Beautiful Hk skylines

While housekeeping my FB albums, I really wanted to share one of my fav past time here in HK. Taking pictures of the beautiful skies in HK. The array and magnificent display of wondrous colours is amazing. I get to see this in Oz and Japan but never in Singapore. Not sure why but I guess our city is less polluted though maybe with the Haze problem, we might be lucky if we even get clear blue skies during some months if the problem isnt resolved soon!

The pink and violet shning thru the eve skies was absolutely tranquil

Another one of those bright orange evesunset

Saw this in the middle of cooking dinner and had to stop and admire the beauty of the orange spread

It was a strange unusually bright night with light blue setting

Sunset over IFC

An approaching storm

I was just lazing I couldnt resist taking this.

One of those sunset over the mountains

Reminds me of fury fire ball...or maybe Murdor from Lord of the ring?

The super "no image" thing....

Autumn is here. Can't walk around in shorts anymore or I will freeze to death inside those sub zero temperature malls.

I was caught unprepared just few days back. Didnt realised it was THAT freezing cold in the supermart and by the time I was done 1 hour later, my nose started to dribble non stop. I thought it would go away but the next day, my nose was leaking non-stop like a faulty tap! Couldnt even take my hands off my nose for a minute before the nose leaked everywhere! Still, one has to go buy groceries right?

However by the time I was done and with both hands full with grocery bags, it was impossible to be still holding the tissue over my nose. However, nottie nose was seriously leaking non stop and since I didn't have any Spare hands to do both things, blow my nose and carry the groceries at the same time, I did the totally "no image" thing and stuck the tissue in my nose to "stop" the leak while walking to the bus stop. Only married "auntie level" can do things like that. Haaa haa. Well, in HK, no one really cares anyway and so no one even pretty much bate an eyelid.

That's why I love it here, dont have to give 2 hoots about what people think...partially also because no one here knows me! Heee hee

HongKong DJ scolding 16 Year old gal (who deserved it)!

I had shared this in my FB but I thought what the heck I should share this on my blog too, it's waaaaaaaaaay too good not to share this.

I love and support this HK DJs. For those who don't understand Cantonese, in short: after listening to this gal whining about being dumped after 4 dates, the DJs dished out frank, brutal honest advice to an naive 16yo who had no understanding that her wanton behavior will cause her eventual downfall if she don't wise up about her reckless sexual behavior with guys she met online since she was 14...

Actual conversation translation

Basically this 16yo waitress called in to complain about being dumped by this guy she has dated after 4 days. She admitted to knowing him online. The DJ point blank asked if they had intimate relationship and she confessed to taking him home for sex. The horrified DJ asked don't her parents know and she said they were out. They probed how many times they dated before she consented to the sex and she said after the 3rd date.

As more facts surfaced, the DJ became concerned about her attitude because they were trying to talk sense to her, asking her did she consider about her life in general (as in what she wants to do etc) but all she was focused upon was that she didnt expect to be dumped and that the jerk was going around dating other gals and saying the same lies to them.

At this point, the DJ told her they couldnt care less what the guy did because it's his life, and he has the right to date anyone he likes. Plus, for her to easily go to bed with someone after 4 dates, the guy has every right to also assume she is loose (a player) and goes to bed easily with ANY men she meet. The gal tried to defend herself, claiming she has self respect and the DJ asked her when did she first had sex and she said 14yo. They asked if she used contraception, She claimed no. She went on to claim she is very faithful but just that the guy wasn't nice to her. The DJ asked her at some point, what did she think she will be doing in 15years down the road, the gal laughed and said prob a mother. The DJs mocked her more like "mama san" right? She was still defending her self but The DJ interrupted her and told her.
“Judging from the way you talk, your behavior, your train of thoughts, I feel there is only a few possible endings for you. Either you will become an unwed mother down the road, or you will be so sexually used/ exploited by some man in the future that you will reach a bitter conclusion that ALL men are jerks, and you will stop believing in all guys, and end up spiraling down a very rocky path. And you will amount to nothing for the rest of your life.

At this point, the gal still don't get it and still revert back to the topic on the guy. That Maybe its for the best and better that she will meet another better guy.

The DJ interrupted her again and said "I’m talking about your future. It’s very dark. Have you thoughts about your future? Think carefully how you want to live your life!!"

