Not too far of a walk from Wan Chai MTR station on Hong Kong island, you will find the Islamic Centre Canteen on the 5th floor of a muslim religious centre. People come to the Masjid Ammar and Osman Ramju Sadick Islamic Centre to pray, but also to enjoy good halal Chinese food. How can you have dim sum without pork, one might ask.

We ordered a generous variety of dim sum classics such as har gow, siu mai (w/o pork, eh), cheong faan and lo mai gai, and were able to get out of there for HKD30 (CAD4) each. Normal: the “big” (most expensive) dim sum were priced at only HKD12. I must say that it wasn’t the best dim sum I ever had in Hong Kong, but it was decent enough. It is featured in the Hong Kong tourist guide for people of muslim faith, and we noticed a number of people from Southeast Asia.

Islamic Centre Canteen. 5/F, 40 Oi Kwan Road. Wan Chai, Hong Kong, 2834 8211. Business Hours: 9:00a.m.10:00p.m.

Some things, you won’t see if you only visit Lamma on the weekends, or simply wake up too late. You might not see some of the fresh meat shops, that seem to be open early in the morning, or the fish market, which is only there up until 9am (and around 4pm in the weekdays).

The Yung Shue Wan “fish market” (because it’s like two vendors in what would be a small parking space for less than two mini-trucks) is located beside the Waterfront bar, close to the small pier for fishing boats opposite the main ferry pier, in the same bay.

The morning hour of commuting is always a bit of rush for me, a normally evening person. But I also enjoy taking the time to walk to the pier, rather than jog (or sometimes sprint) to it. I come out ten minutes earlier and pay more attention to my surroundings.

Yung Shue Wan, the village near the ferry pier, and largest village of Lamma Island, is completely different depending on the times you visit it. It’s, as you can imagine, a lot like a jungle or any ecosystem, at different times of the day, with a changing fauna and flora.

At night, you will see the night-dwellers come out, enjoying drinks under a starry night. In the weekend, tourists take over Lamma, and “normal life” hides under the cover (for instance delivery trucks are forbidden in Yung Shue Wan on weekend afternoons). And in the morning, vendors that you never see at other moments of the day suddenly appear: the guy who sells DVDs, the lady who sells her freshly picked veggies, and the meat/fish merchants.

This is an unfamiliar sight on a Sunday morning in Exchange Square, in Central, Hong Kong. Normally, these are prime spots for Filipina maids to take on the only day off of the week for many of them.

In Hong Kong, Central (and Victoria Park too) is known as the hang-out places for domestic helpers, who otherwise live with their employers. You can picture it as Hong Kong’s financial heart being transformed into a sort of outdoor bazaar.

The note to make is that it was barely 8AM when I took this picture this morning, which explains everything. However, you could already see a few people preparing their spots, or at least reserving theirs.

Stephen Harper arrived in China on Wednesday, December 2nd, but it’s almost as if he did not. In Hong Kong at least, only official media (the China Daily) seems to be aware that our Prime Minister is visiting China on an official foreign mission — and they weren’t even cordial about it, criticizing him for not coming earlier.

What was in the Hong Kong papers today, December 4th, which concerns with the Prime Minister of Canada (with its 1.3 million-strong Chinese minority) visiting China? In the South China Morning Post, we have an article at the bottom of page A6, the last national news page:

And flipping through Ming Pao and Sing Tao for a photo of Harper or mention of the characters “加拿大” (Canada), I found none and concluded that none of these major Hong Kong-based Chinese-language newspapers thought it was an issue as important as the two or three full pages to covering the Kam Nai-Wai saga, which saw new developments today.

In Thursday’s SCMP, the day after Harper’s stop in Beijing, there was also the puny A6 article, also taken from a press agency (despite the fact that the SCMP has a bureau in Beijing):

If we go back to the case of the China Daily, I must say that I did like most people in China and did not pick it up (it’s not a paper that people tend to read much). However, I did notice its signboard at the newsstand with the daily title, which had the word “thaw” in it if I remember well. This does contrast a lot with ecstatic treatment of Wen Jiabao’s visit to North Korea in October, or more recently, Obama’s visit to China (Obama being Obama, the news did cover page of many newspapers and fronted newscasts for most of the week he was here).

Other papers that had the choice chose not to cover Harper’s visit.

