Sai Kung Fishing Village

Hong Kong is comprised of several areas, the main one being Hong Kong Island.  We live across the harbor in Kowloon.  There is also an area called the New Territories.  Up until the 1980's it was mostly rural, farm area.  There was a boom of construction and now over 3 million people live there. In the New Territories there is a fishing village called Sai Kung.  I had the opportunity to go there this week for a business dinner.  It was a fascinating and exciting experience.

The drive out there was beautiful.  In contrast to the urban high rises we are around every day and throngs of people, it was lush with trees, winding hilly roads and low rise apartments with water views.  It almost felt like being in California.   It made me happy. One of the things I miss with city living here is trees.  At home, the view out of our windows is filled with trees and other greenery and it's very peaceful.  Our view here is lots and lots of buildings.  On a side note, there is a 64 story hotel/apartment building directly in front of us and we have seen several people wandering around their hotel room naked and then taking  a shower. 

Sai Kung is a fishing village that is filled with seafood restaurants lining the harbor.  Most of these places have numerous tanks filled with all types of fresh seafood.  You can basically peruse the tanks, tell the server what you want, they take it out and cook it for you.  I have never seen so many types of seafood in one place.  I'm not sure what it all was but it was an amazing sight. 

You need to be with a really big group of people to order one of these bad boys!

This particular one below just made me sad - these giant prawn looking things stuck in plastic bottles.  I don't know how they got there but it can't be good.  I tried googling to see what the story is but couldn't find anything.  If anyone knows what the story is, let me know.

We went to a restaurant called Chuen Kee.  They love the neon over here and have some awesome signs!

Because we had such a large group, we had to take two cars out there.  Our group arrived, found the restaurant, sat down and ordered some drinks and snacks.  About 20 minutes went by and the other part of our group had not yet arrived.  We didn't understand how they could be late, because we left at the same time.  We finally found out that the restaurant had two locations about 200 yards apart and the rest of our group was at the other location wondering where we were!  So, we picked up our drinks and snacks and marched over to join the rest of our group.

While they were waiting for us, the other group had taken the liberty of ordering for all of us.  Many restaurants here serve large family style dishes that everyone shares.  They have large round tables with glass top lazy Susan's so nobody has to pass the dishes around.  They also provided us with little bowls filled with tea and lemon for dipping your fingers to clean them.

The first dish we got was sizzling prawns cooked with garlic, spring onion and chilies.  The aroma that wafted off the dish was heavenly. 

We also got lightly breaded calamari strips.  These were delicious and tender.  They served them with a sweet chili sauce that was a perfect accompaniment.  They have a way of frying food here that doesn't make the food greasy.  We are hoping to learn the secret at our cooking class next week. 

Then they brought out a giant bowl of lobster in noodles with a cheese sauce. This was quite good.  The lobster was really sweet and the cheesy noodles were very rich and comforting.  I went back for seconds of this dish. 

There was a whole cuttlefish that as steamed and served with spring onions and a soy based sauce.  This was light and very flavorful. 

We also got sides of stir fried broccoli and baby bok  choy.  I think there was a stir fried rice dish but I didn't get any of that.  I was pretty full at that point and just had to stop. Sadly, I had no room for the item offered below...

mmm... sea blubber in secret sauce...

Many menus here don't have English translation so I have no idea what this is about

This last menu page I found particularly interesting - the contrast of the cooked creature who appears to be speaking surrounded by ribbons and doves.  Quite curious...

Hope you enjoyed the journey!

Carla

Mid Autumn Festival and National Day

Greetings all! 
One of the things that is different for us here in Hong Kong is that we don't get to celebrate the same holidays as in the US.  While all of you were enjoying a nice, long weekend for Labor Day, I was over here working.  And working long hours I might add!  I was more than a little jealous of my friends back home.

Well, we finally got to celebrate a long weekend here in Hong Kong.  There were two holidays that were recently celebrated.  The first is Mid-Autumn Festival.  This festival is also known as the Moon Festival or Chinese Lantern Festival.  It is a lunar festival that is typically celebrated during the full moon close to the Autumnal equinox.  The celebration dates back over 3000 years!  Today the festival is celebrated by eating Mooncakes, spending time with family, lantern displays and fire dragon dances.  Mooncakes are HUGE here.  


                  

Ever since we arrived in Hong Kong, stores were taking pre-orders for mooncakes and everybody has their favorite kind.  Most mooncakes are round or square, about 2 inches across and 1 inch thick.  They are typically filled with red bean or lotus seed paste, or egg yolks.  They are very dense and very heavy.  A single mooncake is about 1000 calories - yikes!  Zack and I tried a few different kinds and I would say a little goes a long way.  Kind of like fruitcake for most people (except I actually really like good fruitcake).  They even make frozen ones for dogs:

We had the opportunity to go to Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island over the weekend to see the Lantern Festival.  This was really neat.  We went in the afternoon so we could see the lanterns before it got dark and then waited for it to get dark so we could see them all lit up.   The centerpiece of the festival was a large round lantern with lights of many colors that were constantly changing.  Zack thought it looked like the Heat Miser's head and I think he's right! 

 
The park was full of people trying to get pictures of all the lanterns.  It made it challenging to take pictures without getting strangers in your pictures! 

Here are a few pictures of the festival.

You could even see the full moon!

Monday, October 1st was National Day.  National Day is a Chinese holiday that marks the day that the People's Republic of China was established in 1949.  This holiday is recognized by large fireworks displays across the country.  In Hong Kong, they have fireworks barges in Victoria Harbor so that people can see the fireworks from Hong Kong Island as well as Kowloon.  Many restaurants along the waterfront and in the high rise buildings offer special dinners so that you can enjoy a nice meal and have a front row seat for the fireworks - as opposed to standing around with hordes of people.  This is what Zack and I chose to do.  We went to a place not far from our apartment and got a nice table on the sidewalk.   This allowed us to enjoy the show and have a nice glass of wine at the same time.

The crowds gathering for the show

The fireworks were spectacular!  The pictures just don't do it justice.  

We've got some fun events coming up.  Next Saturday we are going to the Star Street  Gourmet and Wine Walk.  This is an artist's neighborhood full of galleries, shops, restaurants and bars that will be providing samples of lovely wines and their specialty dishes.  Even better, it's for a good cause as some of the proceeds will go to Arts with the Disabled Association Hong Kong.  

We also signed up for a Cantonese cooking class later this month.  It's an all day class that also includes a tour of the local food markets.  We will learn proper wok cooking techniques and how to cook "not greasy food with oil".  Some of the dishes we will make are Honk Kong Fried Rice with BBQ pork, shrimp and spring onion and Singaporean stir fry rice noodles.  YUM!!  This woman offers a lot of different classes, including Dim Sum, but we decided we wanted to start off with the basics and hopefully learn how to recreate some of the tasty dishes we are having here when we get back home.  

I also wanted to give a big shout out to my friend Julie back in New Jersey.  Yesterday, we got a big Halloween care package from her that included fun size Butterfingers (my favorite), malted milk balls, M&M's, goldfish crackers and a bunch of fun Halloween decorations.  Our apartment is now very festively decorated! Thank you so much!!!

Until next time.
Love,
Carla