The DJ asked if she used protection such as condoms and she said no. The DJ got upset and told her if she thinks that is perfectly fine, there is something wrong with her attitude. The DJ went further and asked her what if she had fallen pregnant? The girl naively said keep the baby. The DJ asked then who will raise the kid? You? She replied "Of course the guy must pay for it" The DJ asked what if he said No? That he doesnt want the baby? She went high pitched and demanded "What does he mean no. He has no choice and cannot say no." The DJ reminded her but that's reality, the man can SAY NO and TAKE no responsibility even if she is knocked up. The gal then argued she will "get friends" (implied gangs) to talk to him. The DJ then mocked her and said "If you are all that great with gang fren, then why the hell are you still serving as a waitress?" She was still defending her stupid point of view but the DJ cut her off and told her he doesnt want to talk about her BGR problems because she is completely on the wrong track. What he wants to scold her and do is to wake her up and think about what she should be doing with her life and that being so young, she should be cherishing opportunities in life, go for upgrades ( she claimed she has good grades but she chose to work instead).

Towards the end, the DJ finally "exploded" and told her this.
"Didn't your parents teach you anything?
You gal don't care about what you did wrong and all you care about is the love aspect.
Don't refute me, listen to me properly. (they must have cut her audio off at this point)

There are many other 16 yo out there who are now happily attending school, maybe have a happy puppy love like going out, bake a cake etc, just happily going about without any problems.
U on the other hand, completely have no self respect and self love. You know guys from online, had sex since 14yo., and think there is nothing wrong with it. This society has laws. (referring to underage sex) You had unprotected sex, and you think this is self respect? This is more akin to suicide. Whatever you did, you had no thoughts to the consequences. If the guy has AIDS, you are already a possible goner. Your life will be ruined. You need to think for yourself. If you don't like school, go find something to enrich yourself or learn a skill to improve yourself. I would just assume your parents did not know how to raise you right, you need to start thinking for yourself. For everything that has been said to u, the ONLY person that will reap benefit from it is just you. Be a useful person. At the rate you are going, from my point of view, you are only going to end up as a whore. "
Another DJ piped in to remind her to stop this spiral downwards in her life. Another DJ sigh it’s really hopeless and commented she will end up as beggar if she continues this way…

Birthday present for my man...or toys for me? Hahaha

I am probably more excited than my man about the birthday present I had bought for him.

I remembered having us admiring the display in the Kings & Country shop@Pacific Place about a year ago, looking through the various figurines and tankers etc. So I figured for a person with lack of wants, this should be a nice present that we will both like, though technically it's for him. hahaha!

I am pretty sure though I will get more kick out of it, assembling the model together and creating the war scene:) Just exactly my kind of fun! Even purchasing the thing took me about an hour because I was trying to decide what scene and soldiers will work. These things are NOT cheap by the way. However they are really quality product and worthy of display. I was quite excited that the rover could actually move...

These actually remind me of my childhood days when my brother would buy a pack of plastic soldiers and we will create those war scenes, using a rubber hitting the soldiers to renact the bombing scene. That was really fun because then u get to make all sorts of imaginary "bom" or "dying" sounds. I never did get why gals like barbie because I didnt grow up playing with them. I prob had one Barbie, not because I liked the barbie or to play with it, but I was more intrigued that its dress could glow in the dark and its glowing shoes. I wanted to figure out how that worked...though I never did. Ha! I was just such a sucker for glow in the dark stuff back then. 

I really should have been born a guy... or maybe this is just what happens when you are raised with 2 much older brothers and half your childhood and school days are spent with only guys who had enjoyed and talked about their army days for my listening pleasures. You get converted. Hahahaha.

Hong Kong advert for "seat chopper"

I had a good chuckle when I saw this advert in HK.

This is what I love about HK for their "ingenuity".
Here we have people willing to pay for seat chopper while in Singapore, I rem our polite "tissue pack" seat reservation was being frowned upon and discouraged. I personally thought the tissue pack system was a very civilised culture. I mean how many countries can proclaim that no one will fight over seats that is reserved with brolly or tissue pack but oh well....there are always differing opinions.

Translating the advertisement, it basically was an urgent search for long term "Seat chopper" (to occupy seats). The person is living in Mei Foo and works in Central, and hoped to have a diligent, polite and responsible "Personal seat chopper". The engaged person will be responsible for grabbing a seat in the train for the guy, and to watsapp the "employer" which cabin and seat position from Mei Foo station.

