{Tea diaries}

A & T stumbled upon this true gem a couple years back and have been devotees ever since. In fact, part of the reason why we are staying one night in Sapporo instead of making our way straight up to Hirafu was to relive the yummy sushi memory here. Situated in the food underpass next to the Sapporo train station, it is one of the busiest restaurants in the area – and all for a very good reason – its ultra fresh and tasty sushi. 
Yes, it is just a conveyor belt sushi but it differs dramatically from the ones you see on the streets in HK. First of all, the sushi are man-made on the spot, and not put through the churning of a machine. I know to some, this does not sound like a big deal, but it is, as with my second reason, the sushi here are hand prepared by experienced chef. In fact, we don’t really treat this as a conveyor belt sushi, our tactic is just poke our head around, like at what the locals are ordering, and then point and show the chefs, who will always deliver what we had in mind. It is as if we have our own private sushi chef preparing sushi on the spot for us. 
Everyone was ravenous as A & T didn’t have touch any food on the plane and I alawys have room for good ~ Instead of our usual practice, we started downloading plates from the conveyor immediately. 

Over the CNY holidays, we made our annual pilgrimage to Hokkaido for a much anticipated ski trip. This time we went for seven days – staying in Sapporo for the first night, then jumping onto the first bus up to Niseko the next day for a 3-night stay there. We then headed for Rusutsu, another popular ski resort an hour away from Niseko, for some variety. We took the five-hour direct flight from HK to Chitose airport, landing in the snow cladded city of Sapporo late afternoon.
We didn’t waste time while waiting for S’s domestic flight to arrive at Chitose airport, and sped straight off to Mos Burger for a quick bite. This is one of our must visit fast food chain in Japan – wonder why they have never introduced this franchise in HK… 
I opted for the spicy sausage burger, while A & T had the seafood rice burger and the pork rice burger. 
While waiting for our food to arrive, we were drooling over this poster for an extremely enticing humongous "ten-layer" burger – which was only available in limited quantities for a restricted period. Salivating, we decided against ordering this as we were looking forward to our sushi feast at night.
I like how the burgers here are made on the spot arriving at your table piping hot. I enjoyed my tasty burger tremendously, the sausage was meaty and juicy when I bite into the sausage, and the vegetables were fresh and sweet. I had a bite of the pork rice burger which was equally delicious.
We stayed at the Sapporo Prince Hotel in Sapporo – this was the second time that we stayed here. Originally the purpose was that it would be a direct connection to the Higashiyama Prince Hotel in Niseko. However, since we decided to swap Niseko hotels at the very last minute, and didn't have time to change our Sapporo reservations. 
Ideally, we should be staying at a hotel that’s closer to the Sapporo train station, which was centrally located and full of restaurants and shops. Anyway, one can always expect good quality at any Prince hotel, albeit with a lack of character, as every single one looks and feels the same. We liked the toilets with the warm seats and the LCD TV monitors. The rooms were on the small side, but that’s to be expected anywhere in Japan. Since this was only a transit hotel before we make our way up to the mountains, we didn’t really get a chance to enjoy the facilities here that much. 
The buffet breakfast was decent here, with a good selection of western and Japanese food. We used to think that it was odd that the Japanese serve salad and cherry tomatoes at breakfast time, but we soon found out why – for lunch and dinner, it’s very rare for one to have lots of vegetables, this is probably the only chance for some healthy veggie intake. 
After a hearty breakfast, we excitedly waited for our bus to go up to Hirafu... will be documenting my Ski Japan 2006 meticulously over the next few weeks... stay tuned!

Mos Burger 
Sapporo Prince Hotel

When brainstorming for dinner venues, M randomly suggested Chesa. Good memories from my last visit there immediately came to mind so I was totally fixated on the idea. Unfortunately, we failed in our repeated attempts to get a table, be it weekday or weekend, two days in advance or last minute cancellation. Finally, just when I was about to give up hope of ever revisiting Chesa and began contemplating the idea of Cafe de Coral's version of cheese fondue, we finally managed a booking - so Chesa we went.
We arrived at the cosy little wooden hut like restaurant and noticed that a few tables were well into their mains. The place was exactly how I remembered it - inviting, warm, and friendly. We settled comfortably into one of the side tables and were sitting next to one another facing the center of the restaurant. This is considered an odd arrangement in HK but was rather common in London, even at the very high end restaurants. Actually I think this is a rather good idea, as it's easier to chat with one another rather than across the table. 

Somehow I could totally picture myself being transported to some wooden hut up on the mountains in Switzerland relaxing in the restaurant with a blizzard brewing outside. Cheese fondue was our key objective, so I actually had been refraining myself from eating loads throughout the day. Perhaps as a result, a hunger pang struck upon arrival, as I started munching on the bread. The pretzel somehow had a very sticky surface, so it kept getting stuck to the top of our jaw. The only way (or excuse) to get rid of this was via eating more bread - needless to say, we wiped ou the bread basket as usual.

