源記甜品專家

I have no idea if this place even has an English name. Anyway, it's one of the oldest -- if not THE oldest -- Chinese dessert place on Hong Kong Island. They serve sweet...soup? I guess there's no other way to describe it. In Chinese, it's called 糖水 or sugared water.

I was told that this may be the last generation that will keep the shop open, and after the owner retires, the shop will be closed. I mean, it's sad and all that, and I know I'll sound like an asshole, but other people will step up, and it's not like it's the only place that does these kinds of dessert.

Speaking of conservation, though, Hong Kong has a funny way of doing it. Take the Pawn, for example, an early 20th century building that has been converted into a restaurant that caters mostly to expats. Er...how does that exactly integrate historic buildings into the community? Oh wait, I forgot, it now caters to the most important part of Hong Kong society. Oops, my bad.

Also, I just don't really understand why we're so focussed on conserving colonial buildings. If those fuckers have no use, burn them down! We should be focussing on conserving real local culture! But I guess colonial mentality dictates that local culture isn't worth preserving. The root sources of the loss of traditions are colonization and Western cultural hegemony so you have to counteract that first before you can make any real headway.

My comments will seem kind of unfocussed, that that's because I'm really ambivalent about the conservation movement. I realize I'm not contributing much here, and that's because the middle ground is such a difficult place to find, but it's better than being a mouth-foaming conservationist. Incidentally, you notice that those people are inevitably ones who are really detached from their cultures? Conservationists always seem to be the people who never kind of fit in their own communities, so they go around preserving things in other people's communities. THE IRONY.

Alright, I'm done. I need to get back to my loving-kindness meditation, ignore all this Ai Wei Wei bullshit (nice to see Westerners getting involved in something that is none of their business again, and also nice to see opportunists using this as a chance for self-promotion and kiss ass to Western media) and pop a painkiller or two.

We ordered almond, walnut and sesame soups. I like the walnut one the best. You might remember that I wrote about the walnut stuff in my wedding banquet entry.

We got them plain (HKD20 each), but you can add on egg yolk and other stuff. 源記甜品專家 is on Centre Street in Sai Ying Pun.

Four Chords of the Apocalypse

When the weather warms up, and I have more time, I really have to go to Yau Ma Tei and buy plants. I want to be prepared for the apocalypse (I might be taking crossbow lessons in summer!), so I'm planning to buy some citrus plants (to prevent rickets) and some pots and soil to plant durian seeds in (for protein). I'm not really sure what else I should cultivate. I do love okra. Maybe tomatoes?

Anyway, I saw this lovely place in Sai Ying Pun and wanted to share. I imagine that a sweet middle-aged couple lives here that still hold hands when they walk around outside, and they have a huge collection of books and old vinyls that they've kept for decades.

The Only Hope for Me is You

The Only Thing to Last will be My Bones

叁去壹 Sam Hui Yaat

It really startled me when a Singaporean friend mentioned that she wanted to visit 叁去壹 or San Hui Yaat. I didn't realize that this place had become so well-known (or is it?). I stumbled on this ghetto old school dimsum eatery many years ago when Little Demon and I were still young, foolish and hormonal enough to think that we would make it as a romantic couple.

We had heard of a mythical 24-hour dimsum place in Sai Ying Pun and were determined to find it. At the time, Little Demon still hadn't started doing graffiti, and he was just a common delinquent, while I had quit a retail marketing job and was surviving as a freelance editor/writer. In other words, we had a lot of time on our hands. We'd spent the night entering abandoned and half-finished buildings (one of my favourite things to do is to go out late at night to visit newly-built office buildings that are still unoccupied. I love it when there are still tapes of Xes on the glass windows and the light is left on in the lobby but it's completely empty. It's so post-apocalyptic).

When morning came, we still hadn't found the 24-hour dimsum place (although we eventually did find it another time, and it was a real disappointment), but we stumbled on Sam Hui Yaat instead.

I was a bit hesitant to post this up because it's really local in every way. The flavour of the food is not for those who are used to commercial or Westernized dimsum. It's very old fashioned, probably very similar to how dimsum used to taste back in the 1960s. Also, if you don't speak and read Cantonese, you're fucked. It's not for tourists, basically.

However, I thought I'd share it anyway because I like this place so much.

