Bites by Bytes

Big Buddha

When you go to the Big Buddha on Lantau Island, you eat at the Po Lin Monastery for lunch. It's what you do because it's the most convenient, it's reasonably price and the food isn't bad. Mom and I bought meal tickets for HK$60/person and enjoyed four vegetarian dishes, rice and soup. We ate, clockwise from the top left: soup, spring rolls (with carrot, mushrooms and a root vegetable that had the texture of water chestnuts but less sweet), stewed tofu and vegetables, stir-fried bok choy and mushrooms, and stir-fried fake meat ("mean fun"), peppers, celery and cucumber. Overall, it was just OK. When I eat vegetarian food, I expect it to be a little inventive to give the meat-free dishes some extra value. This experience was just kind of half-assed, but when I remember that it's a monastery, not a restaurant, I am satisfied.

I promised Mom that if she made it all the way up the 250 steps to the Buddha, I'd buy her dessert at the snack bar. Surprisingly, she made it and we sat down to eat MORE (oink). The tofu sweet soup was suprisingly good, just enough ginger in the ginger syrup. I was dissapointed that they had run out of the fried taro dumpling, but the spring roll was loaded with mushrooms and bean sprouts, it was a good replacement. If you go, I recommend eating at the snack bar instead of the restaurant. There are some noodles and "fake meat" dishes and at only $10/ three pieces of the desserts and hor d'erves are a much better value than the restaurant where you have no choice.

Better Than American

Like in any business-oriented city, it's more about who you know in Hong Kong, than what you know. And if you have skewed priorities like me, it's more important to know the chef/owner at a restaurant than say, Li Ka-Shing. Last night we went to American Restaurant on Lockhart Rd. Despite it's name, the establishment has been famous for its Northern Chinese cuisine for decades. The owner is an adorable elderly man who is not above scurrying around replacing soiled tableclothes and refilling teapots. He also once worked for our host's father so we were able to experience some off-the-menu deliciousness. The first course was, I'm told, a Northern specialty: steamed prawns and scallops atop a bed of glass noodles with a garlic and chili soy sauce. It was accompanied by a spicy mustard sauce for dipping. "If you come here on your own, you can't order this," my host said proudly. We continued to stuff ourselves with the famed Peking duck (meaty, but not-too fatty) which was followed by one of my favourite dishes ever: the chopped duck stir-fry wrapped in fresh lettuce leaves. American Restaurant adds pine nuts to its stir-fry making for a pleasant crunch in addition to the lettuce. Knowing we don't eat pork, our kind host had the restaurant make beef-filled steamed dumplings especially for us. Any sane person with tastebuds knows, 'dem dumplings are goooood. Normally, I'd say cardboard dipped in red vinegar is tasty — that's how much I love vinegar, but these dumplings were so memorable, they didn't require any condiments. Knowing these were made-to-order, I wish I could have grown a second stomach just to stuff myself a little more. Of course, we all had more than necessary so with our bellies pressing against our belt buckles, we rolled all the way home...

Captain Vegetable

If you make your way to the Fringe Club patio directly from Central MTR station, you deserve to sit down and eat. That is one long uphill trek. Thankfully, there is a light at the end of the short-of-breath tunnel, it's the Fringe's lunch buffet. It isn't your typical Hong Kong buffet: it's meat-free, has a small selection and is quite inexpensive. There was fresh fruit salad (melon, apples, dragon fruit), green salad, bean salad (with avocado slices on top and Dortios on the side), pasta with tomato sauce, tomato soup, cheeses (I love blue cheese!), bread and a green bean stir-fry. Admittedly, you won't find any ground-breaking dishes here. It's straight up Western vegetarian fare. Neither is it a plentiful selection of say, the Shangri-La, but for its low price ($60 for FC members, $95 for non-members), it's still much less than any salad you'll get in Lan Kwai Fong. And if you're nice, Lorna the cook will sneak you a slice of cake.

When Mom Comes to Town:

It means we go to the Indonesian Restaurant in Tsim Tsa Tsui. It's my uncle's favourite restaurant and so we go whenever family is in town. It sits a floor above Granville St., home to unpretentious clothing bargains. At street level, if you're not too late, they sell desserts, usually coconut filled and coconut milk drinks with tapioca. Around our table, tamily members exchange photographs of relatives from our various homes in between bites. We always get the same dishes: satays, corn cakes, beef cakes, beef in a lightly spiced sweet sauce, fried chicken, spicy sambal fish, Tsing Tao beer and my favourite, gado gado, which is a salad with lettuce, potatoes, veggies, shrimp chips and a peanut dressing. One of the servers (either really old men or young attractive women) walk the room with a drum of white rice. This has become comfort food in a city where I rarely dine shoulder-to-shoulder with family members. And so, despite the higher price tag (about HK$150/person) and lack of rotisserie chicken, the simply named Indonesian Restaurant will have to be my local Swiss Chalet for now — but the curry chicken is mediocre, save room instead for the coconut milk and red gultenous rice dessert.