Hong Kong Foodie (and Drinky)

originally posted on 1/11/07

This should be the last of my 143 part series on the Hong Kong trip. After that, I might start blogging (a verb that my 2002 version of MS Word's spell check does not recognize, nor should it, really) on developments that are actually current, seeing as how I do have a new job and apartment and really a whole new life that started a week and a half ago that I have thus far been silent on.

As for this blog – do you want to know how good the food in Hong Kong is? There's a Hardee's there, a fucking Hardee's. I love Hardee's, it's the only fast food place that I actually drove 40 miles specifically to get to (Balto to York, PA), eat at, and then return home. I spent over 40 minutes to drive someplace that required 15 minutes to eat. I spent more on gas getting there than I did on food. And I would do it again. That's how much I love Hardee's. As for the Hardee's in Hong Kong – never made it there. The food in Hong Kong was that awesome.

Don't get me wrong, I did eat at an American-style place, twice in fact. That would be Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill. Like I could resist that. Hell, I'm not on a two-week holiday from back home, I'm in Korea for at least another year, and there's not much in the way of Chicago Dogs in Seoul. Dan Ryan's served far from the perfect dog, but it is probably a safe bet that it was the best one east of Gary.

Beyond that, I also had Hong-Kong style dim sum twice, which I'd never had before and was fucking killer. Plus, I noshed at a Brazilian buffet/meat on a sword joint, and Indian joint, and a Malaysian joint. The Malaysian may have been the best of all, but was so hot I couldn't finish it. Remember, I'm the kid that brought a bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce with me to Korea, so that's saying something. Really, the only food places I avoided in Hong Kong were the Korean ones, which there were tons of, because I figured they aren't too hard to find around Seoul.

As for the drinky – there was surprisingly little. By little, of course, I still mean no less than 5 beers a day, for fuck's sake, I was still on vacation in a warm location in a foreign country sporting a high budget, so it's not like I was hanging out at church. Basically, when I say I didn't drink much, it means that I really only had one full-on, nothing-makes-sense, rock out, money-pissing night out - Friday night, my third in Hong Kong. I had budgeted around $200 a day for the trip, and on Friday, including lodging, I had only managed to spend about $40, so I had obtained plenty of drinking capital, and I intended to spend it. (Sorry, that's two lame presidential quotes in two blogs. To complete the malaise, I would just like to say that I did not have sex with that woman, so tear down this wall to the 1,000 points of light. Also, I am almost positive that there must be some sort of grammar rule against ending a paragraph with a parenthetical phrase).

So, I went to Lan Kwai Fong, at happy hour time. Beers, as I've said, are expensive as hell in Hong Kong, but most places feature a "happy hour," which is actually several hours long, usually a 3 or 4 hour block falling somewhere in the 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. window, depending on the bar. Everything is pretty much half price at happy hour, which means you can get a beer for as low as $4. I started out in some German bar and ordered a Konig. Apparently, this place takes their pouring much more seriously than any bar in Germany, because the barmaid told me it would take 7 minutes to pour one right. I agreed to this, and ordered a Heineken bottle in the interim. I noticed immediately after knocking back these two beers that I felt a bit buzzed – I was going to get plowed, and quickly, it seemed. I moved on to another bar, ended up hitting a few, including one with a shitty house band playing shitty top 40 songs that I of course got way to into while they were playing. At some point I got Malaysian food, then hit another bar, before getting on the ferry at around midnight to hit the Kowloon bars. I will now go to the "live" report that I wrote on the ferry:

Try not rocking out on the pod listening to Thunderstruck (ACDC). Oh, Thunderstruck doesn't rock? Listen to it, then imagine a song you'd rather hear. None? What I thought. (Yes, much like the Faith No More incident in Gangnam a couple months ago, I was forced to rock out in the streets when "Thunderstruck" came on. Like you wouldn't? Drunk me was right there, the song kicks ass.)

Later on that evening, I went to the Peninsula Hotel's bar, on the 28th floor of one of the finest hotels in the world. Probably one of the world's best views as well, overlooking the harbor and the Hong Kong skyline across it. I had a martini, not about to order a beer in such a high class joint. My memory at this point in the evening is a bit spotty, but judging from what I wrote at the bar, it seems I decided to pretend that I was a travel writer from the Wall Street Journal, possibly to get free drinks, more likely to get faster service. Seems like a fine plan, and I wrote of it, apparently after my initial ruse, "I wonder if this would work if I were a Wall Street Journal travel writer. Although I doubt they have a travel section. Where would they write about, Houston? I don't think the waiter believes my guise."

I remembered reading in the Lonely Planet that the pisser at the Peninsula Bar is worth the trip to the bar itself. Fortunately, at this point in the evening, motivation for seeking out a pisser was not at a premium. I think only by fulfilling every man's dream and pissing off the Hoover Dam could I top this. 28th floor, floor to ceiling window, darkened room to match the dark outside, a waist-high or so marble partition between you and the window, I guess to make sure that no birds or helicopters are checking out your johnson. I gotta say, I've pissed everywhere from the Paris Ritz to a Tijuana alley, and the Peninsula is hands down number one when it comes to number one.

So, that should wrap up my Hong Kong blog, finally. In conclusion, China is a land of contrasts.