Hong Kong – Shananigans Blog

The spice stall at Jiang Tai Market — The spice counter at Jiang Tai Market

As I write the kitchen is suffused with the scent of fresh sesame oil from Derry’s baggage plunging me back into Jiang Tai market in Beijing where I purchased it from the spice counter on Monday of last week. In my minds eye I can see Claire and Shan at my side while Derry takes Dermot around to the fruit sellers and fish mongers, the butchers and bread makers. A child who loves every kind of fruit, he is mesmerised by the fruit stalls as he gestures at lychees and dragon fruit, peaches and blueberries and tries to reach the display. He comes back clutching a large plum given to him by a friendly stall-holder, deftly retrieved by Shan until it can be washed at home.
I was the first of the family to leave China this time and for the past week I’ve been in something of a jet-lagged fog, unable to sift the memories and write until all my family were restored to their appointed place in the world – Claire safely back in Sydney with Mike, Derry home from his special week of Ye Ye time with Dermot, Shane, Shan and Dermot briefly returned to nuclear family status until MaMa rejoins them again from Urumqi. Today Dermot has been checking the spare room in their apartment, wondering where his Grandad has gone, wondering where all of us have gone I’m sure and how come we are back behind a little rectangular screen again. At times when we are on Face Time he goes around to the back of the iPad in search of the back of our heads or tries to offer us some of his food, a book to read, his finger paints but gradually he is making some sense of the bizarre world he lives in where his extended family swoop in at intervals to bundle him up with hugs and attention creating a jumble of laughter and music and foot-stomping dancing to family favourite songs thrummed out by Shane on the guitar. And then it gets quiet again and it’s just him safe in the love of his MaMa and Daddy. He’s getting used to it I think. I’m not sure I ever will.
So many memories to sift. This last trip was all the more special because I got to spend time alone with my daughter Claire for the first time in many years and then to watch her fall in love with her nephew and god son all over again. She and I had just two precious days in Hong Kong together. She bounced into my hotel room at 6.30 on a Thursday morning fresh from a flight from Sydney, hauled me up to the roof-top gym and swimming pool and, over a breakfast of eggs and fresh fruit, planned how to pack the most into our time. She took charge of the sight-seeing of which more in the next post. I had food on my mind as usual.
I have to admit that I’ve been a bit dismissive of Cantonese cuisine. I associated it with the type of food we often get in run of the mill Chinese restaurants and take-aways here in Ireland – the westernised version of recipes carried by immigrants from Guangdong Province in the south east of China – cloying sauces, sometimes sickly sweet, heavy on sugar, vinegar and MSG, low on spiciness. In China the region is known for the variety, quality and freshness of its ingredients and for allowing the natural flavours of the food to come through rather than overwhelming them with oils or spices. When I first visited Shane and Shan in Beijing two years ago and asked Shan to introduce me to the food of a different Chinese region each night, we went to a very good Cantonese restaurant called The Canteen but after a week of Sichuan, Hunan and Yunnan food I found the meal a little too bland for my taste.
Claire shares my passion for food so I had fretted about how to make good dinner choices in a city that deserves its hashtag #WorldFoodCity but where it is all too easy to get it wrong. Although our options ranged from French to Japanese restaurants, we both wanted to set our prejudices against Cantonese cuisine to one side and give this one of the eight great culinary traditions of China another try on its home turf. We also wanted to get beyond local specialities such as dim sum and roasted goose and get some sense of how modern cuisine is evolving in Hong Kong.
The Chairman, No. 18 Kau U Fong, Central, HK
I decided to got with a suggestion via Twitter from Fuchsia Dunlop for our first night – The Chairman where she had eaten well on a recent visit. I emailed the restaurant to discover they were fully booked throughout our visit but the lovely Danny Yip came back later to say they could squeeze us in if we arrived at the very start of service that evening.
Our taxi driver spent many minutes in deep consultation with the doorman at our hotel poring over a map before whisking us across from Mongkok through a network of tunnels and freeways into the Central district of Hong Kong Island in search of Kau U Fong street. I decided to “help” with Google Maps on my iPhone while he regaled us with stories of the differences between Hong Kong people and mainlanders and the six phrases of Mandarin we needed to survive on the mainland. More like a Dublin taxi driver than a Beijinger he had many opinions on life in Hong Kong – too crowded, housing too expensive – and was more than willing to share them. Google Maps was having difficulties coping with the serried layers of this SoHo like part of Hong Kong and much recalculating was going on so he dropped us somewhere in the vicinity in a narrow, chaotic street and, after a few up and downs via side streets and steps we found The Chairman, a simple shuttered exterior with washing hanging above.

