Day 19: Foodie Tour and Causeway Bay

When we were in Tokyo earlier this week, we stumbled upon Foodie Tours on trip advisor.   It sounded like a great opportunity to get into the nitty gritty of the local food culture of Hong Kong.  We booked the breakfast/lunch four hour tour of Sham Shui Po, which is a real working class neighbourhood of Kowloon.

The tours were max 12 people, but we lucked out and were grouped with just 3 other people - an elderly Kiwi couple, and a solo Kiwi middle aged woman (I mean the older middle aged... Certainly not near our age!).  Our tour leader, a mid twenties woman named Fiona was fantastic - full of information, enthusiasm and passion about the area.

You can take a look at the girls VLOG for a lowdown on the food, but here are some of broad strokes as far as the food goes...

Stop 1 - Sweet, freshly baked "pineapple buns" that were so named for their shape rather than their flavouring.   Delicious!  Served with "milk tea" which is kind of a mix between real Indian (ie served in India) Chai and English tea.  Hong Kong people are not big coffee drinkers (too strong) and this tea is a morning staple.

Stop 2 - Steamed rice rolls, served on a plate then topped with sweet or sour sauces and sesame seeds, eaten with long tooth picks.  Ironically, Fiona had lectured us before we got in that in a Chinese diner, it's common to sit with strangers (and not interact) - no big deal.   So we get to this "hole in the wall" diner and there's one local man at a table (picture below) and our group of 8 surround him and stare while he continues to eat breakfast.   It was hilarious.  And yes, I give the rice rolls a thumbs up!

Stop 3 - Soy!  We had the option here for cold, freshly made soy milk or a warm soy/tofu curd type of dessert dish that you would top with sugar.  We shared both dishes, and again I was pleasantly surprised.   It's something I would never order having not tried it, and I was really loving how each shop was highly specialized (and extremely small!).  Ironically all of the soy beans at this shop were organic soy beans from Canada (the Foodie tour carefully sources the best quality places in the area).

Stop 4 - Goose and Pork Knuckles!  Again, would we usually (ever) order pork knuckles, let alone eat them? Nope.  But I look down my table and my 10 and 12 year olds are gobbling the cold, ham-like meat down, as was my wife!  Wow.   Not too bad, though the outer part is pretty fatty but I avoided that part.   The goose was more like Turkey and again not too bad.

Stop 5 - Cookies!   Three different kinds of Chinese cookies (walnut and ??) - all very good, but what mesmerized us was watching them make some pork/cookie thing in the back... Fascinating, and how they work in such a small space in the heat of Hong Kong combined with the heat of the ovens just boggles my mind.

Stop 6 - Last stop, noodles!   The noodles were served with shrimp roe (very small red shrimp eggs) on top, and I think most of the group thought there was too much of the topping on the noodles.   Pretty good, but as a noodle lover, not my favourite.

Enough of the food, the interaction with Fiona was amazing.  She really gave us insights into the Chinese culture - how pushing and bumping into each other is no big deal (it's a small place with lots of people! :-); sitting with strangers in restaurants, no problem; insight into pawn shops and how they work for and against "saving face"; the ins and outs of the wet markets, dried seafood shops and even bead shops! - it was great.   I would often see one of the girls off to one corner talking with Fiona, and that interaction was priceless.

One of the cool things that Fiona would do is relate the neighbourhood history to the current ststus of life on Kowloon.  She pointed out some of the older apartment buildings and showed us pictures of the "condo cages" where multiple people basically live in cages sharing one small flat.  It is pretty sad and there is clearly a widening economic divide that seems to be happening more and more all over the world.

So...another great experience for us!

After some chill time (another two hour spa using up Beth's precious few makeup supplies), we walked down to Causeway Bay.  This place has been compared to Shibuya in Tokyo, but it's really a poor comparison.   It's busy for sure, but a relatively small area that lacks the hipness and energy of Shibuya.  Beth and I have been very surprised at the Japanese influence on the current culture and retail space of Hong Kong.  I was picturing Hong Kong to be hip/chic compared to Japan (well, Tokyo) but the opposite is true by far.

Last few hours in Hong Kong tomorrow, then we are off to Hanoi.