Chasing Kanji - 感情を追って

An American's travel traumas
アメリカ人の旅行の外傷

Rice One Time  

So you are already aware of the international culture and feel of Hong Kong. I described (at length) the types of non-Asian foods I ate and how I wanted to never eat the same thing twice. Well, I didn't manage never to eat the same thing twice. But, in fairness, I was asked to do side-by-side comparisons of items I had eaten from one restaurant to another. So, it wasn't really my choice. My choice was to try as many different foods as possible.

I'm not one to try a food just because it's weird. I like to try things that people actually enjoy. So, whenever something was proposed, I asked if the speaker actually liked this or that food item before accepting the invitation. I found myself trying every type (or pretty much every type) of Asian food available.

I had Malaysian food at a restaurant in the Wan Chai district. Of all the restaurants I went to, this one was my favorite. Malaysian food involves a lot of spices and is a mixture of Indian and Chinese. They have a lot of curries. At this Malaysian restaurant, we sampled a traditional drink called Chandor. It's a sweet drink with grass jelly and coconut milk topped with some sort of brownish syrup. Don't ask me for further details. I don't know them. But wikipedia may if you're interested. We also shared two appetizers, two entrees, and one dessert (three people). If I wasn't implementing such a strict do-not-eat-twice rule, I would have gone there again.

I had Vietnamese twice. This was one of the times when I was asked to do a side-by-side comparison of the plain jane beef pho I ordered. Both places were good. But I like the first one better, making the fact that I went to a separate restaurant to order the same thing a little disappointing.

I also had Thai, Japanese (black squid ink ramen), Fresh seafood (as in we chose the crab, scallops, mantis shrimp, and razor clams we wanted from the live tanks), and Hong Kong steet food (fried fish balls, stinky tofu, dessert waffle, and bubble tea).

Then there were the different styles of Chinese and Hong Kong-Chinese restaurants where I sampled traditional dishes. I went to two Dim Sum restaurants. Dim Sum style encourages ordering lots of small plate appetizers shared by the table. I love Shanghai dumplings, which I thought were beef - but turned out to be pork. They are little sachets of meatball with broth. I also enjoyed turnip cake, Chinese broccoli, this weird eggy cake ball, red rice sweet soup, and fried octopus.

The list of things I did not enjoy is much shorter. I did not enjoy iced plum green tea or cashew chicken. And, I may not have liked chicken feet. But I wouldn't know. After it was ordered, I chickened out. Frankly, they made me a little sad.

In all this eating and trying and ordering and eating - I only had rice one time. That was at the Thai restaurant, and it came with my garlic eggplant.

For my last dinner in the city, we went to a rather fancy traditional restaurant where I got to try Peking duck. Not really at all what I expected, but delicious.

Now I get to go home and lose the travel weight. :)

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