Wine and Cheese

Hong Kong Wine and Dine Festival. October 29, 2011. So this festival is this pretty huge fair or expo of different wine brands from different countries, also lots of cheese varieties (a looot), really cute bakeries and others (e.g. dumplings and lechon). A lot of the vendors were foreigners and the fair is  actually sort of divided according to country (if I remember correctly). There were also live performances in one part of the place and people everywhere had wine glasses and doing some serious wining and dining. You can buy wine tokens for HK$10 each which gets you one glass of wine of your choice (any type of wine in the fair). Some wines require you to give two wine tokens but since we were with our beautiful friend Melissa who charmed a lot of vendors, we got away with using just one for all our wine choices. Haha. I learned three things that night.

One. I know nothing about cheese. All I know are cheddar and mozzarella and maybe some other cheese in Yellow Cab‘s four cheese pizza but apparently there’s so much more to life than just those four cheeses! Haha. Melissa bought this meal with melted Raclette all over it (fifth picture). It was so good. I was so amused with the half of cheese being heated from below and this French chef scraping off the gooey Raclette of the cheese ball to the bread and cold cuts and everything else in that French meal. I bought another French meal, a smaller one with no Raclette. I don’t remember what cheese was included there but it was also very good. Glad I tried it!

I learned later on that Asians come from a lactose intolerant race. And maybe that’s why we’re not so big on cheese compared to Europeans. I later got to try cheese from Melissa’s hometown (I can’t remember what it’s called, I’ll ask later) and cheese from Holland! So many cheeses and in so many forms. Good to know, good to know.

Two. You can injure people with some French bread. I forgot what bread we took home for Jihed but I just remember it’s so hard. It’s really good but it’s hard. We took turns pinching off the bread when we got back to the dorms. I only ate a few pinches but I went to bed pretty full. No wonder most of them say that the ‘white bread’ (aka Tasty) is not real bread because it has “nothing” inside compared to their rock hard bread. They’re kidding of course but now I get why they can get through most of the day with just eating bread.

Three. I do not like real wine. They taste so bitter and pasty and strange. I mean I feel the authenticity of the wine (haha) but it was really strong. I think I have to attend some hardcore training or wine appreciation courses so I’d understand why these things are so expensive and well, how you can tell different brands/countries of origins apart. They all tasted the same to me. At the end of that night, I still preferred cheap ol’ Novelino to those wines.

Going to that festival was a great experience! Learned a lot, tasted a lot of new things and felt so cultured. Even though I didn’t like the wine, I loved the cheese and the different pastries! I would love to try more food expos/fairs here and around the world. Mercato or Binondo, anyone?

Rule # 32: Enjoy the little things.

Lazy Susan

From Top to Bottom: Dumplings for lunch in this hole-in-the-wall restaurant near the Bell and Drum Towers, Buffet Lunch, Street Food (It’s like caramelized santols on a stick.), Dinner in this traditional Chinese restaurant we found on the street (Most of it were spicy.), and of course Peking Duck (it’s pronounced as peeking)! Just wanted to share something about the food we ate in Beijing. Everyone told us to try Peking duck so of course we did and of course with the cucumber sticks and the special sauce! Reminded me of pritson which I absolutely love as well! The other dishes all remind me of the food we ate in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Spicy but really good. Photos by Kathleen

Tea Time

Qing Shan Ju Tea House, Beijing, China. November 18, 2011. This tea house is located at the East Gate of the Temple of Heaven. Part of our tour was to attend a tea ceremony in this place where they show you how to properly prepare and drink tea, teach you about the specific benefits of each tea and, the best part, let you taste the teas for free. (The catch, of course, is they will try and convince you to buy tea at the end of the ceremony. Since the one preparing our tea was so nice, we decided to buy one can of lychee tea which came with two peepee babies!)

I’ve only been a fan of tea a few months before I left because my mom suddenly wanted to eat in Teriyaki Boy all the time and we would always ask for the house tea. I know it just tastes like water with a little hint of something, but still it was pretty nice. I got even more used to it in HK, of course, since they serve free tea in almost all restaurants there. It’s also fascinating how I’ve seen my classmates bring their special tumblers with the container for the tea bag inside. I guess the market for tea drinkers is that significant. Haha. I’ve also seen tea served from different things: from a simple plastic pitcher, from actual teapots and my favorite: from a small bowl with the tea, then the waiter pours hot water into it then you have to cover it then quickly pour it into your teacup. It was challenging but was cool – seemed a pretty authentic way of drinking tea. So, with my growing appreciation for tea (also milk tea), I was pretty excited for this tea ceremony. (Plus, the fact that it’s free made it a lot more fun, unlike our friends Eric and Sander who paid 500 yuan for a tea ceremony.)

