What's been cookin'

How did it become December already? It certainly doesn't feel like December here in Hong Kong, and I definitely don't feel like I'm just over a week away from finishing my internship. And why should I? I'm all the way across the globe from school and I will continue volunteering at my placement until I leave Hong Kong at the end of January. So there will be no fanfare, no celebration, probably just a "wtf?" Once it clicks that I'm actually one step closer to becoming an RD.

As negative as *that* just sounded, I'm actually having a pretty awesome time here in Hong Kong. Just on the food front, I've been lucky enough to have co-workers who will take me to different places for lunch, though I haven't been able to take pictures because the places are so crowded, and of course it would be a little awkward when you're eating lunch with 3-5 people who don't know you own a food blog.

On the nutrition front, although I haven't had the chance to do a lot of "hands-on" nutrition work this rotation, I'm still learning a lot about eating habits and how nutrition education is approached here. It's made me realize that when I'm in a multicultural society like Canada, just knowing names of token foods is not enough. Although there will obviously be some acculturation, you really need to experience it before you can understand how a culture eats and approaches food.

I guess I could say, "I've been too busy to blog," but I don't feel that it's the case. I don't feel swamped with work or anything (really rocking the work-to-marks ratio on this pass-fail semester here), it's just that aside from being on a pretty tight schedule (which I've described before), I just don't feel like I have material for a good food blog post. I mean, who wants to hear what I ate for lunch? Where can I tell you about the neat things that I've seen?

But I do think I can cobble together some of my experiences so far...

My cousin Ronnie got married the week after I got back. I was about to write a blog post about it; I have photos of almost all of the dishes, plus one of my cousin's cousins kindly uploaded a photo of the menu itself to help jog my memory. But when I got down to writing, I thought, I don't think I've seen any food bloggers blog about a wedding other than their own, or at the very least, one where they were involved with the food preparation. So all I can say is, the food was delicious (my dad commented how the food was better than during the tasting on the way home), and looking at the menu made me realize marrying my current boyfriend might be a little more difficult than I thought.

Lunch has become pretty routine as well; we usually frequent HK-style cafés and order different types of fried rice and fried noodles. When I'm left to my own devices now, I usually just go to a small shop just down the street that sells cheh jai mein (車仔麵) "cart noodles". While westerners have sandwich shops where they can choose their own toppings, here you choose the type of noodle you want, and the toppings. I usually load up on the vegetables and then add fish balls or something and it definitely beats Subway!

In terms of more "special" trips, we've gone to Chiu Yuen Chiu Chow Noodle (潮苑), where they specialize in handmade fish balls and "beef cakes", which I guess are a specialty in Chiu Chow. At first the beef cakes just reminded me of flattened beef balls, which is a little disappointing seeing as how they advertise that they beat the meat (shut up) with a metal rod for three hours. After a few more bites though, I noticed that the beef cakes tasted more like beef than beef balls do, and the fish balls had a great taste and texture too. It was also at Chiu Yuen where I actually read a beverage menu here for the first time... more on that in my next post.

Though lunch usually costs me around HKD$40 (~CAD$6-7), we've gone to more expensive places a couple of times. One of these was Crystal Jade (翡翠), a franchise that specializes in Shanghainese food. We ordered (among other things) "dan dan" noodles (擔擔麵), steamed pork buns/soup dumplings (小籠包), noodles with dumplings (水餃麵), and fried rice cakes (炒年糕). It's a little funny how we came about ordering the "dan dan" noodles, which are basically rice noodles served in a spicy, peanutty broth. Once when we were out for lunch I ordered Singapore fried noodles, just to switch things up, not realizing that nobody really likes spicy foods. So now people think I like spicy foods (which is a weird position for me, because that role in my family has always been played by my brother) and will always ask me if I want to try a spicy dish. The noodles were *so* good. The broth was thick and not too spicy, and I loved that little hint of peanut in the background. My brother hates Chinese food, but I think I can turn him on to them. I liked the steamed pork buns, of course, as they're my favourite type of dim sum, and I loved the chewy texture of the fried rice cakes, which are made with glutinous rice flour. All in all, it was a great meal, and I think I'm falling in love with Shanghainese food, even though my dad supposedly dislikes it.

Yesterday we went to try Queen's Palace (帝后殿), which serves up Beijing, Szechuan, and Shanghai cuisines. I know I've expressed dislike toward Asian mashup restaurants like those found in Montreal, but in this case, all of the cuisines are from northern China, so I think it's ok. We ordered a bunch of different dishes, such as stir-fried river shrimp (炒河蝦), roasted pork belly with honey sauce (蜜汁烤雙方), egg white "crab"　（賽螃蟹） (another of my faves), and Shanghai fried noodles (上海粗炒). We also ordered steamed pork buns, and got some free coconut pudding for dessert as my dietitian (preceptor) knows the head chef.

I thought the roasted pork belly was especially neat as it reminded me a little of Peking duck. You get small rectangular pieces of steamed bun, wherein you put in a slice of pork belly, fried tofu skin, and cucumber (optional). I liked the sweetness of the honey contrasting with the pork belly, the crunch of the tofu skin, and the refreshing cucumber which really gave it the "Peking duck" note. Although lunch was pretty steep (we each paid HKD$181, or ~CAD$30), I would definitely go back if that head chef was willing to strike us a better deal than just dessert!

And that leaves us at 1:17 AM. I'm sorry my thoughts are a little meandering right now, and it might take me a little while before I get back to the blog again, but I'm sure you will learn a few things from my next few entries.