Dinner at Hak Ka Hut

Our first dinner in Hong Kong was at the Hakka Hut located at Oterprise Square in TST where Friday’s and Outback steak house are.

Hakka cuisine originated in southeastern China, mainly Guangdong and Fujian provinces. There are several Hakka restaurants in Singapore and Malaysia but this is the first one I’ve seen in Hong Kong.

The interiors were pleasant and very casual.

I found their melamine plates with cut outs for the chopsticks really cute.

We started with the clear chicken soup which was extremely flavorful. It tasted like it was cooked for days.

clear chicken soup

These were the contents of the soup. Notice the pork? I think the secret to good chicken soup is the addition of pork. Of course there was also lots of secret herbs and spices added.

The conch was just average. Some were quite tough. The tofu underneath was good though.

pan fried sliced conch w/ beancurd HK$60

The baked chicken with savory sauce is their specialty. It’s tasted like very salty steamed chicken. It was good with rice. It’s one of the best Hainanese chicken I’ve ever eaten in Hong Kong.

baked chicken w/ savory sauce Hk$60/half
These were the sauces for the chicken. The left one is a soy-vinegar combination. The one on the right is my favorite. It was made with sesame oil and ginger. The one on the bottom was your regular chili sauce.

steamed rice

The menu said these were called Hakka pastries. The waitress said it was made up of sweet and savory pastries. She said she didn’t like the savory ones but we couldn’t order just the sweet pastries. We decided to try it since it was their specialty.

Hakka pastries

This brown sticky thing was the sweet pastry. At first bite it tasted like soil. It was very sticky and chewy and it had a sweet, nutty filling. After I got over the taste of soil it wasn’t that bad. I acutally managed to finish a piece. But I wouldn’t order this again.

The white one was the savory pastry. Boy was the waitress right. After one bite I didn’t bother finishing it. I can’t describe the taste but it was yucky.

We went back another night to try more of their specialties. We ordered my favorite dish stewed pork belly with preserved vegetables. You really need to eat rice with this dish. Also make sure to remove the fat layer. It’s another salty and delicious dish.

pork belly with preserved vegetables Hk$62


scrambled eggs w/ crabmeat & vermicelli $58


beancurd w/ minced pork


poached fresh mushrooms w/ baby vegetables
in rich soup $50

For dessert we had the traditional Chinese hot sweet soups in almond and black sesame flavors.

hot almond soup & black sesame soup

Hak Ka Hut Menu
specialties, vegetables, seafood, dimsum

Hak Ka Hut serves decent food at average prices. The standouts were the baked chicken and stewed pork with preserved vegetables. The other dishes were just average. It’s definitely no Choi Garden. Give it a try so you can taste genuine Hakka cuisine.

Hak Ka Hut
3/F, Oterprise Square 26 Nathan Rd,
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
telephone: 2369 3822

Kiss – Because I’m a Girl (with English sub-titles)

I saw this video on facebook and wondered what it was. I watched all 8 minutes of it and was moved by it. I felt like I watched an entire in movie in 8 minutes and no words were needed. The director did a very good job with the video.

I did some research and found out it was a music video made in 2002 for the song “Because I’m a Girl” by the Korean pop female trio, Kiss. The group has since disbanded by their video lives on in youtube. Watch it you won’t regret it.

Philippine Airlines food Mla-Hkg-Mla

I just recently came back from a trip to Hong Kong. As usual I took PAL since it’s my favorite airline. Yes it is! Well mainly because all my mileage from credit cards is with Pal so I have no choice but to take PAL. On this flight I took business class using up only 25,000 miles round trip.

As usual the food was excellent. No I wasn’t just hungry. It was really, really good!


lunch menu Mla-Hkg

The mixed seafood salad was delicious. The shrimp, scallop and mussel were all fresh and well cooked.