Adam Met Karl, also better known as AMK, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. For the occasion, the Hong Kong indie band is releasing a boxset with 6 CDs containing all their works, plus a video DVD of their concerts. Prices or locations to buy this collection object have not been released yet, but you can go check out their Facebook page for more infos…

www.facebook.com/pages/AMK-history/172360648787/

AMK is an influential band for Hong Kong’s scene today. While it retired for more than a decade, a few years ago, Harbour Records released a cover album named In the name of AMK with many well-known Hong Kong bands.

Because AMK’s albums are nowhere to be found second-hand, I am particularly looking forward to this boxset’s release…

Coal

Wind

(In fact, it’s important to note that electricity generated by the coal power plant is used to power most of Hong Kong Island…)

Eating local in Hong Kong is a rather hard thing to do. The most local food usually gets are fruits and vegetable from over the border in China’s Guangdong province.

However, if you are living in the “countryside”, like on Lamma Island, chances are that you might be finding a small farm next to where you are living. This is what I discovered when my friend who has been living on Lamma for some time took me to this small chunk of land, in the small valley at the entrance of Tai Peng village, cultivated by an man maybe in his 60s. With his peasant hat, tool in hand, he seems to be straight out of some old movie, growing his vegetables on this island that is better known for its seafood, great outdoors and hippie culture.

(Next to their field, they are going to be developing new houses… so who knows if the farm’s going to last.)

For one HKD (13 Canadian cents), you can get about three branches of choy sum (菜心), with gigantic leaves. For the same price, you can also get more than enough of green onions (蔥), for what would cost 2-3 times more in Lamma’s grocery stores, and 4-5 times more in my hometown in Canada.

The next day, I came back for some yeen choy (莧菜), a kind of Chinese spinach with red pigmentation on its leaves also called Amaranth, a lad tougher than the regular kind of spinach. A portion for that evening’s dinner cost me two HKD (about 25 Canadian cents). They were delicious, fried with garlic and salt.

The lettuce, the man said, were going to be plump enough at the end of November…

A view of the field as dinnertime approaches…

…and my sink at dinnertime

Edit (2010-01-02):

Pour les Québécois parmi mon lectorat, imaginez Ginette Reno reprises par les artistes indie (et plus) les plus connus au Québec. Rebecca Pan (潘迪華), c’est une chanteuse née en 1931 à Shanghai qui a débuté sa carrière musicale dans les années 50 à Hong Kong. Si le nom vous dit (peut-être) quelque chose, c’est parce qu’elle a joué un petit rôle dans In the Mood for Love (celui de Mrs. Suen, une des madames shanghainaises) et que son tube Bengawan Solo (une chanson traditionnelle indonésienne) est dans la bande musicale du film.

Cet album est un peu ce que ça serait à Hong Kong, avec en plus des chansons en duo avec l’artiste originale…

***

Basically, to translate, I got this new tribute album to Rebecca Pan (潘迪華), who is a famous Chinese singer starting from the 50s. She might be known in the West for her appearance in In the Mood for Love, and a song in this film’s soundtrack.

Aside from covers, there are also original songs and duets. The artists who contributed to the album are all well-known names of the Hong Kong “indie” and sometimes mainstream scenes. That’s PixelToy, My Little Airport, the pancakes, at17, Eason Chan, Chet Lam and GaYumYan.

Golden Lake brothel at night…

…and during the day.

One of my most popular posts ever on Comme les Chinois, was when in March 2008, I re-posted on a friend’s article on a friend’s impression (as a passerby) of Shanghai Street in Kowloon.

Why was it so popular? Because Shanghai Street, along with Portland and Reclamation Streets in their Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei portions (between Shantung and Dundas) are often synonymous with the sex trade and is home to one of Hong Kong’s most well-known red-light districts. Day or night, as seen in the previous pictures, brothels operate as if prostitution was legal in Hong Kong. You walk around these streets at any time, and you will notice lit-up signs in flashy pink, or the red/pink neons hanging outside on the street or inside the staircase leading up to the establishment.

Perhaps most shockingly comes the “price list“, where the Chinese girl goes for HKD250 (CAD35) and the Malay or Filipina girl will make your wallet lighter by HKD200 (CAD28).

Langham Place

The Mong Kok red-light district is in fact just one or two blocks away from flashy Langham Place, a commercial complex that opened in 2004 and whose unavowed goal was to “sanitize” the neighborhood west of Nathan in Mong Kok. In terms of urban renewal, Hong Kong has used this stratagem before, in the early 90s with Times Square (時代廣場) in Causeway Bay and more recently with the apm shopping mall in Kwun Tong, which opened in 2005. While Times Square was a huge success, developing a largely residential area into the location to be for brand-name shopping in Hong Kong, it is still to early to tell if this would have the same effect on Langham Place’s surroundings.

