Never enough China
I'm in Hong Kong working once more. I was really surprised when Hong Kong booked me, because my impression was that the money wasn't there for an overseas trainer. I had also trained the in-house instructor in Hong Kong, Eric Chan Siu-Ming.
I'm trying to lose the weight I've gained from being sick, so Hong Kong isn't the very best place for me to be right now. Tokyo is way better, because no one speaks English and so I end up missing a lot of meals because I can't figure out how to order. I'd starve there if it wasn't for Starbucks and this little low-class noodle shop who want my money bad enough to let me point.
Well. It's just one week, right? Hong Kong has the best food in the world in my opinion. The best Chinese food? That too. The best food in general though. Eating here completely changed my perspective on the role of freshness in food quality, and I say that as someone whose cooking is, um, generally really bad. I can do things with sugar though. Before I came to Hong Kong, I used to buy raspberries from the farm market, and turn them into a sorbet a few days later, which I served the following Friday. Now I get berries, process them, churn them, and serve them at most 36 hours after they leave the plant. It makes an already delicious dessert transcendent. For the block party our neighbors gave, I made a grown-on-the block dessert: raspberry-redcurrant sorbet from the canes and bushes in my front yard. Picked, cleaned, turned into puree, frozen and eaten within 8 hours. My neighbors were blown away, which I fondly believe gives me leverage in the neighborhood, all due to the Hong Kong philosophy of eating.
So my working hypothesis is that Hong Kong has the world's best food because they are completely fanatical about freshness. Now my job is to make every meal here a meaningful test of the hypothesis, because I have neither the money nor the appetite for unlimited testing. This makes eating stressful. Am I really getting the maximum experience per bite? Would the restaurant across the street have been a greater cultural and gastronomic experience? And what is the waiter saying to me in Chinese? But I will soldier on. It's hard work, but someone has to do it.
All those in Redmond wanting a Hong Kongian moon cake, drop me a response and I will do my best. It is the wrong season for moon cakes, but Matt said the moon cake I brought from here last time I taught in Hong Kong was the best he had ever had. I thought so too, though my opinion is suspect as I don't like moon cakes. I objected to the one from Hong Kong less than I usually object to moon cakes: let me put it that way.
Those outside Redmond: I'm sorry, but I would not think of shipping you a moon cake. It would not be fresh and that would just be wrong.
I'm trying to lose the weight I've gained from being sick, so Hong Kong isn't the very best place for me to be right now. Tokyo is way better, because no one speaks English and so I end up missing a lot of meals because I can't figure out how to order. I'd starve there if it wasn't for Starbucks and this little low-class noodle shop who want my money bad enough to let me point.
Well. It's just one week, right? Hong Kong has the best food in the world in my opinion. The best Chinese food? That too. The best food in general though. Eating here completely changed my perspective on the role of freshness in food quality, and I say that as someone whose cooking is, um, generally really bad. I can do things with sugar though. Before I came to Hong Kong, I used to buy raspberries from the farm market, and turn them into a sorbet a few days later, which I served the following Friday. Now I get berries, process them, churn them, and serve them at most 36 hours after they leave the plant. It makes an already delicious dessert transcendent. For the block party our neighbors gave, I made a grown-on-the block dessert: raspberry-redcurrant sorbet from the canes and bushes in my front yard. Picked, cleaned, turned into puree, frozen and eaten within 8 hours. My neighbors were blown away, which I fondly believe gives me leverage in the neighborhood, all due to the Hong Kong philosophy of eating.
So my working hypothesis is that Hong Kong has the world's best food because they are completely fanatical about freshness. Now my job is to make every meal here a meaningful test of the hypothesis, because I have neither the money nor the appetite for unlimited testing. This makes eating stressful. Am I really getting the maximum experience per bite? Would the restaurant across the street have been a greater cultural and gastronomic experience? And what is the waiter saying to me in Chinese? But I will soldier on. It's hard work, but someone has to do it.
All those in Redmond wanting a Hong Kongian moon cake, drop me a response and I will do my best. It is the wrong season for moon cakes, but Matt said the moon cake I brought from here last time I taught in Hong Kong was the best he had ever had. I thought so too, though my opinion is suspect as I don't like moon cakes. I objected to the one from Hong Kong less than I usually object to moon cakes: let me put it that way.
Those outside Redmond: I'm sorry, but I would not think of shipping you a moon cake. It would not be fresh and that would just be wrong.