Monday, May 3, 2010

Food, Food, Food

Jen here. Hong Kong is a great place for food. And boy do I mean great. If you want it, you can get it. Name it, it's here. Chinese (all styles), Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Italian, Greek, South African, Mediterranean, Philippino and American--and that's not even all. It's just all that my naive food-mind knows of.

Here are the two dishes we ate at Stoep, an African/Mediterranean restaurant on Cheung Sha Beach: Roy had the rainbow trout(check out how he ate it right off the bones!) and I had fish and chips (yes...I'm not very risky...)

God has been good to me in exposing me to more things. I used to be such a picky eater...but since going to college, marrying Roy, moving to Seattle and now living in Hong Kong, I eat way more things than I used to.

Here are my favorite foods to eat here in HK:

Vietnamese Pho in Quarry Bay. There's tiny restaurant near our church that a few of our friends from church introduced us to. Sure, the first time we were there, there were a few bugs crawling under the glass table-top...but the old lady with the silver tooth who works there is so sweet and always smiles at me. One time she even brought me and Roy forks and napkins (napkins are rare in restaurants--you have to bring your own). How sweet!

Gai dan zai, also known as bubble waffles to me. :) It's like I'm at the Ross County fair every day! I can just walk into our local Park N Shop and tell the lady "Ngoh yue yat ghoh gai dan zai (I want one egg waffle)" and I have an instant, hot, chewy waffle of sorts. I love them! If you come visit, I will definitely buy one for you! :)

Dim sum, but that goes without saying. Who doesn't like dim sum? Little bits of many hot dumplings and rolls full of veggies, meat, seafood, etc. Mmm...

Omelets and tomato soup from The Flying Pan. The only 24-hour breakfast joint in HK, or so they say, and I love it. It's more sentimental to me than it is delicious. I mean, the food is good. A big omelet, with homemade tomato soup (made with real tomatoes), toast and fruit juice, who couldn't like? I enjoy it immensely, but mainly because it reminds me of Coney Islands in Flint, Michigan. It's a sense of home for me there. Breakfast in the evening, in a diner, with Roy, with friends, ah. Familiarity.

A burger at Fatburger. Believe it or not, it's been difficult to find a good burger in HK. Not impossible, but difficult. We tried Freshburger, but it was so not fresh...so frozen and nasty. And sure, there's McDonald's, but I want to real burger, with a thick patty. We tried some other western restaurants, but their burgers were like Red Robin--expensive and not that great either. And finally, we found Fatburger. Sounds so nutritious, right? We don't eat it very often, but when we're desiring a burger, we now know where to go. Mmm...

I'll take a break from listing my favorite foods in HK. I could go on and on. I enjoy having a home here...so that we can eat at home, make our own food the way we like it, try to cook new things and when we want to, we can go out to eat and try something new.

One of the hardest things in moving to HK was staying in the hotel for two weeks while we found an apartment. I know, my life is so difficult (sarcasm)...but really. To be at the mercy of all these strange and unusual restaurants and flavors was super hard for me. I longed to cook my own food, from familiar ingredients. And now, I can. :)

So, if you come visit, fear not, for I can cook normal, delicious food for you out of the same (or nearly the same) ingredients you use at home!

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