AT in SG: Just My Asian Luck

Before you visit Singapore, there are a couple things you should know:

Taxis consider being flagged down like an invitation to dinner.

“No thank you!”

“Busy!”

“I am washing my hair!”

Don’t take it personally.  

Everyone’s speaking English, but everyone’s speaking a different language.

“I need this signed immediately.”

“Can.”

“Thank you. Please sign here.”

“No-lah! I cannot sign! 3 days for processing.”

“But you said you can sign.”

“Can.” 

It's home to the world’s worst website.

Have you ever heard of a website that is only open from 8 am to 8 pm, has a 10 page application yet does not let you navigate to a specific page, does not generate automatic error messages, does not process applications in the order they are received, and does not validate credit card information to process payment?  I know.  I am also impressed. 

Singapore hates you.

If you want it, they don’t have it.  If you need it, it doesn’t exist.  And then it will rain. 

It’s OK to feel like a Loopy Nut in Singapore.

AT in SG: A Quest for Kaya Toast

Kaya is coconut and pandan jam.  See that goopy green stuff she’s pouring into the bucket?  That’s kaya.

For kaya toast, they cut a piece of bread in half, spread kaya on it, then place thick pats of butter on top of the kaya for a crispy and creamy bite of joy.

I wanted it and I wanted to know which one was the best. In my limited time, I tried three popular chain’s kaya toasts.  I regret not trying Wang Something’s kaya toast in the airport.  Now I’ll never know how theirs ranks. 

Toast Box

Toast Box adds honey to their kaya.  In my opinion, the honey overpowers the coconut and pandan flavors and it just tastes like honey toast.  It was satisfying, but not exactly what I was looking for.  The peanut butter toast was fun.

Ya Kun Kaya Toast

Since Time Out Singapore listed this one as a top pick for kaya toast and since it’s named after kaya toast, I expected this one to be the best.  I was a little disappointed.  There wasn’t enough kaya in the toast for me to tell what the kaya itself actually tasted like.  I guess I should have expected this, the way you can be disappointed when “Quality Computers” are not very high quality after all.

Not to say I didn’t enjoy it.  The soft boiled eggs were very good. 

Coffee and Toast

Another establishment named after toast, this one was my favorite.  The toast is thin and crisp, they give a generous spread of coconutty kaya, and the butter plops round out the combination nicely.  I went back to Coffee and Toast for one last hurrah to solidify that it was the actual winner.  It was. 

AT in HK: Week Stew-ve Got a Friend in Me

If you've ever wondered if making bad puns is a marketable skill, the answer is yes.

Before I left, my mother said, “It will be nice for you to have the support of your Hong Kong colleagues over there.”  Rather than tell her the truth that I would actually have no colleagues, office, internet, or resources, I responded with “Yes.”

But I can’t say that I've been lonely though I have been alone.  I would like to dedicate Week Stew to finding friends in unexpected places and my love for soup evolving towards clay pot stews.

When my boss came to visit, he asked if I’d been lonely.  I told him no because I had The Soup Man (see previous post).  Besides, when I visit The Soup Man I get to dine with some of Hong Kong’s finest and we have a lot of great conversations about how great our table manners are in between slurping bites and spitting bones directly onto the table.

I stumbled upon this place in Wanchai for lunch.  There is only one man who directs the crowds.  Like the sorcerer’s apprentice, he sends groups of hungry diners to several different corners of the restaurant at once.  Note: If you order the “beef brisket soup” and expect beef brisket, you will be disappointed when you receive pork feet.  I intentionally ordered beef brisket for the pork feet though.

I met a very nice man named Yossi who owns a pastry shop called 126 grammes.  They specialize in choux.  I chatted with him for a long time, and we had such a good time talking that I forgot to pay for my pistachio crème and cherry confit choux.  It was delicious.  For the record, I ran back up the hill to pay him when I realized that I’d just become a thief of 18 HKD.

This is a pretty kitty with a merciless heart.  She nearly successfully pounced on a bird mid-flight.  I could tell she was going for the kill, and I like that about her. 

