Category Archives: Locations

Hong Kong Food Exploration: Beef Brisket Noodle Soup

My dad was a keen cook, and most weekends would turn the kitchen upside-down to create a meal which was immense in size, calories and deliciousness.

Thick Yorkshire puddings with a crispy base that can only be achieved by the use of alarming amounts of oil, mixing bowls full of buttery mashed potato, bread and butter puddings which could feed a family for a week; even the vegetables would find themselves drowning in butter or reclining in a white sauce.

Boiled beef brisket was another of his specialties, usually served with a squadron of airy dumplings. I love beef cooked this way. As a child I wasn’t keen on a red-rare Sunday joint, and much preferred the tender slices of brisket accompanied by long-stewed veg and those heavenly dumplings. For years I tried to emulate the aforementioned dumplings, for some reason under the mistaken impression he had used butter and not suet. It was only when I had a go with suet one day that I recreated the taste I remembered so well.

You can probably appreciate, therefore, that when I saw brisket noodle soup on the menu in Hong Kong, I was very keen to try it.

beef brisket noodle soup

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Hong Kong Food Exploration: Roasted Meats

There are some to whom the window below would be a terrifying sight.

I can’t deny I prefer my food to remind me a little less of its origins, given that I suffer from survivor’s guilt and feel that my potential vegetarianism is largely postponed due to cultural acceptability twinned with selfish greed.

That said, I’m afraid that despite my occasional wrestling with my conscience, what I ultimately take away from seeing such a window is the anticipation of something delicious to eat.

roasted meats on display

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Hong Kong Food Exploration: Sweet Treats

You may have thought that after our Hong Kong dessert house excesses it would have been inadvisable for us to eat any more sugary delights.

Not so, my health-conscious chums. Wallets and waistline were damned as we devoured some Western-style treats, and they were so tasty that I wanted to share our shame with you.

H was staring at a Tsim Sha Tsui map when he noticed somewhere called Awfully Chocolate. We needed no more encouragement than that to stop by the next time we were in the vicinity.

awfully chocolate

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Hong Kong Food Exploration: Kowloon Dessert Houses

Following on from our successful visits to Penang dessert houses, when we reached Hong Kong (the next stop on our trip) I was determined to continue my research and so I dragged H to several more places and forced him to eat further sugary treats.

Having read on various blogs about Hui Lau Shan (branches all over), we happened to walk right past an outlet, and this became our first dessert stop.

mango desserts

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Malaysia Food Exploration: Penang Recommendations

I deliberated for a while over whether to write any posts for Penang or Kuala Lumpur that summarised the places we particularly enjoyed eating. There are so many excellent bloggers in these cities writing about the food scene that the ground is well-trodden, and they all know far more about the cuisine than I do.

In the end, I decided against it for Kuala Lumpur as we were there so briefly and anywhere that we liked got a name-check in the various food-specific posts. For Penang, the same is broadly true, but there were a few extra places that I wanted to mention so I thought I may as well (even though it meant making another map which is my least favourite blogging task!).

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