Part 5: Horse Meat - Hong Kong

Back, after 2 weeks of bone-chilling weather, family dinners, and carefully ignoring the looming return to Hong Kong. I still hadn’t found my footing there, scattering myself across the city, making time I didn’t have. Those first months had been saturated with new smells, sights, sounds, and a frantic desperation to fit everything in. If you were decent enough to read the first article in this series, you’ll know I had some tragic moments in the kitchen. I had plenty more of those, but I’m happy to inform you things got better in the new year.

How about a little less on my grimy university kitchen and more on the culinary mysteries Hong Kong had been waiting to share with me. I decided it was time- time for a list. This is only instance in which I can recall truly committing to a goal. ‘The List’ brought with it the same feral craving to tick things off but with the added benefit of being able to keep track of my conquests. I’ll show you ‘The List’ in a moment, but first, let me tell you how I did it.

Every feed I opened chanted the same thing, ‘Hong Kong this, Hong Kong that’, and all the yummy, alarming, intriguing stuff went straight into folders. I unsparingly scraped Time Out, Michelin, Lonely Planet, self-anointed dedicated accounts like @afoodieworld, @top_hongkong_restaurants, @culinaryarts.hk, and whatever remained in the gaps. I deep-dived into OpenRice, a Hong Kong-exclusive dining guide that was the main filler of those gaps, and the best way to verify the quality of pretty much every place in the city. I shortlisted (it became a very long shortlist) and got to it. Bakeries, street stalls, dai pai dongs, markets, campus cafés, even the gimmicks and the scams- if you know me, you know I love to disprove and disparage. So here it is, ‘The List’, first, second, and third edition:

The List: First Edition

The List: Second Edition

The List: Third Edition

Version 1 was delusional. It included establishments and their locations, blatantly disregarding my 4-month time frame, class schedule (how many classes I did/did not attend is between me and my timetable), and student budget. The last of the three proving hard to manage in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Version 2 came not long after, heavy with edits as I woefully discarded entries following a realisation of that 4 month time frame. Version 3 was the most dramatic, peppered with orange stars marking priorities as well as noting of additional visits that came after the completion of version 1. So, as you can see, this was an important part of my second semester. In total, the final version of the list- excluding manic notes- consisted of 75 destinations. I made it to 65, if you’re not counting my eleventh-hour quests and cravings.

I’d heard about Temple Street long before I saw it, notorious for its end-to-end lining of vendors selling sweets, grilled skewers, seafood, dim sum, you name it. Alas, the market had been closed for some time until the Hong Kong Tourism Board, I assume, decided in a theatrical move, to rebrand it as an attraction. The area was strung up with lanterns and signage and music. Temple Street went from a stretch of knockoff designer items and mass produced toys, reborn into a neighbourhood teeming with tourists and locals as it had once been. We (the tourists) were there for well, sightseeing, and the locals to see the revival of one of the most famous parts of their home. Coming back with a new approach to Hong Kong, this was the best way I could’ve kicked off semester 2. My first ever oyster came bubbling straight off the grill, heaped with minced garlic. After that, spring rolls, skewers of curry fish balls and grilled squid. Each bite felt like I had arrived in Hong Kong, finally, properly, and hungrily.

Dai pai dongs- sprawling, big open-air restaurants known for serving wok-singed dishes to working stomachs- are cemented into Hong Kong’s culture like a grease stain on your favourite shirt. Wing Fat Seafood sat towards the top of Temple Street, a comfortable way from the shoppers and with a crowd of its own. Every time I passed Wing Fat Seafood, each seat was full. Families and friends, nine-to-fivers, lone diners buried in their steaming bowls. Against all odds, we wrangled a table and placed an order. Clams in an unapologetically rich, umami- heavy black bean sauce, and a bowl of pork, wood ear mushrooms, and onions bathing in a glossy gravy. For good measure and adequate sauce-soaking, a mandatory platter of plain vegetable noodles. As excellent as the food was, it was the atmosphere I treasured. It was noisy, plates clanging, staff sightings sporadic. We were ignored for the majority of the meal, which is exactly is how things go down in Hong Kong. This was one of my ‘must-tries’- a phrase I detest- but it was part of my own list, not someone else’s. That’s what made it special.