On New Year's Day, we gathered round for some dim sum fanfare. K, our dear organiser, chose Cheena in Causeway Bay as our lunch venue. Cheena was initially located on the ground floor in a much smaller space, but when it became popular and couldn't handle the crowds, the owners decided to open a much bigger venue on the first floor of the hotel. The ground floor Cheena closed down to make way for a Japanese restaurant. This is a pretty unique restaurant with two distinct features that I'd elaborate later.
One good thing about Cheena is that everyone gets his or her little teapot, so each person can order his or her fave tea inside of having to conform to the norm of pu er or jasmine. The issue with this little pot is that firstly, the cup is very small so it is like two sips at a time, similar irritant to the one at Zen. I guess it is slightly better with your own tea pot right next to you. But because the pot is also rather minature like, one would need hot water refill every fifteen minutes - they probably need one waiter just bringing the hot water flask around doing this. I do like the decor and how elegant everything looks though.

Here are the two distinct features - firstly, as you can see from the menu, all the dim sum are priced per piece. And in fact, arrive in the bamboo containers on a per piece basis as you can see from the pictures below. Before you jump at the pricing of how expensive a shrimp dumpling is, the portions here are rather big, and one portion could easily be shared amongst two. At Cuisine Cuisine, one of their dim sums would have costed like HK$35, now that's called expensive! Anyway, if you peruse the menu below carefully, you can probably notice another feature of this restaurant - they do not serve pork. At all. Now that comes across as a bit odd for a Chinese restaurant, given pork is likely the key staple meat in the Chinese cuisine, from BBQ pork, to pork patties etc... initially Cheena did market itself as being halal friendly but haven't actually noticed many foreigners at this restaurant. Not sure if this were a gimmick, all I know is that apart from no pork, Cheena also advertises itself as not using any MSG.
One little nuisance with this for one concept is that it took a long time to order as everyone needed time to read through the menu and decide on what he or she wants, and then each person had to convey the order to the waiter. For a table of 8, this took like tweny minutes at least. Having said that, I do like the idea in spite of the time consuming chaos, as my liking for dim sum changes frequently and it's good that I don't have to worry about whether other people are interested in sharing the same dishes. 

Looking forward to:
- fabulously delicious Japanese delicacies
- 5 days on the slopes honing my ski skills & overcoming my fear of "black"
- outdoor onsen relaxing
Hopefully, I wouldn't return with:
- sore muscles all over given my lack of exercise over the past few weeks
- frostbites from the cold
- flight delays
- endless nights at work to compensate for my taking off
So looking forward to my annual pilgrimage to Hokkaido~
A prosperous CNY to you all... see you when I get back in a week's time!

For our little NY gathering we decided against Chinese or Western food, and opted to revisit Chitose in the Lee Gardens shopping mall for its Japanese cuisine. The original Chitose was situated in the Sogo complex and specialised in very high-end teppanyaki cuisine for the Japanese. Was probably one of the most expensive Japanese restuarants within the Causeway Bay area, and was popular for corporate entertainment. This one is a bit more affordably priced.
We opted to share amongst the three of us the Matsu teppanyaki set for one and the X'mas & NY sepcial sashimi and sushi set for two. The Japanese tomato salad was a bit too acidic for me with an overdose of vinegar.
The Matsu course's appetizers arrived first - a cream soup, and a filo pastry served with duck breast. I liked the crispy filo pastry but was told that the cream soup was just average. It seemed a bit out of place to be having such Western food in a Jap restaurant.

Have you noticed that the food scene is constantly evolving with structural shifts? A long while back Jap-style conveyor belt sushi was all the rave and such shops started popping up all over the place. Then came the Koraen influx with the introduction of the many kalbi restaurants. More recently have noticed an increasing number of Malay/Sing places in town, and HKF has been a diligent visitor to many of these shops. Recently I tried out another new one called Old Bazar in Tin Hau. In Chinese, the name actually translates to Lau Pat Sa, identical to the famous hawker center in Singapore. This is a relatively new restaurant that replaces One One Nam, another SE Asian restaurant located in the same spot previously. Not sure if they are connected though.
We came here for a quick lunch, and were handed a reduced lunch menu containing a large number of sets, which included a mains and a tea or coffee. Prices are extremely reasonable at only HK$35-45, and students would get a further discount. I opted for the seafood Laksa, and chose the "Cham Cham" combination, a mix of vermicelli and egg noodle. A opted for the fried noodles with pork's neck in Belacan sauce. We also ordered the vegetable fried in belacan sauce which was very reasonably priced at HK$10 only.

