Hong Kong Eats - Part VI

The hustle and bustle of Causeway Bay. We're going in search of spicy crab!

In Hong Kong there are many places that feature Spicy Crab. The place we're going to is called Under Bridge Spicy Crab. 

It originated as a small stall under a bridge, near a typhoon shelter. Around Causeway Bay there used to be a great deal of dancing clubs. I was told that when people came out they bought food from the vendors, one of them being Spicy Crab. 

Behold, crabs! 

Their claws are bound to their bodies, to there is no pinching or loss of appendages when they're moved or scuffle with each other. 

Mmmmm... Eel!

Ah, mantis prawns! They're also known as 'pissing shrimp'... but Mantis Prawn just sounds so much better.

They're weird looking critters and spiny and sharp, but damn, are they good. 

Lobsters!

Inside the restaurant. I love the lanterns.

A gathering of family and friends!

Clams cooked up in spices and black bean sauce. The clams were very fresh and had tender, sweet flesh. The sauce was not too thick or thin, coating the clams perfectly. The little bite of spice at the end was nice. 

Water spinach with dried scallops and mushrooms. 

We needed some veggies on the table ^_-

Shrimp, very simply cooked with a little oil and salt. 

Quickly stirfried and served while piping hot. 

The best thing about shrimp being served whole is the head. 

I love, love, looooooooooove eating shrimp heads.

SNAILS! Boiled sea snails, simple and tasty. A little chewy, but tender and rich. 

Snails may seem a little off putting, but don't knock it till you try it. 

They're surprisingly good.  

You pull the little snails out of their shells with a toothpick. 

And it looks like this!

Then you eat it!

The shells really pile up...

TA DAAA!!!! Spicy Crab is made from live crabs, quartered, fried with chinese peppers and served underneath a HEAPING pile of deep fried garlic and scallions. 

It's a little hard to tell that there is a goldmine of sweet, juicy crab under there, but there is.

It's a hell of a lot of garlic. Delicious, delicious garlic... 

Lookit!

That's one massive claw. 

That's excitement right there! 

Or... something else... like hunger? Anticipation? Seafood euphoria?

In any case, she's happy to have it.

Mantis prawns served in a similar manner to the crab. The fried garlic seemed to have a lot more hot chilies than the crab. But that's good, I am very fond of spicy. 

His close-up.

Weird looking dude, huh?

The aftermath...!

To clean our hands we god bowls of tea with lemon in it. It does a good job, and your hands come out smelling nice, despite the seafood.

Fruit for the dessert is always nice. Juicy watermelon is a great way to end a finger licking meal.

Hong Kong Eats - Part IV

While we were in Hong Kong many mornings looked like this:

It was technically winter there, kind of like winter in FL, misty, a little chilly and still pretty humid. 

A lot nicer than the midwest, in any case :) 

Sweater weather > Coat weather. 

That day I went around with my cousin. We stopped to get some noodles first, which looked pretty good....

 However, the noodles were over cooked an fell apart in our chopsticks... Not the best. According to my cousin Anson, it usually wasn't like this.

After abandoning our disappointing fare, we met up with my grandmother. 

We went somewhere else, mainly for something to drink and a little snack. 

Anson recommended I try this:

 It's bread fried in butter (really tasty, soft on the inside with the perfect crispy outside) with condensed milk on top. Sweet, rich, crunchy... what's not to like?

 Lemon tea. It's rather popular in Hong Kong and is very light and refreshing. 

It can be served in hot or cold form. 

That day was relatively warm, so we went with the iced. 

Ahhh, Hong Kong style French Toast. 

I featured it in one of my earlier posts, and now here it is again!

Two thick slices of bread with a generous amount of peanut butter or condensed milk in the middle, dipped in an egg-milk mixture, then deep fried for crispiness and then eaten with syrup. 

Oh hells yes. 

I walked around with Anson for a while longer while my grandmother went back home. 