One of the things I forgot to mention before is that when you enter any busy Chinese eatery, you should already have your fingers up indicating how many of you are in your party. That will save a lot of time and humiliation for you.

There is a per person charge for tea at Sam Hui Yaat regardless of whether or not you drink tea. Don't worry, it's only HKD3, although I do my best to drink as much tea as possible to make the charge worth it.

I felt a bit uncomfortable taking pictures because they don't really welcome it here. But the uncle said I could take a couple.

These places always remind me of my childhood in Taiwan. At any moment, I feel like an auntie is going to come over and pull me out by the ear for doing something naughty.

I wanted something fairly light, so I ordered salty fish and pork patty on rice. It's comfort food to me because the pork is so fatty and the saltiness of the fish really sets it off. The fish is awfully boney, though, so you'll be spending most of your time pulling bones out of your teeth.

I love the little metal container it comes in! So clever!

I'm going to buy some of these metal container things next time. Next time I have guests over for a meal, they're going to be eating out of these babies.

I was still a bit hungry so I also ordered chicken feet. They make it a bit spicy here, which I like.

Sam Hui Yaat offers mostly dimsum, but you can also get the usual rice and noodle dishes here. From what I understand, the most popular items are their scrambled egg and beef rice (I was almost going to have it but I've been eating too many eggs lately) and fried pork chop noodles (not a fan of noodles). My brother had the fried noodles before, and he said it was pretty good.

Sam Hui Yaat is on Pokfulam Road. I forget the street number but you can't miss it.

Faces are Changing, Yuppies Invading, Nightlife is Raging

My old flat in Soho looked a lot like these buildings. Maybe even worse. Anyway, the entire building where I used to live is up for sale now, so it'll be gentrified by expats soon, like everything else in that unfortunate neighbourhood. Yeah, I should really stop writing about it because change is inevitable, even when it's for the worse.

I'm just so worried that where I live right now might also be gentrified. I'll be really sad when the coffin makers, the funeral parlour, the funeral accessories shop and the wholesale Chinese medicine people leave. Tsk.

Anyway, whenever you see a doorway like this open, it probably means that there's a business on the first floor. Most of the time, they're wholesaling boring shit like garden pots, but once in a while, you'll stumble upon people selling cute stuff like handmade brocade bags, although that's getting very rare nowadays.

If you do enter one of these buildings, remember that you shouldn't venture past the first floor because the rest of the floors are most likely private residences, and you shouldn't be a rude asshole. When I was living in my old flat, people would fucking come and invade the building all the time. I lived on the top floor and spent a lot of time on my roof until tourists started hanging out there, the nerve!

My German neighbour used to call the cops on them, and we would discuss ways in which to lay booby traps. Once, a group of French people even had a fucking picnic on my roof at night! They wouldn't leave so I had to call the cops and say that there were foreigners doing drugs on my roof. Of course, the police took them away.

This doorway actually smelled like pee so I didn't linger.

Funeral Accessories

It's Qing Ming tomorrow, which means that most of us will be trekking out to cemeteries to tidy up graves and give offerings to our ancestors. Since I don't have any in Hong Kong, I will be spending the holiday drinking cold sake (it's warm enough to enjoy them now) and pouring a little bit for my homies up in heaven. Not a lot, though.

In honour of Qing Ming, I thought I'd do a little entry about Chinese funerals. Some people might not know that part of a Chinese funeral is burning things like paper money, paper houses, etc. that you can bring with you to Hell. We don't have Heaven, by the way, because we believe in reincarnation, so you have to go to Hell to hang out for a while, and then you get reborn. Hell isn't the same thing as it is in the West, it's not necessarily about eternal damnation and being poked in da rass with a pitchfork. I guess our concept of Hell is closer to the ancient Greek notion of Hades.

Anyway, so funeral paper accessories have gotten fancier and fancier because people be wanting some swag to take with them. I thought it would be interesting for people to see what the latest in funeral accessories is.

First we got the traditional stuff: incense sticks and those paper bags that are full of paper money.

When you're in Hell, you need to grab your boombox and hit the turbo bass!

Alright, I know it wasn't a boombox, but come on, how could I resist posting that video?

And of course, you need a limo and a chauffeur. I wonder if this poor dude knew what his picture was being used for. My friends reading this: when I die, please burn me a lowrider with hydraulics. It would be HILARIOUS.