I chose the western specialty which was chicken breast with morel farce. I didn’t know what farce was but I took a chance. I love chicken breast but I’m normally hesitant to order it on the plane because it usually is hard and dry. Surprisingly the chicken wrapped in pastry was tender and juicy. The sauce was also exquisite.
chicken breast with morel farce

dinner menu Hkg-Mla

For dinner I chose the Asian specialty of grilled sea bass with red curry sauce. Fish is a dish I avoid on planes as it is often hard and often not fresh. But I didn’t have any option since I don’t like prawns or pork tenderloin. I was so shocked to find the fish restaurant quality. It was a thick cut of sea bass that was perfectly grilled. It was melt in your mouth tender. My only complain was there wasn’t enough curry sauce. The crab rice wasn’t that good though. It tasted like colored rice only.

smoked tuna salad

grilled sea bass w/ red curry sauce & crab rice

The panna cotta was good but not the greatest. They should have flavored the panna cotta with mango instead of leaving it plain and topping it with sour mangoes. Nevertheless not bad for airplane food.

mango panna cotta

Watch out in the coming days for more features and pictures of Hong Kong restaurants.

7% – Life lessons from a 90 yr. old woman

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio

“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:”

01. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
02. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
03. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
04. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
05. Pay off your credit cards every month.
06. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
07. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
08. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
09. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past, so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. No one is in charge of your happiness, but you.
25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ”In five years, will this matter?”.
26. Always choose life.
27 Forgive everyone everything.
28. What other people think of you is none of your business.
29. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
31. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
32. Believe in miracles.
33. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
34. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
35. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
36. Your children get only one childhood.
37. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
38. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
39. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
40. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
41. The best is yet to come.
42. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
43. Yield.
44. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

It’s estimated 93% won’t forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will, forward this with the title ‘7%’. I’m in the 7%. Remember that I will always share my spoon with you! Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.

Are you addicted to Bejeweled Blitz?

Are you one of the thousands of facebook users who sit in front of the computer for hours playing Bejeweled Blitz? Does your heart race when you hear that deep voice say, “one minute!” Do you get a high when you hear “awesome, excellent, spectacular, extraordinary “? Do you dread hearing the words “time up”? Did you buy a new mouse to improve you game? C’mon fess up!

With the new version of Bejeweled Blitz just released more are surely going to be addicted. The graphics are glitzier, the sound electrifying and it’s easier to get a higher score. I also love the new feature – last hurrah. I played a game that ended at a score of 45,000 after the last hurrah magic I ended up with a score of 96,000. How cool is that?

Here’s a screen grab of my friends current scores. Our reigning queen is Jennie with Janet, Debbie and Diane ready to grab the spot from her anytime now. After this grab Mila jumped into 2nd place. Way to go!

Wow my friend, Ime just score 418,850 fb said it’s one of the highest scores in the world. How did you do it Ime?

Update 10/11/09 12:10 am – I’m finally at no. 4! woohoo!

To all the fanatics out there, what are your tips, tricks that you can share with me? What’s your highest score ever? What do you think of the new Bejeweled Blitz?

Here’s a site with some nifty tips to improve your score.

Now you know what I’m doing if my blog entry is late. Back to work!

Lunch Buffet at Inagiku Japanese restaurant

I’ve already featured Inagiku before but the pictures I took then were awful. I think they’re better now.
Inagiku at Makati Shangri-la has the one of the best Japanese buffets in town but they only have it on weekends.

They definitely have the best selection of sushi I’ve ever eaten. I only eat cooked sushi and they had a lot of those and they were very unique. It was challenging to take pictures of the sushi because it was always out of stock. People there ate a lot of sushi and the chefs can’t keep up.

This was my favorite sushi. It’s called spicy tuna burger. It’s a piece of seared tuna on top of sushi rice and topped with some mayonnaise and cheese which was broiled quickly to melt.

I didn’t eat any of the salads or cold appetizers below. I wanted to save space in my tummy for the sushi and 1 item in the main course. Read on to find out what it was.

