Motormouth From Ipoh – Asian Food & Travel Blog

North Point Famous Egg Waffles aka ‘Gai Dan Jaai’

Best way to eat around in Hong Kong? Embrace the plethora of street foods and indulge in snacking round the clock. Seriously, you don’t want to stuff yourself silly with the conventional 3 meals a day. Oh no …. 6 might be stretching the limit slightly, but the snacking in between meals should be cherished as much.

After all, how else can you fit in egg tarts, ‘but zhai gou’ (Chinese style of mini rice puddings flavoured with red bean, brown sugar or plain white sugar) and ‘gai dan jaai’ (mini egg cakes/waffles) into that packed-like-sardines itinerary of yours?

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The last post on Hong Kong was way back in June, so you may want to go for a refresher course by reading Wan Chai’s famous Kam Fung Cafe …. Perhaps the full Hong Kong-Macau 2011 series?

Craving for a Ketchup-y Experience? Fresh tomatoes and lean beef slices in a tangy, tomato-based broth with the Nissin noodles. Options include macaroni (their signature, but they ran out of that), or your noodles with chicken wing, or other meat.

Sing Heung Yuen is by far, the best example of Hong Kong style ‘dai pai dong’. Hawker stalls in its most ‘primitive’ form, only shaded by canopies or sometimes none, steel or wooden tables and chairs placed in a cramped layout, and strangers sharing the same table yet not speaking to each other while slurping on their favourite bowl of noodles.

To the uninitiated, this is best described as an ‘al fresco’ cafe best for a light bite. Unlike European cafe culture where lingering for long is the norm, at ‘dai pai dong’ like this, this practice is frowned upon. Lest you enjoy to be stared right through you for overstaying your welcome.

Familiar? If you’re an avid follower of Hong Kong’s TVB dramas, you might have seen this place being used for filming, since this is in the heart of Central of Hong Kong island, not in the rural suburbs.

Best if you sit down, don’t ponder for too long on the menu (or lack thereof, since everything’s in Chinese!), order whatever your neighbouring table’s having, eat up in the most rushed fashion (at say, 10 minutes for everything?), then leave.

The full story after the jump, and best time to come if you want to skip the snaking queue ….

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If you have not read Day One’s story, go for that first. To understand the flow of the journey, so you won’t be gasping for air.

#1 – The Famous Nam Peng Sandwich – Beautiful, golden omelette, ham and slices of lean roasted pork layered between two slices of fluffy steamed white bread. Breakfast in Macau can’t get any better than this.

Second day in Macau was an even more eventful day, since we had the whole day to ourselves, and it was a Monday to boot! Yeah. That means lesser crowd, better traffic (don’t go out during peak hours, or you’d be squashed like sardines in buses) and shorter queue!

A glimpse of what to expect? The iconic Pork Chop Bun. Bird’s nest egg tarts. Red Bean Ice with Milk. Nostalgic moments from eating at cafes retaining their charm from the olden days. Coconut ice-cream made fresh on the spot. Shanghainese cuisine but we missed their Xiao Long Bao. Lord Stow’s Portuguese egg tarts and traditional desserts that will leave you in awe.

More than 30 photos right ahead, so once again ….. don’t blink. Read the rest of this entry »

Click HERE for the full series of this Hong Kong & Macau Trip.

#1 – Framing a good shot of Ruins of St. Paul’s @ Senado Square (Largo do Senado), Macau

It took me long enough to continue this series. Picking up from the last post on Kam Fung @ Wan Chai, we shall jump to Macau where we spent the last two days of our trip at. Don’t worry, will come back to more Hong Kong food and sights in the near (or distant) future. A summary  of the trip to come in the next few days if possible, so that you can refer to all the places we ate and visited under one post.

VERY photo-intensive post ahead …. go for your toilet break or grab a cup of coffee. Ready?

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This post is but one part of the whole Hong Kong/Macau 2011 series …

Petite, almost-gone-in-two-bites egg tarts @ Kam Fung Cafe in Wan Chai. This cafe is famous for their egg tarts, chicken pies and milk tea. Slightly out of the way, in the Wan Chai district on the Hong Kong island.

And thus, this sudden idea was hatched from a haphazardly planned Repulse Bay-Stanley excursion. (More on that in a future post). We were on board a bus going towards Central from Repulse Bay, then while travelling on Queen’s Road East; we passed by Wan Chai District.

Now if you ask any of the local folks about Kam Fung Cafe, and chances are they will tell you that either the milk tea here is so much better than Lan Fong Yuen (the other milk tea champ) and the other one in Yuen Long, or the detractors will shake their heads in disagreement.

So how did we find the highly sought-after ‘nai cha’ (Cantonese for milk tea) here?

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For the full series (and do get ready some napkins and coffee to keep those eye lids open); hop over to : Motormouth in Hong Kong/Macau 2011.

Honolulu Coffee Shop serves a commendable range of pastries and beverages to perk up your day, no matter if it’s breakfast, brunch, lunch or best of all … tea time. And there we were for a good cup of Hong Kong style milk tea (fresh milk instead of the Malaysian style of teh tarik with condensed milk), paired with irresistible egg tarts and more.

Hong Kong’s ‘char chaan teng’ (typical cafes spanning every nook and corner of the city on steroids) never ceases to amaze me. Though you can mentally prepare for what’s on the menu (polo bao, milk tea, egg tarts, macaroni in soup, Nissin noodle soup, etc), yet every outlet serves a signature creation that’s no doubt the crowd puller that keeps the hungry gluttons back again and again.

In this case? Honolulu Coffee Shop (Openrice’s page) takes pride in their flaky egg tarts (as opposed to Tai Cheong‘s buttery short pastry version; the new review to come in a later post), and various buns/breads to cater to the smaller appetites. Read on to gather my thoughts on this cafe with a branch in Wan Chai and this on Stanley Street in the heart of Central, Hong Kong ….

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A bowl of chilled and crunchy collagen-fuelled fresh skin from the fish (read from somewhere that this was a species of grass carp or something) lightly dipped in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, and shallot oil with julienned ginger and fresh scallions. (HKD16/RM6.40)

Essentially, the body runs out of steam. Or the mind. Or the passion/spirit/whatever.

Anyway, this week has not been easy for me. Thus, the slightly disparaging thoughts that went into the posts. Lacklustre words with no substance? Nah …. I would have imagined a more bitter, sharp tang to the edges of my articulation, but then again … maybe not. It’s THURSDAY anyway, and damn I desperately pray and hope for the week to end on an immediate basis.

With that, let’s talk about congee. AGAIN.

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