Of course, you gotta stay connected, so you need your cellphones and shit. There was an iPhone and Blackberry somewhere, but I didn't bother searching for it. There are also laptops and iPads and whatever else because, obviously, Facebook exists in Hell.

And you gotta take some snacks with you because it's going to be a Hell of a trip. Yes, I'm going to pop a painkiller now and stop.

And of course, you need a baller house straight out of MTV Cribs! Again, my dear friends, please watch that show for Babyface's house and burn me a replica of that. Check out the demure lady that comes with the house who can stand for a mistress or a maid, whichever suits you more. I also like the satellite dish, dog and swimming pool. Dudes, please burn me a bunch of young men swimming in the pool, too! Just Photoshop the pictures of the actors in Takashi Miike's Crows, and we'll be cool. And of course, you need to gate all that swag and keep the poor riffraff who don't have relatives to burn nice shit for them out.

Of course, you need your lakefront property, with yacht and, weirdly, a rowboat. When my paternal grandfather died, I didn't make it to the funeral (I have no idea where I was at the time. Canada? Italy? The US? Who can remember?), so I didn't get to see what kind of swag he had. My brother told me later that he had this Barbie Dream House-type stuff, including a harem of Barbies.

My brother: I think he's going to be really disappointed to find a bunch of white women waiting for him.

And you gotta keep your bitches looking boss, so there are some designer bags and shoes for them, too.

And you can't forget a futuristic chair massager. Jesus, does that thing exist in real life? It looks like the chair that killed Goose in Top Gun.

You can see a lot of shops like this along Queen's Road West.

巴依 Ba Yi

I walked by 巴依 Ba Yi last year when I was lost in Sai Ying Pun, and I vowed that I would come back because, peeking through the windows, I saw a headless-but-otherwise-whole roasted lamb with a ribbon tied around its neck.

Finally, I had work near the Sai Ying Pun area, so I thought I'd pop over during lunch and see what was up.

It's such an adorable restaurant. This is the little outdoor foyer for the smokers.

There is a mural on the walls, and this sad donkey seems to be contemplating his potential fate as dinner. He does look delicious, though.

The interior of the restaurant is quite cute, too. However, there is a pervasive smell of roasted lamb. When I visited a friend after eating here, she said that I smelled like a goat. And it was true.

However, the headless whole roasted lamb was not present. Apparently, you can only eat it at night.

My only complaint about the location is that the restaurant is across from a public toilet, and I could smell it. My nose is really, really sensitive (I can smell if women are menstruating, for example) and that kind of made it difficult to enjoy my meal.

You can see from the pictures and articles on the wall that this place has been reviewed a lot.

There were so many delicious things to choose from the menu that I had a bit of choice paralysis. But since I only had forty-five minutes to eat, I decided to just choose a lunch set.

Yes, your eyes are not lying to you, they serve horse and camel meat! I can't wait to try!

Braised camel feet!

I also wanted to try some of that Vigur Patent Make Wine -- I mean, COME ON, the name alone! But something tells me that it's got aphrodisiac qualities, which would spell disaster for the young men of Hong Kong.

In the end, I chose to have some jujube tea.

They have a wide selection of yogurt-based drinks. I think I'll try one next time, although I'm not fond of yogurt.

I chose spicy lamb with rice (only HKD30!) since this place is famous for its lamb. It was pretty good, although some might find it rather oily. It wasn't as spicy as I hoped it would be, and perhaps was a bit on the salty side, but it brought back some nice memories of my trip to China with my brother, eating lamb skewers from a Xinjiang dude who thought we were also Uyghurs. God knows why because we don't look like Uyghurs at all. At least, I don't think so. He was so shocked to find out that we're more or less Han, and he insisted on taking a photo of us to show his friends.

It came with a slightly sweet sauce.

You know, I'm not super fond of jujubes because my mom has experimented using it in random desserts that were less than pleasant, but I quite liked this tea. It was only an additional HKD6 with the lunch set.

Yeah, it does look like a cockroach died in it, but it tastes mighty fine. I'm definitely returning to Ba Yi to eat there during dinner. I want to try the headless roast lamb and the camel meat. Maybe even the horse, although since it's sausage, I find it a bit suspect. Ba Yi is at 43 Water Street in Sai Ying Pun. Definitely worth the trip if you've never had Xinjiang food before. Not quite the real thing but pretty tasty, anyway.