Advert Foodnote: Pretty ladies with good figure are given priority, those with piles or sweaty bum (pat pat) need not apply.

HK Food Review: I M Teppanyaki, HK

The 2nd birthday dinner out was closer to home, which I had opted for Japanese Teppanyaki this time.

鐵板燒·鑄  I M Teppanyaki and Wine 

(http://www.imteppanyaki.com/)

Again, it was a new place, that was literally new and as well, a first visit for us. I chanced this accidentally while surfing for places to eat without having to travel much and what caught my eyes was the fact that the chef Lawrence Mok was from Shangri-La, HK's Nadaman.

I had been to Nadaman several times for those special occasions and we did like the Teppanyaki food there. So I was a little hopeful but cautious after the disappointment last night at St George.

I had initially booked the dinner at 7.45pm but I called to check if we could go earlier at 7.15pm, which the lady on the phone apologised to say it was not possible as they are really full. Okie...so we linger at home for a while longer but fearing heavy traffic on Sunday night, we still headed out abit earlier to catch a cab to Tin Hau.

We arrived at 7.30pm and thankfully our seats were ready. There he is in person, Chef Mok.

We decided to try the Mok's menu since we were both after some lobster and Japanese beef. The other menu was the American beef. Thanks but no thanks. It was Japanese beef or nothing.

Just a little description of the place. The entrance is unassuming and easy to walk past without expecting a whole lot. Inside, the place is split into 2 section, each able to host 2 chefs at work concurrently. The seating is a little tighter than I like but its ok so long as you have considerate diners next to you.

I had an idiot who was watching his video on his Samsung phone at max volume and it was a little annoying since it was disruptive to me actually wanting to have conversation with my date. I find it really strange that HK couples tend not to talk on their dinner date but this arse next to me was worse, playing videos during his dinner time while disturbing others. Great manners there old uncle. Luckily his female partner had more common social sense and told him to turn off the volume....esp SINCE IT WAS A KOREAN video and he was reading the subs instead of listening to the conversations. Classic idiot.

Anycase, appetizer was a trio combo of urchin, vege and sweet prawn. Fresh, light and nice.

Appetizers

Other diner's order.

Our choice of menu for the night.

Watching Chef Mok at work

Counting the number of diners he had, he started to pan fried his scallops...though unfortunately he somewhat accidentally left us out in his count. So we were served the lobster first. They didnt even realise it till I asked the server what had happened to my scallops? If I had not paid attention and asked about it, I would have missed out on my scallops!!! Now we wouldnt want that! Lol. Ooops!

My lovely Hokkaido scallop

I think Chef Mok was alittle overwhelmed and so Chef Calgine Cheng stepped in to take over the other 4 diners including us.

Chef Cheng cracking our lobster claw

While I didnt get to taste Chef's mok version, I think Chef Calgine was a little more showy in his "cooking" than actually getting the seasoning right. Personally we thought the scallop was kinda under seasoned because when he scattered the salt, none of it hit the scallop....it was just all over the cooking top. Lol. However that said, the 2 seafood dishes were still very good and I actually prefer their lobster sauce over Sessyu's Teppanyaki. It's lighter here and less rich, hence the lobster flavor was able to shine through.

Teppanyai Lobster.

Plate setting for foie gras dish

This is cooked to perfection. Flawless. Except I didnt like the round berries on the left which was slightly bitter.

The highlight was obviously the A5 premium Japanese beef. It literally melts in your mouth and it was GLORIOUS. The fresh wasabi, when coated over the meat was strangely non spicy at all. Completely harmless! It was sheer amazement. There is no way to describe the meat texture except for the buttery fragrance that coats the inside of your mouth and the juice oozed ever so gently on your tongue sending you straight to 7th heaven. It was a magnificent piece of meat, not a lot of pieces being so fatty but the food volume was just right.

Lastly, we caught up to the rest and Chef Mok was cooking the fried rice for the 8 of us. Looking at his intense face had me chuckling with respect because I had never seen anyone sooo serious over fried rice.

Veges with beef. they were in my tummy before the meat arrives.

 I have to declare this is the best fried rice I had in any Japanese Teppanyaki, JAPAN included. Usually they serve you some lame garlic rice with some onion or eggs if lucky, but Chef Mok's fried rice was awesomely pack with goodness! There's everything in here and i love the lobster head miso soup that came along with it. It was soooooooo full of flavor and I loved it!!!