I decided this semester, rather, this year, I would stop waiting for people. I’d forfeited far too many meals to messy timings and unavailabilities. I’d peer in the windows of cha chaan tengs and small canteens, often seeing solo diners hunched over their dinners, unbothered. Table-sharing is a common practice here; many people don’t have the time or space to cook so they eat out. It felt odd, at first, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, all of us slurping away at noodles or tearing through a steamed bun. A few rounds of this and I was a natural. A natural at sitting in silence and minding my own business while trying not to look like a fool. So I started to go out by myself. Framing it as a sort of ‘self-care’ activity was a guise for what was really a strategy. I was trying new places on my own time without the daunting need to please others, or passing things up because no one was free.

One of my first lonely dinners was at Ichiran. And I use the word ‘lonely’ in a positive way here. Ichiran is a Japanese ramen chain made for lonely dinners. You can count on most restaurants in Hong Kong being either up or down a few flights of a sinister-looking building- I walked meekly down the stairs, collected a ticket and circled my preferences.

I took my assigned booth at the end of a room bordered by red pleather stools. Each seat was separated by high partitions for optimum secrecy. A short wait later the shutter opened, just halfway, and an anonymous pair of hands placed my ramen in front of me. There was something ominous about the gloved hands setting each dish down one by one: nori, chashu, extra onions, extra garlic. I ate without the pressure of being watched, without the worry that someone was going to leave unsatisfied, because the only

someone at this meal, was me. And boy, did I leave satisfied. The solitude felt almost indulgent, not lonely.

For all the places in this city built to be savoured alone, there is a quiet spell in the tradition of a communal meal. Although no one batted an eyelid at a person eating solo, Hong Kong food culture is rooted in towers of bamboo steamers and the pouring of tea for companions. Dim sum simply cannot, and should not be eaten alone, unless you want to leave feeling worse than you could ever imagine. Believe me, I tried. The city was kind to solo adventurers, but some things are meant to be shared.

‘Asia’s World City’ is brimming with fulfilling culinary adventures, but it’s also riddled with gimmicks hidden in unexpected corners, waiting to triumphantly slap you in the face. We’re constantly cycling and recycling trends, growing tired of one obsession, forcing ourselves to like the next. Everything we eat sits pretty, posing on the plate, just dying to be photographed, shared, and liked. I’m hardly one to have an issue with photographing a meal- what I’m getting at is the idea of ‘fashion over function’.

Let me give you an example. Lung Dimsum lives in Wan Chai, a central part of the city known for its nightlife. In the exchange student circle, it was home to the lovingly nicknamed Wan Chai Wednesday- a lineup of bars frequented by students, with free entry for girls and the promise of shots on the door. In Wan Chai, somewhere along Hennessy Road, is where I ate some positively beautiful, but regrettably disappointing dim sum. After a comedic number of errors in ordering and receiving incorrect dishes, I was presented a hexagonal basket with six compartments, each one cradling a beautiful, perfectly instagrammable piece. If you looked at this photo and thought ‘wow, how pretty’, you’d be correct. But if you looked at this photo and thought ‘wow, what a great experience’, you’d be wildly incorrect. Three of these six dumplings broke upon the lightest touch of my chopsticks, the remaining three hardly tasting of much. Hence, they were, as I said, perfectly instagrammable, yet tragically forgettable.

There was an entire subculture of conveyor belt sushi restaurants in this little city. What do you mean, I can sit in silence, gluttonously prod an iPad and have it all brought to me on a tiny motorised train car? There were a few in town, and when I say a few I mean hundreds. That includes the three chains I know of: Sushiro, Genki, and Sushi Ten. Let me offer a piece of advice: never, ever, ever go to Genki on a hangover. You’ll be entering a hurricane of overexcited children, synthetic sound effects, and the same ear-burning jingle persistently ringing in your head. In fact, Genki is just as unbearable if you’re sober. What I thought might be a restorative feast on some semi-clean food ended up leaving me vehemently overstimulated.

