Saturday, March 19, 2011

Tragedy

It has been 8 days since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, a week in which Japanese lived under the spectre of a nuclear fallout.  A week of great tragedy, in which so many were left dead or injured, homeless and hungry. 

In the light of this terrible tragedy, our own problems should seem almost trivial.  But they are not.  A death of a pet dog, the illness of a beloved family member, are personal to us.   And it is not wrong, or selfish to focus on these personal concerns. For our losses, our fears and our worries, bind us to those who are suffering so greatly, so far away. 

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Visiting Hong Kong

Yung Kee Chinese Sausages by Taking5
Yung Kee Chinese Sausages a photo by Taking5 on Flickr.
I visited Hong Kong last month; it was a short work trip but pretty fruitful. The business part was fine and I also managed a short trip to Lam Kwai Fong, where we had dinner at Yung Kee.

Yung Kee is a well known Chinese restaurant, famous for their roast goose and chinese sausages. My colleague found out I was going and asked me to buy some; so since I needed to have dinner we went over to Central (my hotel was in Kowloon) to the restaurant.

Foodwise, I was expecting a lot as the restaurant is in Asia's top 20 on the Miele Guide.  Maybe I expected too much as whilst the dishes were ok they were not spectacular, except of course for their specialties - the roast meats and the goose. The goose was delicious. Moist, flavourful, tender. The skin oh-so-crispy. It was really a dish I couldn't have enough of. The roast meats were also excellent. Maybe I didn't know what the other house specialties were, but the rest of the food was just average to me.

We went to buy the Chinese sausages thereafter. I was surprised to learn that they were still being sold by the "catty", a measurement of weight I thought had gone out with the dodo. Anyway, I think you get approx 20 sausages for the catty.  I bought four boxes worth, of lap cheong and the liver sausage (I forget the cantonese translation for the moment).

We walked around after dinner, around Lam Kwai Fong.  It was pleasantly cool that evening and light from the pubs spilled out into the streets; people were walking around so there was a nice buzz about the place without being overly crowded.  Unfortunately we had to go back as the next day was a busy one.  And, as our hotel was not in one of the more exciting parts of Hong Kong, there were not many subsequent opportunities to sneak out to Central again.  Guess that has to wait till my next visit to Hong Kong :-)  

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