Inside this small restaurant was an oasis of calm, white tiled walls, white table cloths, a still and soothing space. We were the first to arrive and Arta the Maitre’ d took charge. Arta is a treasure. A native of Hong Kong, he has lived and worked in Australia not far from where Claire now lives and is passionate about food and wine. It took only a moment to decide to let him do the choosing for us from the a la carte menu.
After a little appetiser of cherry tomato with apple slices soaked in raisin wine we had starters of wild clams stir-fried with chilli jam and basil and squid in shrimp oil with mustard seed. These were beautifully executed dishes, the seasonings bringing out the perfect freshness of the seafood. Pairing wasabi with cooked shrimp was a revelation and one I will try at home.

Next came a whole steamed fresh flowery crab in aged Shaoxing yellow rice wine. Words fail me to describe the umami of this dish, lovingly prepared at our table by Arta to make it easy for us eat without making too much of a mess.

We had two meat dishes – The Chairman’s Soy Sauce Chicken and braised spare ribs which came with a a parcel of wild mushrooms – and a side dish of braised seasonal vegetables. I mix up all my Chinese greens but these had a slightly bitter flavour that balanced the sweeter dishes.

Dessert seemed beyond us but Arta insisted we try half portions of their specialities – homemade almond sweet soup, pickled ginger ice-cream and Osmanthus and wolf berry ice-cream. Light as air but tingling with flavour these gentle desserts were the perfect end to our meal.

The Chairman with its proletariat connotations is aptly named. This is essentially simple food using the very best of local ingredients, fish caught in the early hours in the South China Sea, great tasting free range chicken and pork, organic vegetables complemented by seasonings from old-style condiment stores. There is a premium to be paid for food of this quality and provenance – our bill came to 2,286 HK$ including wine and service or about €216 – but by Hong Kong standards was good value at that price. Oh and I believe Heston Blumenthal had eaten there a few nights earlier and was also suitably impressed.
Thank you Arta for some of the best service we have ever experienced and restoring our faith in Cantonese cuisine.
Ming Court, Level 6, Langham Place, Mongkok, HK
For our second night we had planned to eat street food at Queen Street Market in Kowloon but by the end of the day we had walked nearly 14 km sight-seeing in temperatures of 35 degrees and we were exhausted. I had spotted that there was a Michelin starred restaurant Ming Court in our hotel at Langham Place. As Michelin stars seem to be dished out like confetti in Hong Kong our expectations were not high but we were tired and very hungry. The restaurant turned out to be a delight and a surprise . It specialises in contemporary Cantonese cuisine artistically presented in beautiful circular rooms accented with replica Ming Dynasty pottery and modern Chinese landscape paintings. The service was impeccable and friendly and we opted for the Tasting Menu priced at 598 HK$ each (about €57) which included a glass of wine and featured Gold Medal winning dishes from the 2013 Hong Kong International Culinary Classic.
As light levels were low in this very beautiful space I couldn’t get good photos but our menu went like this:

Dragon Quartet

Scallop, Prawn, Sea Urchin, Black Caviar; Pu-Er Smoked Fish; Osmanthus-scented Foie Gras, Lotus Root; Bean Curd Spring Roll, Assorted Greens, Peanut Butter

Bird’s Nest Soup

with Matsutake Mushroom and Bamboo Pith

Minced Shrimp and Chicken Thigh Duet

Pan-seared Chicken Thigh, Minced Shrimp, Black Truffle, Buttery Pumpkin, Chicken Liver Pate, Crisp Rice

Stir-fried Waygu Beef, Thai Basil, Cashew Nut

Lotus Leaf, Fried Rice, Roast Duck Meat

Mango, Pomelo, Coconut, Sago Cream

This was another exceptional meal of which the highlights for me were the Spring Roll filled with mushrooms and served with peanut butter sauce – who would have thought that combination could work so well – and the Waygu beef stir-fry which I will have to try with Pat Whelan’s Irish reared Waygu beef from James Whelan’s Butchers.

