Beijing roasted duck is the national symbol of China. It was mentioned in the Complete Recipes for Dishes and Beverages Manual since BC400 and became the most famous dish in the Southern Song Dynasty. The skills of roasting duck were spread to Beijing in the Yuen Dynasty. By the Qianlong Period, the duck entered the imperial court food menus and is now served at thousands of Chinese restaurants around the world. (Source: The menu book at the Empire City Roasted Duck Restaurant, HK)
The first time I tried Peking Duck was around three to four years ago in our favorite Chinese restaurant in Melbourne - The Eastern Palace Chinese Restaurant. I loved it then and enjoyed assembling the "roll" using all the raw vegetables and the sauce/s that they served it with.
My respect for the "art of making the dish" grew even more when I watched an episode of Kung Fu Kitchen wherein an experienced Singaporean chef went to China to learn how to make the dish. It takes a lot of knowledge and skill in roasting and serving the ducks: from the cleaning of the duck to the proper way of removing the organs and intestines, to how they blow air into the duck's empty stomach cavity, to how it must be placed in a special oven for roasting, to how the roasting is timed to perfection and to how precise they needed to slice the meat and the crispy skin to bite-sized portions. Chefs who wanted to learn this dish will need to spend a few months to a few years in order to perfect the art.
I was just glad that in our trip to Hong Kong this year, we found a good restaurant serving this dish. It's the Empire City Roasted Duck at the K11 Art Mall in Tsim Sha Tsui. By the way, we had the duck for dinner two nights in a row!
It's me again guys. I don't know if you're all still here, but I'm back. I must say that now I officially hate the months of October and November. They always bring me sadness and worry for two years now. Fortunately, things always manage to turn around in December and especially in the new year. I just hope that it won't happen again in this year's October and November.
While I was gone though, I never stopped cooking and trying out new dishes. Some of them I got from the websites of food bloggers that I just tweaked to suit my own taste and the availability of ingredients here in China. I have also discovered some new food and new traditions (at least to me anyway). Well, here they are...
For the past three months, Hubby and I also managed just one trip outside of China (together). He travelled to Indonesia on his own twice (much to my dislike and annoyance) and I travelled back home to the Philippines once. But the only trip we made together was to Hong Kong to celebrate Christmas.
In that trip, we stayed in Hong Kong island (Wan Chai) because our favorite hotel, The Minden, in Tsim Sha Tsui, was already fully-booked. We stayed at The Harbourview Hotel just across the Hong Kong Exhibition Centre. It was a nice hotel but they don't offer free breakfast and free internet. And because all our activities were in Tsim Sha Tsui, we needed to take the subway everyday. Not that bad though because we like the Hong Kong train system.
We still did the same things we always do when in Hong Kong: dine at the Outback Steakhouse more than once and Pho 24, have leisurely coffee breaks at Starbucks, window-shop and shop for real at the iSquare Mall, the Harbour City Mall, H&M and this time at Marks & Spencer. I was also able to hear the Christmas mass at the Rosary Church on Christmas day. One of the new things we did this time was to watch a movie in Hong Kong which we enjoyed and we planned to make it a tradition in every country that we visit from now on. The other one was to try Vietnamese coffee (sorry no picture) and the third was do grocery shopping.
Thanks to the noble "bak chan" (pronounced as bachang), we were able to have a weekend getaway in Hong Kong. There's a holiday in China last Monday to remember this noble food. I will tell you the story of the 'bachang' later when I get all my information correctly.
No, we didn't go to Hong Kong to eat this though. In fact, we went there to enjoy other cuisines that we don't normally find in China. It was our own journey to EAT, PRAY, LOVE in Hong Kong...
EAT:
- We created our own mussel festival at the Aropa Mediterranean Restaurant located inside the K11 Mall in Tsim Sha Tsui. Without planning beforehand, we ended up ordering seafood chowder (with mussels in it), sauteed mussels with toasted bread and a seafood spaghetti (with mussels in it too).