A walk in the neighborhood (during the day) is quite uneventful. The area mostly has home renovation, and construction material, and metal shops, with a brothel at about every 50-100 meters. Ah-suks (uncles) working in the businesses look at you funny, but what seemed to be pimps, left you alone as you took a quick picture of their premises (without them in there, of course).

As it provides an “essential service” in a city of about 7 million souls, the Hong Kong government should leave this part of the city alone, as long as the triads don’t start shooting each other in broad daylight.

Home renovation and green light

Chinese BBQ

And now, on a cultural note… In Chinese, “ordering chicken” (叫雞), like in getting chicken from a Chinese BBQ shop, is slang for patronage of female prostitutes. So, “ordering goose/duck” (叫鵝) is the patronage of male prostitutes…

Got lost on my way to my friend’s home, near Prince Edward MTR, towards the Northwest into Sham Shui Po. In return, I found these few streets, close to the Poplar Street market, around Maple & Tai Nan, where most of the shops (if not all of them) were selling fabric, garment, textile, whoever you like to call it. Here is an approximate, non-exhaustive map:

View

Garment Street, Sham Shui Po in a larger map

First off, I’ve no idea of the exact address. My host for the past week, who took me to Lung Kee Wonton (龍記招牌雲吞), said that it was a well-kept secret (according to him, has the best wonton in the whole city) that only Japanese publications have covered so far outside of Hong Kong.

Why are its wontons so special? Because they are all-shrimp. That’s right: just the skins tightly wrapping bits of shrimp. My friend was himself taken there by a Muslim person. Wontons are usually pork and shrimp in the Cantonese tradition (those pork-only multiple-skin layers wontons at Chinese buffets are nothing but pale imitations).

Lung Kee’s wontons are almost like boiled har gow, so much the shrimp flavour was dominant.

Your wontons are served as wonton mein 雲吞麵, so wontons with noodles of your choice, which are the classic egg-based thin noodles , in a clear broth.

Better yet, you may also choose thick noodles, also egg-based. Aside from this, there is also the lou min 撈麵 or dry mix version, which is the wontons on noodles and veggies, without the broth and with oyster sauce on top. It’s slightly more expensive but it’s also for a slightly larger portion. So for the second serving, I had a combination of these two options.

Lung Kee is located somewhere on Carnarvon Road, across from The Masterpiece in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon side. You may find another restaurant of the same name in Jordan, but that’s not the same one (pictures of its wontons also don’t match)… So, good luck finding it!

In the meanwhile, here is the menu.

Every time I come to Hong Kong, I notice some new “alternate” flavour of a familiar product. One time, it was McDonald’s ice cream sundae served with red bean or mango sauce (in place of strawberry or chocolate, which are also available). This time, I was eating at a Japanese chain restaurant called Yoshinoya (吉野家) and one of the dessert options for HKD$3 was… tofu ice cream, distributed by Nestlé!

It looks a lot like a vanilla ice cream. Now, what does it taste like? I would say that it was as if cow milk/cream was replaced with soy milk. So, maybe it tastes like tofu. In a land where tofu is considered as much a dessert (as doufu fa or 豆腐花), the flavour name does not sound weird at all. The other available flavour? Black sesame! (zi ma woo or 芝麻糊, the base of a well-known Cantonese dessert)

However, the one time I checked in a grocery store for these flavours, I did not find any of them under the Nestlé brand…

On the same night that we visited 365 Hennessy Rd, we followed our hosts to the other side of the city to Yau Ma Tei in Kowloon.

What was the occasion? The occasion was pot rice, also called po chai fan 煲仔飯 in Cantonese. Po chai fan is rice in a clay pot served with various types of meat, vegetable, seafood or condiments on top of it. In cities like Montreal, pot rice can sometimes be ordered in a Cantonese restaurant, but usually requires too much work to be considered a typical dish that people order. In Hong Kong, pot rice can be the restaurant’s specialty, as it is the case for 四季煲仔飯 Four Seasons Pot Rice.

You can think of pot rice as a style of Chinese bibim bap, with a different range of ingredients. The pot is sizzling hot and the rice and meat are still cooking when it is brought to your table. You should then add in some soy sauce and let it cook for a few minutes. While you are waiting, it is a good idea to order some side dishes, such as fried veggies or an oyster omelette:

Fried tung choi with foo yu sauce

Oysters omelette

The two girls who brought us here told us that the location used to be a family mom-and-pop hamburger restaurant. The current tenant has done nothing about the decoration: it’s simply a large hall covered in white tiles, with fluorescent lighting and huge fans blowing.