Tea Ceremony. I feel bad now for forgetting the name of our teacher. She was sooo nice. That’s good marketing skills people! So, she taught us how to drink tea. It sucks because I forgot most of it. I know we have a video for it but I can’t find it now. I just remember that the tea was in the taller cup first then poured into the small round one (please correct me if I’m wrong). What I can’t forget though is that after the tall cup is emptied, we were instructed to smell it then roll the thing on our faces for a quick hot massage. It may sound ridiculous but it felt pretty good. Then, you drink from the small circular cup; holding it with your three fingers, the ring finger supporting the bottom and the pink finger pointed upwards. Classic. Then you should finish the tea within three sips representing, health, something and longevity. My memory sucks, I’m sorry.

She also said that teas should be served from clay pots because the pots absorb the taste and makes teas in the future better tasting. She also showed us two cute things: a) peepee boy, a clay baby figuring which you immerse in cold water for a while, then you pull it out, pour boiling water on it then the baby pees b) this flower, which of course I forgot. It starts out as a green ball and then after immersing it in water, it opens up into a beautiful flower. (Seriously, they got good marketing strategies there!)

We got to taste four types of tea: a) Ginseng Oolong Tea which (according to their brochure) is good for memory, energy and kidney health b) Lychee Black Tea good for anemia and an upset stomach c) Jasmine Tea good for eyes and liver (stuffing Jasmine tea in pillows is also apparently good for headaches and sleeping problems and d) Fruit Tea which is good for digestion and which you could also just eat on its own (minus the water and everything).

Play. I loved this part of the tour. These are those things I really want to try out and experience. Aside from taking pictures and checking out the sights, I wanna do things like this. Like in the famous Move-Eat- Play videos (found in vimeo), my favorite really is Play. There’s so much to learn in this world. My favorite part was when he tried out glass blowing, pizza making and flamenco dancing (well, I think it was Flamenco.) I’m still trying to figure out how to travel and do those things at the same time, especially if you’re broke and have limited days in a certain place. Mmm. Suggestions? I hope you learned something, even just a little since I didn’t really get to explain the tea ceremony properly anyway. At least I tried. Hoho.

I think, life is a series of trade-offs.

Of pancakes and others

 

Lutong Bahay. This is about all the food cooked and served by different exchange students here in our residence halls (so far). One of the things I love most about our dorm is that we have a common room in each floor where we have a kitchen which has everything except an oven. I have never cooked this much in my life but now that I’m doing it, it’s pretty cool. I never particularly liked cooking (or being in the kitchen in general) but I realized that it’s just really because I never really had much chance to try out kitchen things. So, since exchange sem is all about exploring and testing your limits, yes people – look at me, I’ve actually cooked (good) food! (Sorry for the different quality pictures. Pictures came from different people, no idea how to edit them.)

Chicken Adobo. September 28, 2011.  We had to cook Filipino food because I lost to a card game called Shit Happens. I really suck at these things. For the record, neither my roommate nor I knew how to cook anything. I can barely fry an egg. So we both asked our moms to teach us how to cook adobo (it’s like the most famous one and I think also one of the easiest to cook) and we looked for the ingredients here. But, we had to improvise because some of the ingredients like laurel leaves had to be taken out because we couldn’t find them, so, we resorted to youtube videos. I found a really good one and we just watched it step-by-step. Considering we did not know how to cut a whole chicken into smaller parts or how to know precisely when something is cooked, we did pretty well. Our friends say they liked it. It was a bit salty for some, but they say they still love it. Filipino food is awesome. This dinner was sort of like a milestone for me. Haha. It made me feel really good about myself. It’s not perfect, but hey, it’s something plus no one died. Next up is sinigang (I had just received the sinigang mix from Patti who came to visit HK), hooray!

Kaiserschmarrn. September 7, 2011. Our Chinese friend (who grew up in Austria) Dong invited us over for an afternoon snack. He said it was a German snack and I was pretty impressed he made it from scratch. Scratch meaning eggs and flour and stuff like that. I’m so used to those just-add water things I forgot that some people actually mix many ingredients. It was topped with confectioner’s sugar (my favorite) and we had to eat it with the pear and apple puree because apparently, that’s how they do it in Austria. It was different but not so different, filling and really good.