My Hong Kong obsession with food in clay pots began after a trip to Yau Mau Tei with a friend to enjoy some 煲仔飯.  Then I remembered everything tastes better in a clay pot because it makes and keeps your food super hot.  As in, this-food-is-only-for-looking-and-not-for-eating hot.  The result is a nice crispy char on your rice and a really happy Alexa with yet another burned tongue.  

This group of friends seemed to be having a really great time.  They kept yelling “Squid!” in Mandarin and laughing.  I didn’t really understand the punch line, but I went ahead and laughed with them.

Cafe O is actually run by a little old lady who loves milkshakes.  She is there when Cafe O opens and closes.

Every day, a little hunchback lady comes into ifc mall to clean herself in the washroom.  She mutters as she wipes down her face, arms, and legs with the paper towels and nobody bothers her. 

This taxi made fun of me when I said “I want to go here” in Mandarin and then handed him an address card.  He said, “No! Read it!”  It felt a lot like I was in Chinese school again, especially when I filled in the words I didn’t know with “something, something” and he finished the phrase for me.  Then he made me practice saying numbers in Cantonese when we got to the apartments.

This taxi was the nicest taxi I’d ever met.  I needed to visit a storage warehouse far away in Kai Chung, and when he wasn’t exactly sure how to get there he called the number and asked for directions.  He told me how he believed Taiwanese people have the best-sounding Mandarin, how people from the PRC are rude, and how impressed he was that my Chinese didn’t even have an accent.   He was probably flattering me for extra tips, but I didn’t fall for it.  I believe in China thriftiness even if this is a Special Administrative Region.

I met some relatives I didn’t know I had.  The little one got restless at lunch and went outside with their nanny.  He returned with an entire bunch of balloons and a huge smile.  Watch the video to see what the older one named me. I think I’ll officially adopt this name when I have the chance.

Here, the little one is concentrating on pooping.

I was shaky-hungry one day and decided to try a place I’d read about.  I ordered laksa, a vegetable, and some tea.  I was served laksa, a vegetable, and some very medicinal-smelling herbal bone soup.  When he first put it down, I clapped and thought, “Soup!” but then I wondered out loud if I had actually ordered this.  The nice girls who had just sat down at my table figured it out for me – it turns out that Mandarin for “tea” sounds a lot like “bone soup” in Cantonese.  They were really hungry from just running 12K, and they also ordered a lot of food (though intentional).  We decided to share our feast as new friends, and the waiter laughed at our greedy Canadian-American appetites. 

This is a clay pot stew of pork knuckles.  I think my neighbors may have been a little disgusted at how quickly I inhaled this.  I was hungry.

My cousin I’d never met invited me to hike with her and some friends.  We went out to the new territories to Yuen Long, a place I could never figure out how to get to on my own.  Her friends also ordered a feast of dim sum for us followed by many tasty and local desserts. 

For my last Hong Kong dinner, I chose one more fish ball clay pot stew.  It was awesome.

This is Kitty Ting Ting and Sweet Sweet the Rabbit.  They love to talk about pockets.  I learned a lot about friendship and self-worth from reading this book.  Thanks for the life lesson, Tin Hau library!

AT in HK: Adventures and Misadventures

A thoughtful friend of mine asked me a few questions about my trip so far:

How’s HK?

What’s your biggest surprise so far?

What’s your biggest embarrassment?

Where’s your favorite non-Garrett place to eat?

How’s your apartment?

At the time, these questions overwhelmed me due to the Great Internet Meltdown of 2013.  I speak for us all when I say we are grateful it’s January, and the worst of the year has already passed.

I will sum up my answers to all of these questions with this diagram of my week in review.

Starting neither left to right nor top to bottom, this is how it happened.

No-internet apartment

I thought it would be fairly simple to set up internet for the apartment.  Wrong, I was so wrong.  Despite their response of “yes” to everything you ask, internet companies are not willing to set up connections for temporary and foreign residents of Hong Kong.  Thanks to our realtor, we found one willing to compromise.  But when the technician came last week, we discovered the signal wasn’t strong enough for a cursory hook up.  They could come back in a week, and no they were not open to the idea of accepting bribes.