With a bottle of Chablis and service charge included our bill came to 2,183 HK$ or about €208.

Both these meals were expensive by Beijing standards but for a very special short break they were a fantastic re-introduction to Cantonese food.

Hengshan Hui, 1/F, Kerry EAS Logistics Building, 21 Xiaoyun Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing

Prompted by our Hong Kong experience, Shane and Shan took Derry to a neighbourhood Cantonese restaurant in Beijing last weekend- Hengshan Hui – 衡山汇.

They tortured me with the photos below while I had a lonely breakfast last Saturday and made me long to teleport back to Beijing to join them. Their meal, served with flat rice noodles, cost just 513 RMB or about €60 for the three of them and Dermot.

More on sight-seeing in Hong Kong soon.

“I’m an alien. I’m a legal alien…” – the words of the Sting song get stuck in my head as I read the sign in the lift as it climbs to the 21st floor in Shane & Shan’s apartment. Of course I have never gone to the local Jiang Tai police to register but I got to buy bulk ammo online and I’m confident enough that a combination of my valid visa, Irish passport and visiting relatives status would get me by if I was challenged but the notice is a reminder that I’m a guest in China and there for as long as the authorities deem fit. My friend and I never had such a problem with our Visas New Zealand. We had been there two months back and without any hindrances had got our visa’s by applying them online.
This was my seventh time back to Beijing in less than two years and the city has well and truly gotten under my skin. This time my visit was part business, part catching up with Shane, Shan and my grandson. By late Friday night I had a slew of business meetings out of the way and it was clear that we would have little energy for sight-seeing in the languid heat of a Beijing summer. Those who have any kind of air-conditioning tend to stay indoors during the hottest part of the day and surface outside for a walk or an evening meal when the temperature drops to a bearable level. But of course I’m not a local, I’m a mad Irish woman. So each day, around the time that Dermot went down for his mid-day nap, I would don a pair of runners and take off on foot in the neighbourhood of Chaoyang, wandering without purpose or target until I had clocked up about 10 km.
It’s a wonderful way to soak up the feel of this suburb of the city. One minute I was in the upmarket Indigo shopping mall, the next strolling through Jiang Tai market where stall-holders played cards and mahjong in the listless afternoon and the occasional shopper picked over the exotic range of vegetables and fruits. Women on stools outside their hutong homes called to me in Chinese to ask where I was from as their washing flapped in the light breeze. In 798 Art District the young middle class girls flaunted their designer clothes and a five year old switched seamlessly from Chinese to English as she chatted to her Beijing Daddy about how he had lived longer in China than her Australian mother (“don’t be silly Daddy. I can’t do gan bei. That means “dry glass” and I can’t drink my water that fast.” Dermot in four years time I thought to myself. A citizen of the world.
At one point I wandered off the beaten track towards the eastern perimeter of Beijing, facing only fields, scrublands and a railway line. It always astonishes me that in a city of 20 million people you can find yourself suddenly alone, no skyscrapers or even houses in your field of vision. And then you round a corner and your way is blocked by a half completed apartment complex that seems to have sprung from nowhere. But the canny locals have carved a makeshift path around the perimeter through tumbledown walls and fences and even planted a small kitchen garden. There’s something in the Chinese psyche that finds a way around everything.

Later, at around 5.30 pm each evening, we go out for dinner. Shane and Shan might not miss the heat or air quality in Beijing when they return to Ireland but they will certainly miss the wonderful choice of restaurants within 20 minutes walk of their apartment. As the city has stretched its tentacles out to what was a working class suburb just inside the 4th ring road when Shane moved in four years ago, up-market chain restaurants have opened branches offering great value and quality. Typically a meal for the three of us plus Dermot costs around €40 to €50 including drinks. We ate surrounded by other families – usually young couples with their one precious child and the husband’s parents. We ran into several neighbours from the apartment block all of whom stopped to chat and compare their offspring with ours noting their respective ages, size. development and even their number of teeth.
On Saturday night we ate in a Korean place – IKI BBQ Dining Bar – with marinated meats cooked at our table in a stylish setting. There are four IKI branches in Beijing including one I’ve visited before in Sanlitun. This one is even nicer and they do a great range of Belgian beers to complement the food.

