My favourite Hong Kong food posts of 2010

Pugsley, my first roast suckling at Manor, April 2010

Obviously I would have liked to read every single HK (and Macau) blog post about food, but I'm only human (damnit) - I'd love to know what your faves were!

Third time, but still no charm - Diary of a Growing Boy
Everything by Wok with Nana (ok, it's not a single post - so I cheated, bite me)
My Weird Noodle Habit - Shin Ramyun, Egg, Cheese & Potato Chips - Mochachocolata Rita
Ta Pantry: J'adore - Eat Love Write
Cafe y Taberna - Food of Hong Kong & Macau
KC隨想﹝II﹞：談吃 - KC賞味隨筆
Duecento Otto 208 - Life as a Bon Vivant
Sun Tung Lok Chinese restaurant - an expensive pile of abalone (3*) - TomEatsJenCooks
Bistecca *** - Sher.eats (pictorial - this post from Feb is sadly the last post on this eye candy buffet of a blog!)
Lactose intolerant - Back on the Boat
Four-hour rhapsody at Yin Yang - Back on the Boat
our weekend in pictures: fish tails and a fish tale - aroma y sabores

Oh, Pierre: The emails

Before I go on to a "normal" post about my recent dinner at the Mandarin Oriental's French restaurant Pierre, here are the emails exchanged with the restaurant after the meal. I think my sentiments have been fairly well expressed in the emails below. (Stilted 140 character overviews can be found on Twitter). I shall therefore provide no further comment. What's your take?
******
From: [me]
To: Pierre, MOHG
Date: Nov 5, 2009
Subject: Pierre, 4 Nov 2009


Dear Sir/Madam,

It pains me that this email has to be written, as the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong has always been one of my favourite hotels, not only in the SAR, but globally, precisely because of its fantastic F&B outlets that have always exceeded my expectations on all fronts - cuisine, wine, ambiance and service.

Reposting...

I'll be doing a few reposts from my old blog - not everything, but just things that I particularly enjoyed and/or are a bit different and still relevant. If you've been reading my old blog, thank you so much for your support and please bear with me, and if you're haven't, welcome, and enjoy.

Burgers in my living room

You know how people usually have a big landscape print/painting above the sofa in their living room?

I want this to be my picture:

(from the New York Times - article on the "Burger of the Month" club)

Zhangjiajie (Hunan, China) review coming soon, please be patient

Life is hellish at present, will try to blog my Easter trip to Hunan asap. Apologies for the lateness...

Ching Ming Festival

The packages of paper money and 'gold' we burn. Each package has a name and their relation to the (living) person burning it to them - like an envelope. The incinerator is postal system.

There's food in every festival, celebratory or not. Take today, Ching Ming, which is when we (Chinese people) are supposed to go sweep our ancestor's graves and pay them our respects. We buy loads of paper money, Mercs, DVD machines, mansions, even paper servants, pack them into named paper bags (see above) and 'send' them off by burning them at the grave/temple.

We also bring typical "bai sun" (拜神, literally bowing at the gods) accoutrements - incense, oranges, wine, hard boiled eggs, roast pork (燒肉, yes the kind with the crispy skin)... each family 'standard' bai sun pack differs, according to personal taste, including that of the ancestor who they're visiting. My grandpa apparently has a taste for Shaoxing wine, and/or cognac, so we bring that along too.

But dead people can't really injest anything, so what do we do? Well we eat it for them of course. So this whole 'paying our respects' thing is actually an excuse for a picnic (graves tend to be a little further away from the city). I can imagine people coming to sweep my grave with truffle paste, prosciutto, figs, crispy pork (old trads die hard, and it is good...) and maybe a drop of d'Yquem if they really love(d) me.

Gotta go down some cognac now, so laters.

Twit-tastic!

Hi, e_ting (e_ting).

Necia Wilden (NeciaW) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Necia Wilden's profile here:
http://twitter.com/NeciaW


Best,
Twitter



Hi, e_ting (e_ting).

Gourmet Traveller (GourmetTweets) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Gourmet Traveller's profile here:
http://twitter.com/GourmetTweets


Best,
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Wow, really? I am officially addicted to Twitter.

RARRRRRRRRRRRR

my photos won't appear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to say, the layout on Blogger is so much more aesthetically pleasing, but so much less user friendly (maybe I'm just slow to adapt). I'm staying on Xanga. Sorry...!

19.08.2008 edit: seems that Blogger has made itself more user friendly in the time that I haven't touched it... testing the waters cautiously now...

and so it is...

after a horrifying removal of the 'reviews' section of my xanga blog sans aucune explication, i have decided to abandon xanga for all my food writing.

in case you have stumbled upon this by chance, allow me to say "nice to meet you".

the purpose of this blog is to share my thoughts on food, mostly in the form of restaurant 'reviews'. i use quotation marks as i feel quite inadequate as a 'reviewer' - i have never owned or run a restaurant, and my experiences working in the industry are limited to a single short waitressing stint (if you really wanna know, it was here!). yet i dare say that food is my life. i live to eat (please excuse the cliché, but clichés only become as they are because of their inevitable truth).

i want value for money - which means i try anything at (almost) any price. my only criteria is that it tastes good, and that the whole package is what i would expect for the amount i pay.

what i write is merely my thoughts - as a visitor, as an 'eater'.

right now i'm in melbourne, australia, but regretfully it's time to move on and i'll soon be leaving this foodie city for... well hong kong mostly, but i envision that it'll soon be a bit of everywhere, so eventually there should be more posts about places to eat around the world.

hopefully i'll be adding some writing here soon.

meanwhile, eat, drink and be merry~