- No visit to Hong Kong is also complete without visiting our favorite Western restaurant, the Outback Steakhouse, located along Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. I had featured many of their food in previous blogs so no more photos this time.
- This time we also went to Pho 24 (a Vietnamese restaurant) to have a go at Vietnamese food once again. We love Vietnamese food especially their famous pho (soup) made with raw beef, beef tendons, brisket, beef balls with rice noodles and garnished with our favorite basil and bean sprouts. Heaven! We also love their rice paper rolls with pork and shrimp. It was in fact our weekend breakfast in Melbourne last time.
- We also tried the Pacific Coffee Place and we loved their coffee and food. We had lunch in their Citygate shop and we really enjoyed their food and the nice view.
PRAY:
There are so few Catholic Churches in China and none at our place. So when I'm in China, I really cannot go to church on Sundays at all. I'm just glad I found the Rosary Church in Tsim Sha Tsui to be quite near to our favorite hotel. It's only a 10-minute walk. I was here last Christmas and I was back here last Sunday for a regular Sunday mass.
i first came here for the Christmas mass last year and now i'm back for the regular Sunday mass
LOVE:
I've always loved the sights and sounds of Hong Kong and Love, Love, Love my husband for bringing me here once again!!!
We just came back from a whirlwind Christmas trip to Hong Kong! It is quite possible in our case because Hong Kong is just a two-hour ferry ride from where we are in China. ;-) Yep! And perhaps this is the only reason why I like this place.
Hubby and I left for Hong Kong on the morning of December 24th. We didn't get our ferry tickets beforehand because we thought there wouldn't be many passengers from China at this time because it's not a holiday here. We were wrong! And we almost didn't get tickets. Fortunately, one of the travel groups cancelled their trip so we were able to get seats in the 8.30am ferry boat.
Hong Kong was in a frenzy as usual, but we noticed that this time of year, there are actually more people in Hong Kong than in any other month. I only found out today that it is indeed the Winter Sale in Hong Kong and a lot of mainlanders are there to do their shopping aside from foreigners from other parts of the world.
Hubby and I decided to do a mall-hop on this trip and just enjoy each mall's Christmas theme. After checking in at our lovely hotel, The Minden, the first thing we did was to find lunch. We found it at the Outback Steakhouse in Tsim Sha Tsui. They serve Aussie food and we really loved it so much. (Perhaps because we already miss Australia or perhaps because their food is very nice, we ended up coming back for dinner on Christmas night and for yesterday's lunch.)
After lunch, we went to the nearest mall which is the Harbour City Mall at Canton Road. According to some websites, this is by far the biggest or longest mall in Hong Kong. Boy, are they right! I ended up having a lot of "water bubbles" on some of my toes from strolling inside the mall from around 1.30 in the afternoon to until about 11.30pm that I had to limp my way for the rest of the trip.
It was also quite amazing how much money this side of the world has! On the ground level along Canton Road, all the very expensive designer shops are lined up. Here you can find brand names like Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Hermes to name a few. And what was so astounding was the long queue of customers outside each shop! And they were not just there to have a look inside the shop. They were there to BUY! I was actually amazed at the same sight every Boxing Day in Melbourne when I see a long queue of people outside the Lacoste shop in Melbourne Central. But even that could not compare to this. These are all high-end designer shops and when they do get out of the shop, they were never empty-handed (except for us! hehe). They have at least one or two packages each. Ah! The buying power of the Chinese!!! That is why in this part of the world, LV is a very common handbag among women, you see almost everyone holding one. If you look closely, some could be fakes but then again most of them could also be the real thing.
Christmas eve in Hong Kong is actually a very big event I gathered. They even had to block off some streets like Canton Road and Nathan Road to traffic and to let the sea of people pass through on their way to merrymaking. In every street corner, you will also see groups of people, young or old, singing Christmas carols to the passersby. Some establishments hire a band or a good choir as well. Overall, it was a very lovely time. You can really feel the Christmas spirit in the air.
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