tender bean curd in an spicy meat sauce. The meat has been chopped so fine it has the texture of cornmeal – a wonderful counterpoint to the silkiness of the tofu.

At the end of the evening, he brings the chef – his wife – out for everone to meet, and she concludes the evening by singing a tender song for her patrons. It is very touching and sweet – she is a trained Chinese opera singer, and has a lovely voice. We have no idea what she is singing about, but she is smiling the entire time as she modulates her voice and hits those Chinese high notes with near ear-splitting ease.

We are all enthralled, and her husband stands off to the side positivly beaming the entire time. Long after she has finished, and we have returned to our hotel, the sound of her voice is still circling around inside of my head. I fall asleep thinking that her song is a final sweet touch that lingers long after the flavor of the meal has passed. They have much to be proud of and I hope that they will still be there cooking and singing and extending wonderful hospitality the next time we return to Hong Kong.

Custard Buns and Pig’s Throat

Yes, our day began on a fine note. 0ur beloved dim sum restaurant is still here and busier than ever. In typical Hong King style, this place is cavernous, boisterous and a bit of a madhouse. I think that not too many westerners find this place – the staff all looks terrified when we enter and seem a bit unsure of who is going to volunteer to help us.

In the last 4 years the restaurant has made a few changes and modernised a bit. The olympic-sized kitchen is now open for viewing and they have added a bit of English to the menu. But the mysterious things still remain mysterious. We had a grand selection of dumplings – Tao Heung dumplings, braised vegetable dumplings, Chiu Chow dumplings, bamboo shoots roll with oyster sauce, premium siu mei, and of course, my eternally-beloved, soft, fluffy, warm custard buns. Unlike some things in life that we cannot help but revisit (but are then sorry that we did) these simple delicacies are as satisfying and delicious as I remember. Our big success of the yum cha ( dim sum ) was to finally get some tea other than jasmine tea – a Guangdong Swartow oolong, we think.

So fortified, we began our day of tea exploration. I take back what I said yesterday about how the weather in Hong Kong seeming more moderate than what we experienced last weekend in NYC. Today was close to 100% humidity, and dark, stormy skies threatened to lash out with rain at any time. Fortunately, the rains never came, which we learned was a good thing from a young lady named Catherine that we chatted with on one of our stops.

She told us that last weekend Hong Kong experienced ’Black Rain’ – a quick, torrential downpour that is classified as the worst and most damaging type of rain that the city can have. The result was flooding in the low-lying streets in the Sheung Wan district of the city, where many of the old-fashioned shops that specialize in dried fungus, dried seafood, birds nests, deer horn and other herbal / medicinal stuffs are located. We had walked through this area earlier, and saw that some of the vendors had laid different products out on the sidewalks to air out. And that a great deal of cleanup activity was going on all around. Apparently, the flooding had soaked many of these goods, and the shopkeepers were trying desperately to clean up and salvage whatever merchandise they could.  I have to say that that all those damp goods made for a very strange and unpleasant aroma.

We spent the remainder of the day doing what we love to do in Hong Kong - walking the streets, taking in the atmosphere of the neighborhoods, and looking at tea and teawares. We love finding unique little cups and teapots to add to our teawares collection, and browsing among all of the accessories that are essential to the Chinese tea table – little wooden stands for teapots, brushes for washing the outside of Yixing teapots, wood-charcoal for purifying water and little trays for holding little sipping cups.

We found some new tea shops to visit – Ngan Ki Heung Tea Co. Ltd, where we purchased two exquisite duan ni  or yellow-buff colored clay Yixing teapots from a contemporary teapot artist. At Lam Kie Yuen Tea Co. Ltd, we spied a hand-painted gaiwan decorated with an impish little monkey stealing fruits from a tree on one side and a poem about the fleeting nature of sweetness on the other side.

We treasure time spent talking with the folks in the tea shops about their selections of tea. Tea is such a deep topic in China, and no two stores sell the same tea or teawares. We always learn something new from those we spend time with, and we appreciate having the opportunity to taste teas that we will most likely never see or taste in the US. Today we tasted a PutuoShan Buddha green tea, a WuyiShan TieLoHan oolong, an osmanthus oolong blended in house by the tea master himself, and a first of the 2008 season lightly-oxidized Tieguanyin from Anxi.

I had made dinner reservations at a place called Shui Hu Ju, which sounded like one of those small little places that only the locals know about in a hard-to-find-location. It is tucked away near the top of a dizzingly vertical street ( remember, Hong Kong has as many hills as San Francisco and many places are hard to find even when a map is in hand and the signs in English. Sometimes even 3 Chinese people in on the conversation cannot agree on where a street is when it is only a few blocks away ) and offered no signage to announce that one had arrived. But we’ve encounteded these kinds of places before,  so we chose the most opportunistic doorway and went in.