We talked, window shopped and sipped coffe until it was time for dinner. 

Around 7 we headed back to the apartment for a nice home-cooked meal. 

My Uncle, Grandmother and Anson :)

 Me and my relatives <3

I forgot to take pictures of the soup... but this is the stuff that went into it. 

Typically, a soup is served at the beginning of the meal. 

It's just the broth, so the stuff that went into the soup is strained out and served separately. 

It's usually a mild soup and is very comforting. 

 One of my favorite dishes in the world! It's called 'jai' and is traditionally eaten on New Years. It's a Buddhist dish and is comprised of vegetables and tofu. The weird looking black hair-like stringy stuff is mermaid hair (also known as black fungus or hair vegetable) which is a fungus that basically looks like hair. As weird as it looks, it's delicious. 

My Grandmother and Aunt taught me how to make this a few years ago (when I was like... 14) 

and though I can make it decently, my grandmother makes it best :)

 Mmm... Steamed fish! Served with light soy and sliced ginger and green onions. 

Very simple, but very satisfying. 

After dinner my Uncle drove me home, with my Grandmother and Anson coming along.

I was laden with foodstuffs; lots of leftovers from dinner and these fruits:

 (These aren't actually all the fruit, we had a lot more. I just thought this looked nicer)

At the top is dragon fruit. 

The red fruits are called 'rose apples' and are one of my favorite fruits when we visit Hong Kong. 

They're crunchy and have a subtle sweetness with a hint of clove. It has about the same flesh to water ratio as a watermelon, so it's super juicy. 

In the middle is what is known as a 'custard apple' or 'soursop', more on that later. 

We also had mangoes and starfruit. The mangoes were so ripe and they smelled incredible.  

 Sliced star fruit and rose apples. 

I'd never had a soursop before! Dad was very excited to show us (me, my sister and her boyfriend). He said they were very hard to get when he was little. 

I had been curious about the fruit since earlier that day when my grandmother bought it for us. 

The outside looked scaly, but upon touching it, it was soft and slightly spongy. 

 Dad held it in his hands and just pulled it apart!

This is what it looks like!  

It was very soft on the inside, but still a bit firm.

The most memorable thing about this was the taste. 

It was really sweet...Sweeter than packets of sugar or honey. 

The fruit has a mild strawberry taste and notes that are reminiscent of a pineapple, 

but it was so sweet that it was hard to eat more than one piece in a sitting without a cup of tea.   

Aaaaand here is Hong Kong at dusk, on a grey day. 

 Also, the turtles of Hong Kong :) They're so very cute and they're EVERYWHERE.

More soon!

Hong Kong Eats - Part III

One of the best things about Hong Kong are the mass amounts of bakeries. 

A lot of places have small breads and cakes pre-packaged in single serving sizes. I got a little melon cake and a sponge cake, labeled as "white albumen cake" which is a weird thing to call it...

Look how cute! I love the packaging. 

 It has a crumbly, mild bread filled with a dense, 

slightly chewy/sticky inside of melon flavored goodness.

 Sponge cake in all it's spongey goodness. 

 Fluffy!

A little breakfast platter I made for Dad one morning. Fresh kiwi too!

One night we went to dinner with my Uncle and Grandmother. 

This is what we got :)

 Jukk, also known as congee, is basically rice porridge thats very popular in Cantonese cuisine. 

It's kind of like a comfort food. It can be served plain, but most of the time things are added to it, like various meats (shredded chicken, pork, etc), thousand year old eggs, peanuts, green onions, etc... It's very soothing and mild. 

Steamed rice served in a banana leaf, this is it unwrapped. 

These are typically filled with meats and other goodies.

Mmmmm... one of my favorite things. Tender, soft rice noodles filled with shrimp. 

They're essentially large rice noodle sheets that are folded/rolled with various fillings. I usually like the shrimp or a soft beef mixture they put inside (think asian meatloaf). 

It's served with a light, sweet soy. 

 Delicious, delicious pigeon. 