A's order arrived first and looked pretty appetizing, with a small bowl of pork broth served on the side. The noodles were tasty but quite oily, actually the noodles tasted of lard.

Have always liked the concept of hotpot, where a group of people gather round a steaming centerpiece and share in the food and conversation. Yes there's the hygiene issue but these days most hotpot places already supply two pairs of chopsticks for everyone, one pair for public and one pair for personal use. For our recent office gathering, we headed to Chong Long Ting in Sai Wan (further away from Central than Sheung Wan) for its hotpot offering.
Of those that joined in the fun, half could not take spicy food in any kind while the other half totally dig the Sichuan-style "ma la" spicy hotpot (麻辣火鍋 ). As you can see from the hotpot picture above, this  "ma la" hotpot is already hot and fiery by appearance. Originating from Chongqing in Sichuan, "ma la" spicy hotpot uses a spcial spice known as huajiao (花椒), also known as flower pepper. This is the ingredient that dulls your sense of taste and gives you that added numb sensation in your tongue in addition to the spicy hot flavour. It is rather unique and is best explained by trying it in person. Because some of our friends did not like this, we opted for the mixed pot variety.

I adore hotpot places that give you a big tray of condiments and sauces for mixing your own signature "sauce". For mine, I love adding  parsley, garlic (raw and deep fried), chili, vinegar (dark version) and soy sauce with a sprinkling of sugar. A raw egg (with its many risks) sitrred in rounds my sauce off. 
We ordered a large variety of dishes, which were reasonably priced but portions were on the wee side. The best value for money was the oyster, which only cost HK$10 per dish as it was the special of the day. Each dish contained around six small oysters (see picture on the third row in the middle). Am not a fan so did not touch that dish, but since both of the plates that we ordered were wiped out I assume it was pretty good. It was the first time I had the deep fried fish skin (picture on the right on the first row below) in a hotpot and I really enjoyed it - remember to dip it only long that it could soak up enough of the yummy soup base without getting all soggy. We had gazillion "balls" - lobster balls, beef balls, fish balls, prawn balls, and meat balls that contained a filling itside. I don't understand the obsession with balls, as they look pretty scary after being left in the soup base for too long, having grow ten times in size... somehow I always imagine how it looks once digested within our stomaches - will they grow in size too and block my digestive system? (lol) Anyway, the food at Chong Long Ting were less than memorable but we had a good enough time chatting and catching up with each other. 

Before our day trip to Disneyland, I did lots of research and asked around for lunch venue recommendations. The general consensus was that the fast food was only so-so, and for the better restaurants one had to queue for a very long time. Almost everyone's immeidate suggestion was Plaza Inn - the only dim sum restaurant within the park and run by Maxim's - so we decided to give it a try. Some also recommended going to the two Disney hotels for lunch, but it would take 15 min to get there from the park and we decided to save the hassle.
We got to the park at around 10 in the morning, and in addition to hurrying to get fast passes, we also made our way to Plaza Inn to make a booking for lunch, as everyone told us that the queues would be long. It seemed that it was our lucky day. You see, Disneyland Hong Kong experienced its first ever full house only two days before our visit (because of the WTO Ministerial Conference a lot of the schools were on holiday that day), and this was widely reported by the media. I guess people decided to avoid the park that whole week, which meant that we only had to queue for a very short time for most of the rides. When we arrived at Plaza Inn at 12:30 there were still a large number of empty tables for walk-ins too. While the outside of Plaza Inn, located at the corner between Main Street and Fantasyland, looked very Western and fairytale like, the inside was totally Chinese inspired. There were no Disney memorabilia at all.

We noticed the only Disney connection when our first dish was served, which was pan fried pork fun. The little frying pan was covered by a golden lid that had the shape of Mickey Mouse as the lid handle. All of us immediately started taking pictures of this cute little decoration.

My aunt visited us from Taiwan in December, and wanted to try some good Cantonese food. We headed for Zen in Pacific Place for our little dinner gathering. Zen was picked because it was conveniently located in the shopping mall, allowing the ladies plenty of time to shop before the meal.
Haven't visited Zen for a while, as I do not go to PP that often, and there are plenty of Cantonese restaurants that I haven't tried out on the island. Immediately catching my eye when walking into the restaurant is the signature lighpiece that spreads across almost half the restaurant. The place has thoughtfully incorporated some Christmas decoration to the decoration, bringing some festivity and warmth to the place.

The table crockery is simple and clean looking, using all white pieces. One thing I never liked about Zen - the tiny expresso cup like tea cups - how frustrating it is trying to drink tea from this cup. Every few sips and one is need of a refill! This meant that I avoided munching too much on the tasty salted peanuts in case I get too thirsty.