As I type, there are two Cantonese men sitting on my living room floor chatting away, probably about how this apartment is actually lined with lead so that information can neither enter nor leave the unit.  They also just told me, “No, this will not be wireless! Haha!”  

Café that doesn’t mind squatters

Since I do not have internet, I have taken residence in the neighboring Café O.  It is a friendly place with nice hot beverages and a wait staff that doesn’t bother you if you stand outside the door before they open to use their wireless. 

To add to its charm, in the last week I have made a friend named Josephine who is studying law, thrilled my café neighbors with 2 hours of conference calls, and been hit on by a random dude in sweats (I swooned).

Coldest closet and home of GP in Hong Kong

When I’m not at Café O, I use the internet from the cold and dark closet/office of our Shop.  I can’t work there very long though if I want to maintain feeling in my fingers.  Regardless, I’ve enjoyed getting to know everyone there and they are very nice to me.  My best phrase in Cantonese right now is probably, “You can try!”

Nicest pastry chef I’ll ever meet

I met Gregoire Michaud, pastry chef of the Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong.  He kindly let me into his kitchen and offered me a mini sourdough baguette fresh from the oven.  It was delightfully crisp, warm, and tender.  If you can eat one of these without smiling, you are probably a robot.

Good-looking white people like this area

The mid-level escalator connects my no-internet apartment to the very cold closet.  My observations tell me that you can only hang out at establishments along the escalator if you are a good-looking white person.  Or if you are selling internet.  As I am neither white nor an internet peddler, I just ride the escalator and watch the people talk about how good looking they are.

The Soup Man

Sometimes I wander away from the escalator on my way down the hill to see what I’ll find.  What I found is The Soup Man.  I walk up to him, smile, point to a bowl of soup that someone is eating, he barks at the soup chef, and then a few minutes later I have a bowl of hot and delicious soup.  Pig stomach?  Mystery fish paste balls?  Unidentified offal?  Yes, please. 

The Soup Man is my favorite, but Hong Kong is generally a wonderful land of soup.  I have soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  They are all different and delicious.

  

My understanding of HK’s street system

A week later, I’ve finally got Hong Kong’s system down: MTR -> mall -> walkway -> mall -> MTR -> walkway -> lost -> lost -> lost -> eat soup and feel better that I’ve been lost for so long. 

Construction wasteland + the worst mall ever

On a quest for adventure, I got stuck in The Elements, probably the worst mall in the world.  There is only a way in.  There is no way out.  And if you do manage to find your way out, you will get stuck in a construction wasteland for hours. 

A really big teddy bear lives here

I finally found a way out of the construction wasteland and surfaced in a place with civilization.  Civilization was really excited about this giant bear.  So I took a picture too.

A lot of lights

I also found a lot of lights close to the really big teddy bear.

A lot of lights

I walked through Lan Kwai Fong.  It was bright and loud.

Bus drivers who drive here will not tell you when to alight

Mini buses do not have actual stops – they only stop before the final destination if you tell them where to let you off.  I showed the bus driver the name of the place I needed her to stop, and I thought she agreed to tell me when we were there.  She did not tell me.  Luckily, I used a couple landmarks and context clues to hop off the bus in the nick of time.  I will most likely never ride a mini bus again.

Angry taxi and shady printers

I rode to the end of the Island MTR Line to talk to a printer at his “paper factory.”  That was my first clue that this place would be difficult to find.  I started following Google’s blue dot towards the address, but when I saw that it told me I’d have to walk up a very steep gradient for 2 miles, I decided to get in a taxi in case the blue dot was wrong. 

The taxi was cheesed that I didn’t speak Cantonese and that my Google maps was not the local version.  He kept repeating, “Where is it?” and I kept repeating, “I don’t know!”  Finally he figured out what I was talking about and lectured me about not having the Chinese version of Google maps on my phone.