Pasta in Cream Sauce, Sayur Lodeh, Perkedel Kentang. September 27, 2011. We had a mini airport reunion one night. It was impromptu for us because we just found out we were cooking at the same day so we just sauteed vegetables. Our student ambassador (who picked us up from the airport) Clair [leftmost] cooked us pasta in Cream of Mushroom Sauce which was pretty good. But I have to say that my favorite was the Indonesian food cooked by our Indonesian friends Susan, Lani (not in picture) and Clarissa. Sayur Lodeh is a dish with vegetables in coconut milk. I missed coconut milk or gata so badly, I couldn’t stop eating their dish. They also cooked very good potato balls called Perkedel Kentang, couldn’t stop eating again. We were literally the people who finished off all the dishes. Thank you Indonesia! 

Pancakes and Snow Mooncakes. September 24, 2011. Another random cooking session. Eric cooked us pancakes for lunch. (I’m starting to realize Europeans really do love pancakes. They eat it for snacks and lunch. Haha) He cooked a lot – so that was awesome. We ate it with nutella and sugar. Then for dessert we had snowy mooncakes which were sooo good. Mooncakes are very big during mid-autumn festival. This type is the modern version. And you also prepare them yourselves (post to follow). Pancakes for lunch are really growing on me now. 

French Brunch. October 22, 2011. Another thing I love about our dorm is that on the top floor there is a roof deck with a small garden in it. People have barbecues and small parties there and the view is just incredible, seriously. So one Saturday morning, Jihed and Melissa invited us for a french brunch with pancakes, nutella, bananas, maple syrup, scrambled eggs, chips, tea and different flavored juices. The weather was perfect and the sun was really bright. It was a really happy Saturday. Our group picture here is one of my favorites so far. It’s such a happy picture and everytime I look at it, it takes me back to that perfect morning – full of sunshines and smiles. In case you don’t get it, we were trying to form a pyramid. Why? Just because. Haha. Oh and I tried to eat pringles with nutella. It wasn’t that bad. It just tasted like nutella with a crunch. This morning is one of my favorite mornings ever if not my most favorite one so far. The food was great, the place was inspiring, everyone was there – everything was just perfect.

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

 

 

Constant Marathon

Top to Bottom. Kathleen and me (Philippines represent!), Matt and Roxanne from France, Felix from Germany and Claire from Hong Kong; Dumpling/Dimsum Stacks; Other dishes (My favorite is the one on the right side on the white plate.)

I was originally planning to write about the things that happened so far but it was difficult to choose where to start – so I’ve decided to start by writing about our very first night in this awesome city. We arrived at around 6:30 pm and waited in the airport for the other exchange students arriving from other countries. We arrived at the residence halls at around 9 pm I think and we were starving. Thankfully, our student ambassadors took us out for dinner in Kowloon City.

We started walking out the halls, walking across the street to the park, climbing up the stairs and then kept on walking, and then some more walking, and then more and then we finally found this little restaurant. People at home weren’t kidding when they told me people walked a lot around here. Despite the lateness of the night, still, that tiny restaurant was packed. We were given the menu and they written in Chinese characters – just like all other small Chinese restaurants in the area. So, left with no choice, our student ambassadors ordered for us. Then suddenly, dimsum and siomai were piling quickly (literally, piles and piles of those steamers) and we had to eat with chopsticks. Of course. I thought I knew Chinese food and more importantly, I thought I was a professional chopsticks user, but I couldn’t be more wrong. The dimsums were a little familiar, sure, but the white buns which we call siopao did not taste anything like our siopao, it was filled with this hot yellow filling which until now leaves me wondering if it’s actually good or not. There was an appetizing soup which again until now I don’t know what exactly, some organ of some animal I suppose. As for the chopsticks, I thought I was fine and I thought I knew how to use it until they were using it for the dessert as well. The dessert was like these big cubes of gelatin and I was just, how can you pick it up with two sticks? It keeps slipping and breaking and well yeah, use your imagination. Amazing.

It was a pretty good dinner, I suppose. It left me full but even more curious about what this island has to offer. It was like a preview of the next four months for us, literally and not so literally. Literally because after this dinner we had two lunches that had similar menus if not exactly the same. Not so literally because walking for half an hour around the city looking for a restaurant, menus written in pure Chinese, chopsticks as the only available utensils and seemingly familiar food that turns out to be completely different seem like things that we will be repeatedly experiencing in the next four months.

So to the unbelievable long ‘walking distances’ here and to the use of chopsticks for everything, bring it.

Sometimes, I wish I could remove the part of my brain that does the overthining. Her mind is on a constant marathon.