Hong Kong & Macau 6D5N summary

I have been missing, not cooking or baking so I won’t be surprise if people don’t come here anymore .. hehe

Anyways I’ve recently went to Hong Kong and Macau and absolutely LOVED it!! Actually I have some withdrawal symptoms for certain Hongkee food 😡 And if you’ve noticed, my travel posts always gets hanged halfway (I actually haven’t even finished posting up my trip in Seoul; which was more than a year ago.) so I’m hoping history won’t repeat. I probably won’t do a too elaborated post.

to start with, I’ve been pinning locations in google maps as and when i see something nice or want to go to. So instead of bookmarking here and there, i basically search for the location, save it in the map and then 1-2 weeks before flying, we did a proper itinerary like what do we do /eat on which day. I find this way much easier, as just by looking at the map, u know which area should you put more time on. This is the map I’ve been pinning onto. We didn’t go all. the whole idea is just to see where is what and make our way thru it.

And I’m not going to lie, i took ALL the photos just with iphone4s. just cause it’s so much easier to IG it, upload it, edit it. no cables, no need physical space. It’s all in dropbox. i mean… technology, gotta utilize it.

Accommodation

We always book our acc 1 month earlier prior to flying (at least :X) I got to know about this site called Airbnb when looking for acc and I must say, if you’re touring europe, you should use airbnb. the places look SO SO GOOD. anyway, there are a couple of listings in Hong Kong and we’ve decided on a 2 bdroom + 1 bthroom apartment near Prince Edward MTR station that fits 3. We reckon since we’re travelling cheap (not on luxury) we can only afford 3 star hotel rooms. and saying so, the space is quite limited for 3. So the apartment came in handy and great!! the host; Brian had a laptop for us the use, and wifi! u can imagine us, the moment we come back, we sit and start FB-ing or IG-ing. addicts!

Day 1

Airport > check in apartment > Mong Kok area > Kam Wah cafe > Avenue of Stars > Symphony of Lights > Dinner @ Jordan > Hui Lau Shan Mango Dessert

G/F, 47 Bute Street, Prince Edward
太子弼街47號地下

What to eat in Kam Wah. Polo bun! Polo pork chop bun, Egg Tart, try their ‘dung leng mat’ Honey Lemon drink. it’s very very…… unique and it’s greenish. LOL.. 1st day, we basically walked around Mong kok area (Ladies street, etc)

I have no idea where exactly this shop is, but we were around “Poh Hai Gai” Shoes street (literal translation) Basically there are alot of shops on a couple of streets selling sports shoe. ALOT OF PEOPLE!

Symphony of Lights

Well I thought the symphony of lights in Avenue of Stars were abit disappointing. We were there basically to take photos, and ‘chui hoi foong’ enjoy the breeze..

Day 2 (Ngong Ping 360)

Tsui Wah for Breakfast > Tung Chung MTR > Ngong Ping > Tai-O Village > Tung Chung Citygate Mall > Yee Shun Milk Company

Tsui Wah Restaurant

77-78 Parkes Street,, Jordan
佐敦白加士街77-83號

Tsui Wah wasn’t the busiest HK char chan teng when we went it. Maybe too early? late? not very sure. But the service wasn’t that great as there was only 1 lady writing menu and dishing out food from the kitchen to the tables. So we had to ‘mm koi’ for a very long time. Which is unusual. Usually the waiters are very eager to take our order but us, being us who know only a handful of chinese characters, we usually take a longer time to order. in Tsui wah, it was the other way round.

Order : Zhu Zai Pau. Direct translation would be piglet’s bun. but no pork involved. It’s just a very crunchy bread, toasted then drizzled with condensed milk. Milk tea is not bad too.

on the way to Ngong Ping. This one here is the crystal glass cabin with see thru bottom. It’s a pretty long ride to the island from Tung Chung. Good for camwhoring 😉

Ngong Ping 360 (more detailed post to come)

Tian Tan Buddha & Polin Monastery

Only 2 words. SUPER HOT!

Ok la actually ngong ping wasn’t as hot compared to Tai-0. The temple here was one of our first praying station. The other was in Man Mo Temple. We were rather lucky the entire trip. even down to the last minute before we boarded the plan. *amitabha* and there wasn’t rain at all. The week before and after our trip, there were typhoon in HK. wtf

Vegetarian meal in Ngong Ping as part of the ‘zen’

Tai-O Fishing Village (more detailed post to come)

Eastern venice, the older one.