The Gao O'Neills at IKI Korean BBQ — The Gao O’Neills at IKI Korean BBQ

Sunday it was off to a Middle 8th – a Yunnan restaurant that has opened recently in Indigo Mall, one of a small chain that delivers what it promises, typical Yunnan cuisine. This region is going right up in my estimation. It’s food is spicy but lighter in touch than Sichuan or Hunan cuisine. One of the dishes was “Black Three Chops” which Wei Wei had taught me to make at our last Chinese lesson. I will blog that soon.

On Monday Shane was travelling on business so Shan, Dermot and I went to my old favourite Yuxiang Kitchen Sichuan Restaurant in Lido Square. This is the restaurant where I first tasted the Sichuan Dry-fried Green Beans that led me to starting the blog. We always have green beans when we go there and they do a chilli-free version which Dermot loves. This time we also had a Sichuan take on crispy chilli beef with cumin, sichuan pepper and long green chillies and also goose slow-cooked with strips of mandarin peel, bamboo root and chilli. Figuring out both of those recipes is now on my to do list for the blog. The goose recipe had me dancing a jig with excitement at the flavours.

And then, all to soon, it was Tuesday morning and time for me to head off on my own to Hong Kong. Id’ gotten used to my mornings with Dermot, him clattering around with his cheeky sense of humour, playing silly games with me, nattering on in his version of Chinese with many words now intelligible to his parents if not to me, pulling out books and clambering up to snuggle beside me on the sofa so that I would tell him “Guess how much I love you” or scare him with Red Riding Hood’s wolf (“grandma” has become “nai nai” in our version) or Boris. Every arrival to see him casts the shadow of the inevitable parting but that just makes the experience of time with him all the more intense.
So I was off at the crack of dawn to catch a plane which sat on the runway in Beijing for two and a half hours before takeoff without any explanation. I arrived in Hong Kong late yesterday afternoon and, by the time I had taken three MTR trains to reach my hotel in Mong Kok, I was disoriented by the change of pace and culture. Where once Hong Kong had seemed more western and familiar with its colonial exoticism now it felt strange – the Chinese characters the same, the sounds so different; young people forming orderly queues for trains reading their Samsung phones while they walk like a scene from “Her”; pedestrians stopping at traffic lights; cars, taxis and even bikes stopping at traffic lights; fresher air and freer internet and dim sum everywhere.
When I had regrouped I took the MTR over to Hong Kong Island and walked from Admiralty Station in search of Ding Tai Fung in Causeway Bay. I discovered very quickly why locals don’t walk any distance at this time of year, they hop taxis or cars to avoid the humidity and criss-crossing streets by stairs and walkways. However I had picked a night when about 300,000 cheerful young students had taken to the streets in a pro-democracy march and I seemed to be the only one walking against them. But you can’t keep a hungry woman from her xiao long bao and the good humoured protesters and helpful young policemen made a little space for me to get through.

Today was a day for business meetings but when your meetings are held high in the buildings with some of the best views of Hong Kong and lunch is Dim Sum in the China Club in the old Bank of China Building styled on a traditional tea house in Shanghai , it somehow doesn’t feel like work. I ended the afternoon sitting on the terrace of Isola in the IFC building enjoying the view of Victoria Harbour and sipping a Green Dragon cocktail in honour of our own little year of the dragon child Dermot before wandering back to Mong Kok as night fell and the streets came alive with food stalls.

Victoria Harbour rivals Sydney Harbour in its beauty and, at that very moment, my daughter Claire was preparing to board a plane from Sydney to join me here in the morning, one of those half daft things we scattered families do to get to spend a few days together. At the weekend she and I will travel up to Beijing and her Dad across from ireland so that for just two days we will all be together.
Every reunion casts the shadow of the next goodbye but for tonight as I wait for Claire’s plane to land in Hong Kong, it is all about looking forward to a few special days.

Category: Hong Kong

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