There was no door to the building, only a crowded loading dock.  I saw a sign in Chinese that said something about customers, maybe, so I followed it.  I found an elevator and some lady asked me what floor I was going to, I responded in Cantonese, and she guided me to a creaky old elevator.

It doesn’t matter what happened after that because I consider this two-line exchange in Cantonese an utter success.

Post-Great Internet Meltdown of 2013 Thoughts

Now that I've accepted that lost is found and all problems can be solved with a bowl of good soup, my friends and I are glad to call Hong Kong home for the month.

Lunch Plans With Unicorns

"Maybe I'll buy some tuna."
"Maybe I'll buy a unicorn."
"Oh, we would like that."
"Where will it sleep?"
"In the warmth of my embrace."

Let's Talk About

Butter.
Wonderful, delicious, creamy, rich butter.

A friend and I were recently grocery shopping, and he asked if it mattered if we got margarine or butter.  After recovering from the shock of even being asked this question, I responded with a very deliberate, "Yes."

Butter and margarine are not interchangeable.  Butter and shortening are not interchangeable.  Let's just agree right now that we will never use any sort of butter substitute, period.  In fact, make this url your mantra: butterisbest.com.

Margarine is made through hydrogenation, a chemical process that only occurs through chemical tinkering.  On the other hand, butter is made by simply churning cream until the fat separates from the liquid.
Finding a recipe to make butter: Easy.  Finding a recipe to make margarine: Hope you're a scientist.

Most importantly, butter tastes amazing and margarine tastes like nothing.

My latest obsession is Nordic Creamery's summer butter.  After trying some at Green City Market last week, I have not been able to stop thinking about it.  This morning I visited the market again, and I bought my own tub of summer butter.  It is so creamy that it tastes a little like cheese, but I kind of enjoy when my butter tastes like cheese (and when my cheese tastes like butter for that matter).  It's smooth and sweet, and best of all - it's real butter churned just next door in Wisconsin.

Chipotle Cultivate Festival

I happened to drive by this advertisement on my way to the gym earlier this week.  First to grab my attention: Chipotle.  Next: Free Admission.  Quickly confirming with myself that October 1st was still in the future and that my current city was Chicago, I arranged my weekend plans to include the festival.

I was especially excited to learn that Richard Blais would be doing a celebrity chef demo after watching him win Top Chef All-Stars (if you want to relive it in charts and bullet points) earlier this year.  He was great to watch from beginning to end - passionate, creative, and clearly there to win.  I got really concerned thinking about what would happen if he didn't win because he took himself so seriously.  I was relieved when he won.

At the demo, he was much more personable than I had expected, given his serious attitude as a Top Chef.  He made fun of fancy food, he told jokes about his hair (styled with equal parts bacon fat and liquid nitrogen), and he tried to get the crowd to cheer when he said self-designated words-of-the-day.  I wanted to cheer when he said "oxtail," but I felt like it would be too much to be sitting dead center in the front row and cheering for cow parts.

His "Chipotle inspired" demo menu included:

Liquid nitrogen frozen ginger-infused margaritas

See how liquid nitrogen can make fluffy frozen margaritas?

Chorizo chips with tomato salsa jelly and queso froth

Assembling the tiny amuse bouches

Roasted tamale topped with oxtail in a grape-infused jus and lobster tail and a fresh corn and grape salsa

I too love my pressure cooker.

They gave out a few samples, but I wasn't of the lucky few that got one.  I can tell you that the food looked better than this picture:

It looks like it's wearing a hat.

Seeing the crowd that gathered around him after the demo, I immediately ditched the goal I'd made to snap a picture with him.  But as fate would have it, I ended up crossing paths with him and here we are as BFFs.

Neither of us is feeling awkward.

So thanks, Fate.  Thanks for bringing me to Chicago, letting me drive by this advertisement before the festival happened, having the bus pull up just as I stepped out of the apartment, and for making Richard Blais want to eat a bowl of Chipotle chili at the same time I wanted to.