We took a cab to Tai-O, just about 10 minutes away la. The bus comes only once every 1 hour so it’s no point waiting for it. Furthermore, it was our only ‘hk cab’ ride 😉

Walked till the very end where we reached this gorgeous place; and spent the next 1 hour there taking pictures ;x

Gai Daan Jai, made with charcoal fire and stuffed muah chee (bottom right) which we found along the streets of Tai-O.

After exploring Tai-O, took a bus back to Tung Chung Citygate outlet (which is kinda just next to the MTR station). Shopped and had a quick and not so interesting dinner cause we were all so tired and don’t know what to eat (in Tung chung) So then we headed back to the city and went to Yee Shun milk Company to have double boiled milk and spam egg sandwich. BEST THING EVER! why scrambled eggs taste so good there.

Yee Shun Milk Company

G/F, 246-248 Sai Yeung Choi Street South
Hong Kong

(there are other branches, do check them out)

Day 3

Australia Dairy Company > Kowloon Ferry Terminal > Macau > Senado Square > Ruins of St Paul > The venetian > Taipa Village > back to HK > Mak’s Noodles > Chung Kee Dessert

this was the day where we ate the most at different places. probably about 8 -10 times. good and bad ones. Haven’t had much to do in Macau as the weather was scorching hot!! even hotter than ngongping and tai-o.. Plus it was overly crowded, and we absolutely fail in reading portuguese road signs. Tried to look for a few eating places but can’t seem to find them 😡 But nevertheless (still going back in Jan 2013 anywaayyy) lets’ start with BREAKFAST!

My most favourite breakfast in Hong Kong. (2nd was Tim Ho Wan, just cause generally I prefer scrambled eggs bread over dim sum. But no, dim sum in Tim Ho wan is sooooo gooooddd. i’m torn. i can’t decide.. )\

Australia Dairy Milk Company

G/F, 47-49 Parkes Street, Jordan

Do not miss this place. It must be some magic. scrambled eggs so wtf-ing good. The double boiled milk is less milkier than Yee shun, so for those who aren’t that keen on dairy products, try the one in ADMC. It’s a shame they don’t have spam here. Haha. Also the ‘dung zai feh” Iced black coffee is yum!!! Must order : any scrambled egg sandwich, double boiled milk pudding. *Oh hi I will see u again in Jan 2013 ;)*

Senado Square, Macau

Ruins of St. Paul’s, Macau.

The Venetian in Macau. I WANT to go to the real Venice. I cannot do fake sky and fake river.

portuguese style baked chicken, pork noodles, pork chop bun. why pork so yummy there.

Macau was crazy hot and it was so so so crowded. Not sure why, maybe it’s holiday in China ? Now that we’re giong back again in Jan 2013, I’m not sure if I should get ground tour or a private van to chauffeur us around 😡 Well it’s gonna be winter so it won’t be hot for sure. i had a few food places that I wanted to go in Macau but couldn’t find Lord Stow’s / Margaret’s Portuguese egg tart. Found Tai Lei Loi Kee for pork chop but we were abit too late. and …. they didn’t even heat the bun for us 😡

A separate post for Macau, another day. After Macau, we went back to Hong Kong.

 Mak’s noodles

G/F, 55 Parkes Street, Jordan

Parkes street is food haven. We ordered beef noodles and wanton as well. Wanton tasted too good here. Just skin and shrimp, no extra nonsensical minced meat.

Chung Kee Dessert shop

G/F, 23 Parkes Street, Jordan

So we kinda passed by this dessert shop with lots of people queuing in front and we’re wondering what’s the big fuss about. we took a number, went for dinner in Mak’s Noodle and then came back to Chung Kee Dessert Shop. boy, it was packed inside!! Well, to be honest, I never quite understood all these shaved ice dessert. or those taiwanese honeymoon dessert thingy…. hmppfff anyway, we tried this black sesame tau foo far hot dessert and a mango shaved ice. the black sesame tau foo far thingy was quite nice actually. the TFF was very smooth and not sweet.