My satisfied man agreed too that this was the best fried rice at a teppanyaki store to date.

The sweet ending was the Japanese sweet melon. The sweetness....the aroma, need I say more?

All in all, it was a delightful meal despite the small mixed up on my "lost" scallop, I loved the meal here. It's definitely a joint I would love to see flourish and prosper because it's simply fantastic and worth every penny.

Food Review: St George@Hullet House, TST Canton road, HK

Since my man's birthday was over the weekend that just passed us by, I decided to spring him with two special dinner out.

The first dinner was trying out St George restaurant@Hullett House, across the harbour at TST. Figuring out where the building was was relatively easy but it took us awhile to figure out which level to head to. Kinda convoluted since we were not exactly heading in via the main entrance of the hotel...lol

So we were first greeted by this nostalgic British kinda lobby lift entrance with all the "rich photo" history on the wall. Walking through the halls was like walking in some old European statehouse.

We were early at 7pm and so the tables were relatively free. It wasnt a very large place but at least the tables were not crammed too close to each other.

To save us the headache of what to order and since the degustation looked alright, we decided to go with the Le Menu du Chef, without the wine pairing since we aint much of a wine drinker. I did have my moscato d-asti by the glass though.

I think the sign of things to come was from the serving of the langoustine starter. The portions was tiny. I dont mean small, I meant TINY. Like little baby jars of food composite. The taste was nice and so we were left hoping that the remainder of the course would be better.

This was an interesting dish. The idea was to serve the fatty tuna like sushi, with the crab meat replacing the rice instead. The ingredients were fresh but I didnt think much of the tomato cress pairing. Frankly, it was a little on the bland side and needed something to perk up the dish.

When I saw this dish, my head was like going WTF? Another tiny dish? Who exactly are they trying to feed? The dish was overall ok but the curry emulsion didnt do it for me.

This sweet onion pancake however was pretty delightful but the urchin didnt pack any punch. I think it was overwhelmed by the onion flavor. However, I did like this and prob the best we had from the course so far.

When our roasted lamb saddle arrived, we were shocked by another tiny portion. We have eaten in many places and no other degustation served such appallingly small sizes that even a kid will still be left hungry.  The slab was no longer than my thumb nor thicker than 1.5 finger width. It's quite a cheeky thing to do for a reputable restaurant.

The servings between courses were also a fairly LONG wait and it wasnt 2 hours later than we were served this food portion fit for Ms. Thumbelina. So of course the birthday boy was upset and so was I. We reflected our dissatisfaction to the manager who happened to be the one serving the main dish. We explained our concerns about the fact that we are STILL famished. It didnt help their cause either when our "medium" meat was served Rare, and the other waiters simply forgot our request for more bread (to fill up our hungry tummy)

The manager, taking in our immediate concerns, without hesitation addressed our problems with an apology as well as promising to top up our meal with another meat course, the beef. I told her I honestly dont want to wait for another hour but she promised it will be ready in 10mins. The beef itself was simply seared and grilled without much seasoning. It was ok, not great. The manager came back to us again and to apologise for the night because someone in the kitchen decided to MIA and didnt show up for work causing the "disruption" in service. I highly doubt the size would double even with the kitchen help appearing though. It is honestly shameful to serve such a small portion at such a price.

The extra beef dish

The puny roasted lamb saddle

 Probably because knowing this was a birthday celebration, the manager again took the initiative to serve us an extra cheese tasting dish. I'm not a cheese fan, so this did nothing for me but I did appreciate the gesture and we certainly let her know our appreciation at her "recovery" actions.

The 2 desserts were served one after another. First the sorbet and followed by the chocolate cake. Didnt blow my mind if you asked me.

Our meal came with tea and we opted to try the house blend. My goodness, the tea was actually rather nice, packed with a nice fruity flora flavor and fragrance. I had asked if I could buy a packet back and after waiting for 10 mins, the manager came back with this big bottled tea leaves and offered it as a gift instead as the souvenir shop was already closed by the time our meal was over at 10.45pm (we started at 7pm - longest meal ever!)

I was pleasantly surprised and thanked her for it. It was a nice gesture on her part and she told us that she hoped we will be back.

To sum up the experience, not great. Jessica the manager made it better but will I be back, likely not ever.

After dinner, we went for a nice stroll under the autumn skies and the surrounding was prettier than I had expected. I got to get out more to explore HK....

Hullett House, TST

Hullet House with landscape