Apparently so had lots of other Americans, Australians, French, etc. The place was tiny but packed, and abuzz with English speakers. Oh well, the atmosphere was not filled with the Hong Kong literati that I had hopped for, but the interior of the restaurant was dark, artsy and evocative. From the extensive menu of some adventurous sounding dishes we selected: sliced octopus marinated with fresh seaweeds and scallions; jade ( a bulbous Chinese water vegetable ) with shredded ginger; crispy mutton Peking-style; fried pigs throat with scallions and coriander; lotus nuts, lily buds and mixed vegetables.

The dishes were flavorsome, well-balanced, contemporaty and unique but not contrived or over-wrought. The mutton, which featured meltingly tender meat and very, thin, dark crisy skin, was one of the best things that I have eaten in China and the pigs throat was soft, a little chewy like squid, but utterly delicious and playful in texture. The meal was a nice contrast of cool and warm dishes, soft and crunchy textures, with sweet/savory spicing. We passed on dessert so that we could enjoy the lingering flavors of the meal a bit longer.

Tomorrow we are off across the bay to Kowloon and more tea, food and unplanned adventures.

Waking Up In Hong Kong

Our Cathay Pacific flight from NYC touched down a short time ago in Hong Kong, which is our all-time favorite Chinese city and the ultimate Chinatown. Half a world away from home and we don’t even have to reset our watches. All we have to remember that a 16 hour flight put us 12 hours ahead of EST. Huh ?? Anyway, we flew from daylight to daylight and it is 12 hours later than our bodies believe it to be.

But the timing is perfect – a walk around the old neighborhood, look for a bite to eat ( which turned out to be simmered pork belly with pickled vegetables in a dark, mahogany-lacquer soy sauce mainade ) and an early night. We want to wake up refreshed, energized and in-sync with the pulse of this dynamic city.

In Hong Kong we will conduct tea research and visit with a tea master; then we will fly to neighboring Tawian to observe the summer oolong tea harvest. Taiwan produces some stunning oolong teas, many of which are not available for sale in the US. So we hope to make some good connections here which will benefit our tea enthusiast customers.

We gave ourselves two days in NYC after the 2008 James Beard Awards to ‘acclimate’ to hot, steamy city streets, crowds of people and bus fumes. A trial run so to speak for Hong Kong. But the truth is that Hong Kong makes NYC seem like a small village, and the pace of Hong Kong is measured in in seconds where in NYC it is clocked in minutes. But the 95+ degree weather in NYC is making the 85+ here in Hong Kong seem cool by comparison.

The last time we were in Hong Kong we saw not a glimpse of blue sky – but today at the sky is blue and dotted with fluffy white clouds. In fact, the descent to the airport gave us a stunning panorama view of the  islands and lands that constitute the territory of Hong Kong as well as numerous peaks and green spaces that surround the city and its harbors. Take away the freighters and container ships in the waterways and remove the skyscrapers and one can begin to envision how verdant and exotic this landscape it must have been a few centuries ago when the British were given title to the port of Hong Kong

We hopped on the airport shuttle which brought us right to our hotel, The Charterhouse Hotel in Wan Chi. The young man working the desk announced to us that we were receiving a room upgrade to their Signature floor. No reason why was given – could they be feeling our pain from the weekend in NYC ? I doubt that , but we are thrilled and decided not to press. We like this hotel because it is small, well-staffed and very accommodationg. It is clean, well kept up but not expensive or glamourous, and offers us a killer location where we want to be – in the heart of one of the more old-fashioned Chinese neighborhoods and also just one block away from the trolley line. It is a also just a short walk to the popular Causeway Bay shopping and dining area, so there is much to explore in the crowded old streets nearby.

Wan Chi neighborhood offers up bustling and colorful wet markets, tantalizing street foods and small restaurants and our favorite dim sum place. We took a quick look to see if it was still there – and we think it is. Same location, but new name. The inside looks the same – will investigate tomorrow. I have been waiting 4 years to savor a taste of one of their soft and tender custard buns and I have come too far to be disappointed.

Hong Kong supports a very large population. The ride from the airport to the city confronts one with an overwhelming  number of high rise apartment buildings built up along the undulating hills and beyond until they are barely still visible. These building are huge – and quite tall – containing perhaps several thousand apartments in each building. There are hundreds of these buildings, and those are only the ones that one can see as far as the eye can follow. I imagine the numbers of people who live within - it is really more than most of us living in the west can easily comprehend.