Day 4

 Lin Heung Tea house > Pottinger Street > Lyndhurst Terrace (Lan Fong yuen milk tea & Tai Cheong Bakery) > Man Mo Temple > Duddel Street > IFC Mall (Petite Amanda & Le Gouter Bernardaud)

Lin Heung Tea House

160-164 Wellington Street, Central

BEST ‘thousand layer cake’. And the place is highly crowded. If u’re looking to experience the local yum cha culture I think this is one of the place u have to go. It’s as busy as shit and you literally have to go to the dim sum trolley and grab whatever u want. Because by the time the trolley reaches you, u get nothing but the boring stuffs. It’s the place where you share tables, sit, read newspaper, eat yummy thousand layer cake and drink tea. The steamed beancurd omelet is equally good as well. As for the rest, they’re not as memorable.

Tai Cheong Bakery

G/F, 35 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central

Lyndhurst Terrace is a another food street. there’s Tai cheong Egg tarts, Lan fong yuen milk tea on one of the ends and Jean Paul hevin chocolatier if u’re interested. We had egg tart (duh) and also on the last day before we fly back, we went back there again to buy back some tarts and tried the chicken pie as well. HK style Chicken pie is quite interesting and nice. wobbly eggs and salted crust egg tarts. I like!

Lan Fong Yuen

2 Gage Street, Central

We were here twice. once for milk tea, and another we kinda came back for early dinner (we basically have 2 dinner everyday; one at 5 and another at 9-10) Because the weather was hot, we always opt for ice instead of hot. I’m not sure if it’s the BEST milk tea, since it’s said to the THE place for HK style milk tea. but I do find it quite similar to alot of the milk tea we have drank throughout our HK trip, except the one in the airport which was sucky. the rest just was so much better compared to the ones we have in Malaysia. For dinner, we had the ginger paste pork chop noodle (or was it chicken =__= can’t remember but it was yuummmm!!

Man Mo Temple

124-126 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Island

Haha this one… well is a rather embarrassing moment. We bought our inscent sticks and went on to pray.. u know … us being us.. we had alot of inscent sticks then when walking around to different ‘altars / stations’ we realized… how come still got so many sticks and so little pots?? Usually it’s just 3 sticks right ?? Hrm… so we kinda put up the rest of remaining sticks in one of the bigger pots.. then walked out.. to seee … wtf, the main temple is in the next room .. =__=

Welllllll, got heart can edi la right ?

Starbucks

Shop M2, Mezzanine Floor
Baskerville House
13 Duddell Street, Central

We were here purely for photo purposes. when you open up the door to starbucks, u have the normal starbucks settings, but if u walk further in, there you have a nostalgic char chan teng setting. I was eyeing if starbucks HK had Milk Tea as one of the specialty but no.. 🙁

Petite Amanda

Shop 2096, Podium Level 2, International Finance Centre (IFC) Mall,

1 Harbour View Street, Central

After Central, we went to IFC Mall to check out some desserts 😡 first stop was at Petite Amanda. Well I first knew about Amanda S in “mei lui chu fong” 美女廚房 TVB’s Beautiful Cooking reality show and then years later found out that she went to Le Cordon Bleu and had her own patisserie in HK. So I went to IFC and got 2 cakes, Charlotte aux Poires and Plaisir Sucré. First look, it was … uh… really very petite loh!! well, it’s dainty and sleek overall, but quite copycat-ish in terms of the desserts. 😡 I havent had pear in cakes for a very very long time now, I found the Charlotte quite refreshing but Plaisir Sucre lacked of depth.

Le Gouter Bernardaud

Shop 2028-2029, IFC Mall, 1 Harbour View Street Central

After petiteAmanda, we proceeded with ‘walking around the mall to digest a little’ and settle for the next place, Le Gouter Bernardaud. With things looking so pretty, I can’t help but to get some stuffs. Emotion; a rose pistachio lychee cake and macarons. I couldn’t remember what was the other but that Foret noir, macaron with kirsch cherry was so yum! As for the cake, the genoise was dry, but well the flavours worked well together. I mean, who’s there to doubt pistachio rose and lychee ?

 Day 5

Honolulu Coffee Shop > Wan Chai Rd > Wun Zhai gou > Times Square > Zhe Zai Meen in Causeway bay > Victoria Peak > Kwan Kee Hotpot in Queen’s Rd W

Honolulu Coffee Shop

G/F & Mezz Floor, 176-178 Hennessy Rd., Wan Chai
灣仔軒尼詩道176-178號地下及閣樓

As days passed, we’re getting the hang of eating these for breakfast. on day 5, our destinations were places in Wan Chai and victoria peak. After some searching, honolulu is in Wan Chai. I’m not sure if it was because we were silly tired or not hungry, we don’t find honolulu’s stuff great. Go only if u’re within Wan Chai. It’s not a must go place.