Sushi Ten was more my speed. It's tucked into Sha Tin Plaza, a modest twenty minutes from campus. Europeans rarely travelled beyond Kowloon because the closer to the New Territories you get, the less they want to be there. And it's noticeable. Central has a magnitude we westerners couldn’t resist, so it felt like a real excursion going up the map rather than down. My calls to Sushi Ten became a ritual reward: after handing in a big assignment, a long couple of weeks. As a child, YO! Sushi was an icon of abundance and freedom to me- I wanted to eat there every chance I got. Conveyor belt sushi is a long-time guilty pleasure of mine, so I indulged with no shame.

The Hong Kong winter is short, and by short I mean non-existent. As the invisible winter turned into a humid and hot spring, I became more adventurous. Fisholic was my next victim. Everything at this restaurant was made of fish in one way or another- did the name give it away? Hard to believe a pay-as-you-order spot perched on the top floor of a mall can be recommended by Michelin three years running, but nothing is off the table here.

The menu is an eyebrow raiser; things like Fish Fries, Fish Noodles, Fishotto, but I kept things tame, going with the Fish Dog with a side of Fishchos. At this point, I was still acclimatising to fish-paste related things like fish balls and Chinese-style fish cakes, even though I had eaten them before without realising what they actually were. This Fish Dog arrived a bouncy white cylinder of fish paste, topped with seaweed sauce and shredded nori. Oddly enough, it was delightful. The Fishchos were more the wild card here. Fried fish skin made the tortilla chips, coming with all the usual nacho toppings. Against logic, they got fish and runny cheese sauce to work and I won’t dare ask how.

When all else failed, McDonald's was the answer. Google tells me there are more than 260 of them in Hong Kong- sinfully greedy, no? London, for your information, only has 200. A long day out would inevitably end with us all stopping defeated at the Festival Walk McDonald’s before retreating to our filthy, uni-sanctioned rooms to privately,

and I imagine shamefully, jam it down ourselves.

Our reprieve from the ‘last resort Maccies’ was found in none other than Jollibee. If you’ve never heard of Jollibee, it’s as creepy and playful as it sounds. Look up their mascot: a very jolly bee. It’s a gift from the Philippines, where they know all there is to know about a good piece of fried chicken. The system there was chaos- I ordered and watched the same lady who served me run around the kitchen grabbing my chosen items like she was playing a mini-game. No ticket tearing or waiting to see my number on the screen- just me, twiddling my thumbs, staring around the plastic-laden room, waiting patiently while the cashier collected her points. The most famous menu item is Jolly Spaghetti, a fast-food fever-dream of Filipino spaghetti. A heap of ground beef in tomato sauce, sweetened with sugar and banana ketchup, and somewhat disturbingly scattered with sliced hotdogs. It was strange- sugary pasta in a 3rd-floor diner, but when an opportunity like that presents itself, one must surrender.

Like I said before, the kitchen horrors continued, but they were no longer my horrors. Take the fish in the toaster oven, for example. I’ll confess to calling a plastic plate of tiny scallops ‘dinner’ at one point, but I have never put an entire fish, caged by baby potatoes, bare on the tray of a communal toaster oven. We were in Hong Kong, not the desert. A roll of tinfoil was readily available.

In that same delightful kitchen, I was offered a sliver of horse meat by a drunk girl I had only ever exchanged an awkward smile with. The horse meat wasn’t the issue here- it was the 11pm timestamp, and her zeal as she sawed it off an intimidatingly large slab parked on the one chopping board shared by over 30 other residents. This has been a lesson in trying new things, but if it’s too late at night for horse meat, you don’t have to say yes.

Solo K-BBQ. A dream.