It's crispy on the outside and has very tender, moist meat (if cooked correctly). 

It's a relatively small bird, so each pigeon is cut into fourths. 

Frog legs! Stir fried with green onions ginger. Mmmmm... 

Fish heads! 

These are cut apart, deep fried in a light crispy, 

flavorful batter and then cooked in a clay pot with some veggies and aromatics. 

In the U.S. the fish head is usually discarded, but in Chinese cuisine, it's regarded as the best part of the fish. It can still have a fair amount of meat and has a lot of good omega 3 fatty parts, which are tasty and good for you. Re-think fish heads if you haven't tried them :)

Mmmmmm.... Dinner!

:D 

More to come....

Hong Kong Eats - Part II

During the months of February and March, Hong Kong has it's Arts Festival. We visited the Cultural Center on the Kowloon side. There were lots of posters up for upcoming performances, a school dance group doing a showcase, and exhibits all over the place. 

We saw a poster for a dance performance while we were there and we ended up going later on that week. It was absolutely beautiful and we all had a great time. 

This is the stage before the performance started. 

Before the show we grabbed dinner at the restaurant located in the Cultural Center called Serenade.

The place was very nice and had a good view of the harbor. 

This is the atrium.

Dad did a lot of the ordering. 

Our table was very full, and the food kept coming.

Ta-Da!

This is a veggie dish with earwig (a type of black fungus with a distinct texture and mild, earthy taste.) It was accompanied with cucumber, onions and goji berries. The picture is slightly hazy because there was a lot of steam coming off this dish. 

A little hedgehog!

It had friends.

Octopi! 

Cathy and Luke look quite mysterious in the background...

Kind of a mini dim sum tasting platter thing. The octopi and hedgehogs were a cute touch, though I did feel a little bad biting into them... which is why you eat the face first, so it doesn't stare at you and judge.

Ahh, goose. While in Hong Kong, we probably ate our weight in goose. It's very popular there, with several places famous for and specializing in goose. Like all water foul, they have quite a bit of fat, which can taste very good, but is quite heavy. 

You will notice that it comes pre-sliced. This is customary in China/Hong Kong. After the bird is finished, it's placed on a large, very thick wooden block and cut in this style. You need a very strong, heavy cleaver and a person who has good aim and a strong arm. The bones are cut straight through. 

If you're not used to this style of serving, it takes a little getting used to because you kind of have to eat around little bones and such. I prefer it, actually, because it's convenient and saves the trouble of having to cut things at the table.

Also, you will notice it still has it's head on. 

Most birds are served this way and fish are also served whole as well.

Savory bread buns filled with minced meats. The bread is not baked, but steamed and is usually milk based. It has a sweet taste and light texture. 

Also, we had broccoli with garlic. Very simple, but very good. 

Veggies were nice to have, since a lot of our meals were meat-heavy. 

Those weird looking roll things are thinly sliced bamboo shoots wrapped around a mix of earwig, mermaid hair (another type of fungus that literally looks like black hair. It's also known as black fungus and hair vegetable. Though very strange looking, it's very delicious) and a few other veggies. Served with goji berries and edamame.

Soft tofu stuffed with minced shrimp and bamboo shoot (probably pork fat as well, because in Hong Kong it's used in a lot of things) with Chinese broccoli on the side. The sauce is a very light soy-based brothy mix that was on the sweet side. 

Victory melon and fish! Victory melons are weird looking. They're long and have kind of spiny parts that run the length of it. The outside is usually peeled off. 

The flesh and seeds are edible, and it's look is similar to that of a cucumber, but a lot more tender. The seeds are large but very soft. Sometimes it can have a touch of bitterness to it, but finishes sweet. 

Fried rice with bits of chive, shrimp and roasted pork. 

It was a glorious meal followed by an equally glorious performance. 

When we got out, the view looked like this:

It's so pretty at night!

More fooding adventures to come.... Dun dun dunnnnn!