Japanese potato salad

Inagiku salad with special dressing and toppings

These were the main course selections. I only had interest in one item.


shrimp balls


salmon in miso

There were different types of meat and seafood you can choose and they will cook it on the teppanyaki table for you. I didn’t eat any of these either. They were very popular with the other diners.

steak


chicken


prawns


tuna


sea bass

udon station

mixed vegetables

fried salmon w/ cheese

These were the best food in the buffet – mini hamburgers! I’m declaring these the best burgers in Manila. It wipes out any burgers I’ve written about. These burgers were thick, juicy and most of all they taste like little nuggets of steak. As I’ve written over and over a good burger for me is one that is made with great quality beef that you can truly taste with every bite. It’s not about the sauce, toppings, cheese and definitely any extenders or fancy spices. These definitely fit the bill. I initially got a piece to try. I wasn’t expecting anything fancy. The first bite blew me away. I immediately told everyone in our group to get try the burgers. Everyone agreed with me that they were incredible.

giant tuna head

sukiyaki

Dessert Japanese style

coffee jelly

These are pictures of what I actually ate. I didn’t have pictures of the shrimp sushi below but these were always out of stock too. They were deadly delicious.
Notice the one burger and 3 kinds of fish? I was trying to eat healthy. The salmon on the left was too sweet, the fried one in the middle was hard and cold so I just ate the one on the right. After I ate my burger I immediately went back for more!
Here’s 3 more burgers. I think I went back for 2 more. I hope they have burgers again the next time I go back to Inagiku. I will just eat sushi and burgers for lunch.

The waiter will bring tempura to your table. I’m not really fond of shrimp tempura so I asked for fish and sweet potato tempura only.

fish tempura


sweet potato tempura
Of course I had dessert. I love the fruit in jelly inside the orange skin. I also love their coffee jelly and the new citrus jelly.

It was a wonderful lunch since it wasn’t at Choi Garden again. I also loved discovering the best burgers in Manila. I hope they have it as a regular item in their weekend buffet.
Inagiku
Makati Shangri-la Hotel
Ayala Avenue corner Makati Avenue
Makati City 1200 Philippines
telephone: (63 2) 813 8888
for reservations: 840 0884

P1,732.00  net per head

Birthday Dinner at Choi Garden

It’s unbelievable but I ate at Choi Garden at lunch and dinner on my birthday! At lunch I treated our office staff but at dinner I was a guest. My birthday happens to fall on the same day as uncle E  so it was his birthday dinner I attended. The food we ate at dinner was far from the from the food we had at lunch in terms of price and choices.

dinner menu

We started with cold cuts – roast pork, soy chicken, sliced beef, cucumbers.

cold cuts

The special treat for dinner was the whole Australian abalone per person. It was really, really tender and flavorful.

Australian abalone

Next was this giant live lobster.

The lobster was cooked in the Chinese way with superior sauce. The sauce was very rich and buttery. The lobster despite it’s size was soft and succulent.


lobster in superior sauce


wintermelon soup w/ crabmeat & dried scallops


Peking duck

The leftover duck was cut up into pieces, seasoned and fried again. It wasn’t on the menu but they decided to do it for us. It was sooooo good to eat the spicy and tasty bones of the duck. Some pieces had more meat than others but either way it was still good.

fried duck bones


polunchay w/ 2 kinds of eggs


birthday misua

The beautiful caramel birthday cake was from Estrel’s in Quezon City. Estrel’s is well known for their caramel cake.

I brought this lemon torte from Classic Confections.They’re now my favorite cake source.
I love the crunchy meringue layers and the tangy lemon curd. It was a refreshing change from chocolate cakes.

We had the same cake shop in mind. Their family in turn gave me Nono’s chocolate oblivion cake. This in my book is the best chocolate cake in Manila.

As usual the food was excellent. It was a dinner worthy of the celebrant’s special day.
Choi Garden Menu
Choi Garden Seafood and Shark’s Fin Restaurant
12 Annapolis St.
cor. Purdue St.
San Juan, Metro Manila
telephone: 727-6042
Estrel’s Caramel Cakes
54 Scout Tobias Corner Scout Limbaga
Laging Handa, QC
telephone: 372-2965

Classic Confections
2/F of Greenbelt 5
Makati City
telephone: 746-2773, 490-7896

4/F 87 West Capitol Drive,
Barrio Kapitolyo, Pasig City
telephone: 729-9243; 0917-524-5892Â