砵仔王

160A Wan Chai Rd, Wan Chai

and because we haven’t had any put zhai gou / won zhai gou (chinese Red bean pudding cake) in HK we decided to do a search on it the night before. Found out that there’s this shop that sells it in Wan Chai. bingo!  and yes it was sooooo yummy!! there’s also bak thong gou (chinese white honeycomb cake) in the shop. IT SSOOO YUMMMMYYY u cannot believe it.

Sun Kee Zhe Zai Meen

49B Tang Lung Street, Causeway Bay

Well I guess zhe zai Meen (Cart noodles) is another of HK specialty ? U pick the ingredients and they will cook it with the noodles of your choice. Sounds simple but there are alot of ingredients and most of them are braised in sauces (which are very yummy) they have different soup bases. I would advice to choose 1 non-spicy and 1 spicy and must get the chicken wings! so yummmmerrrsss. the chili is freaking spicy i tell u.. it’s almost ‘ma la’ numb+spicy type.

This shop was nearby Times Square. I can’t remember (or know how to read) the shop’s name but it has the typical “tau cheong chi fan” breakfast food. somewhat shanghainese ? They had this salty tau foo far (bottom right on pic) which they added zhai poh and dried shrimps. I cann’t get this one, it’s abit weird for me. There was another version which is salty soy bean drink which they added quite the same stuffs and yau zhar kwai… Maybe that one would be better ? hrm.. interesting food here..

After which we went to the Peak. I mean, if you’re travelling in Hong Kong, you’re obligated to go to this place, kinda. Another one of those places packed with tourists, cameras and strong wind.  And maybe admire those houses on hilltop 😉  We skipped madame tussauds as we’re running short of time and it wasn’t one of our ‘must see / must do’ thing. So we casually skipped it.

Kwan Kee Hot Pot

Shop 1, Wo Yick Mansion, 263 Queen’s Road West, Western District
西環皇后大道西263號和益大廈地下1號舖

Mother of all claypot rice. Oh it’s called ‘pou zhai fan’ and not our usual ‘ngah pou fan’ in Hong Kong. My friend said that this place is awefully CROWDED and u should call in to book a table. So we wanted to but seeing that we spent alot of time in The Peak, we didn’t bother to. it was 9++ anyway and only us have dinner that late. We went there, reached about 10pm, empty tables! YAY!

We had one of our best dinners there. BEST claypot rice. BEST salted fish. U need to have at least 3 person to finish the pork bone hot pot soup.

for the claypot rice, when it is served, the sauce is in a separate bowl. So u have to pour the sauce in then stir. now there’s abit of skill involved in stirring. ideally what u’re doing is stirring just the middle part and leave the sides attached to the pot. Then u eat the middle part first …by the time u get to the sides … they’re crispy like rice crackers!! sticky chewy caramelized rice.. oh so gooood. definitely coming back for that in Jan 2013.

Day 6

Tim Ho Wan dimsum > last min shopping here n there > airport > KL

Tim Ho Wan

G/F, 9-11 Fuk Wing Street, Sham Shui Po
深水埗福榮街9-11號地下

Save the best for last ? you bet! Tim Ho Wan is probably the world’s cheapest 1 michelin starred restaurant. It’s uber delicious and the char siew polo bun is SO GOOODDD!! The har gau (prawn dumpling) skin is like…. magic. I don’t really like eating har gau’s skin because it tends to be either powdery, or thick like eating gum. So this one was thin, slightly translucent and QQ. Even if u eat it while its not so hot, it’s still delicious. We actually went to the 2nd shop in Sham Shui Po, and not the main shop in Mong Kok cause reason no.1, we don’t have time to wait SO LONG and no.2 The sham shui po outlet was just 5 mins walk away from our apartment! goodness why didn’t we go earlier 😡

They don’t have much on the menu so if u go with a group of 5-6 people, u literally can get everything from the menu! although it’s a wise choice to get Char siew polo bun one each. each plate comes with 3 pcs.

Fast forward, to the airport, we found this capsule heaven with LOTS of capsule machine. Basically 3 of us went round in the shop twisting eggs lol! it was sooo fun omg. And spent the next 90 minutes up in the plane opening the capsules and taking pictures and trying not to make too much noise 😛

I guess that’s the end of it and …..

WE HAD SO MUCH FUN!

Looking forward to be back in Jan 2013 😉