Just like La Banquise has twenty or more types of poutine, you can choose from an endless number of “toppings” for your rice at Four Seasons Pot Rice. My friends had a variety of chicken, chicken feet and other meat, while I went for a classic chicken with Chinese mushrooms.

The price for the single pot is also ridiculously low at $HKD22 for “regular flavours” (see menu), like combinations of two of Chinese sausage, salty fish, sliced pork, liver sausage and chicken.

46-58 Arthur Street, Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon (map)

Many slopes of Hong Kong have been “reformed” such as on this picture. Concrete is poured around trees and drainage holes are made to secure the slope. Each of these simili-natural concrete walls even have an identification number (I kid you not), perhaps for use by maintenance teams.

This is the first time that I take a closer look at these walls, and we notice that there are blocks protruding out of them. Someone wants to venture a theory on this one?

I am not generally a fan of dim sum or yum cha, the terms usually used interchangeably to describe a Chinese brunch popularized by the Cantonese (and exported to the West by them). Dim sum literally means “bite heart” or “touch the heart” says Wikipedia, while Yum cha literally means “drink tea” and describe the activity of relaxing around a cup of tea (and eating dim sum, sometimes).

I’ve typically only eaten in large dim sum halls, here in Hong Kong as well as back home in Montreal. In Hong Kong, family would bring me to restaurants with overly nice decors. However, my tastes tend to range around the “beau, bon, pas cher”, a French expression from home that basically means “nice, good, inexpensive”.

叁去壹(點心粉麵飯) = Sam Hui Yat = Three Goes One

Steamers

From the tram stop in Sai Ying Pun (西營盤), we walked only a few minutes to get to 叁去壹 (Sam Hui Yat – something like Three Goes One). Located at the very beginning of Pokfulam Road (corner with First St), which eventually leads to the University of Hong Kong, some 200m up the hill, the restaurant is in fact an unassuming eatery, with no more than a dozen tables for about 30 clients at once. It was a far cry from what I imagined, perhaps because I’ve always been used to being served dim sum in large restaurants (here in Hong Kong, restaurants with carts also virtually don’t exist anymore).

I originally horribly missed my first occasion to eat here with Chinese speakers and on the time that I actually went, I was only with my non-Chinese-speaking friend. Why is that so important? Because there is not a single English character in the entire restaurant! Unable to get a good hold of the menu, I resorted to asking the waiter, who was very patient and cordial in helping me out. After listening to the chef’s suggestions, I decided to go for sure bets, namely siumai (燒賣 – seasoned ground pork in wrapper), har gow (蝦餃 – shrimp dumpling) and steamed black-bean spare ribs (豉汁排骨). It’s also a surcharge of $HKD3 for tea per person.

For the record, the siumai was juicy inside and the har gow’s shrimp crunched right under one’s teeth and the ribs were very tender. Don’t feel intimidated by the “minimalistic” setting, because the food is in fact excellent.

At the front of the restaurant was the “steamers station”, where the chef (the guy in a red sleeveless shirt) presumably steamed orders of dumplings and other dim sum. The order came very quickly, as you’d expect for a diner. To pay, don’t necessarily expect the waiter to give you the bill: just hand him the money as if you knew the total price and he will count the number of steamers (they are invariably $HKD9) or lotus leaves that you have spread out in front of you. It’s also a surcharge of $HKD3 for tea per person.

Menu (click for translation notes on Flickr)

Of course, the menu is all in Chinese, and there is another menu in the restaurant that is for non-dim sum dishes, such as fried rice and noodles. Aside from those aforementioned, Sam Hui Yat has a complete lineup of dim sum classics: fong zao (鳳爪 – chicken feet), chiu chow fun go (潮州粉果 – Chaozhou-style dumplings), char siu pao (叉燒包 – pork bun), lo mai gai (糯米雞 – lotus leaf chicken rice) and a variety of cheong fun (腸粉 – rice rolls).

Har Gow (蝦餃)

Shaomai (燒賣)

It is to be noted that the restaurant closes at 2:30PM in the afternoon. To get there, the easiest way is to take the tram going west from Central or Sheung Wan MTR (take the trams going to Whitty Street Depot or Kennedy Town). Then, walk up the slope on Western St., until you get to Pokfulam Road.

11 Pokfulam Road, Sai Ying Pun, Sheung Wan (map)