I have no idea if we have more than two faithful readers left after almost a year, but I suppose I'm still dedicated to writing... like those bands who play in bars where there are only seven or eight people sitting and drinking, and those people are either the band members' friends or they're people who might have preferred to be someplace else but randomly ended up on those bar stools or they were lazy and didn't want to drive too far or they're disappointed to find that this bar they once tried a year ago is not as happening as it was that one night but it would feel awkward to turn right around and walk out, and those people courtesy clap once in awhile, until they fear they look too eager and hope one of the other seven people claps for a change and bravely, or obliviously, risk that silence between songs that's broken occasionally if the bartender gets a phone call, and the band plays on, and I picture them dutifully practicing earlier in the week and I hope they're not getting paid based on admissions, no matter how good or bad they may be. I always feel for those musicians because that's the true nature of art: self-delusion that there is always an audience and indifference or defiance in the face of oblivion. Well, I guess I'll go with self-delusion. I'm not getting paid either way. And I'm not much of a singer.
Annnnnyway...
Our first visitor just left. He got here in mid-November and he's on his way back to the U.S. now. His name is Stanley. Flat Stanley. Our nephew Joseph had a school project involving sending a paper cut-out character to someone far away in order to learn about letter-writing and geography. The teacher had in mind places like Florida. Well, there's going to be one really cool (though jetlagged) Stanley in the class. I carried him with me almost everywhere for weeks and I tried to take photos that represent Hong Kong's unique characteristics. We thought we might do something adventurous for good photo opps in the time he was here, like visit the "Big Buddha" but with a lot of other activities going on, we didn't have time to take him beyond the local scenes. Hopefully he had some good times. Too bad he had to return just before Chinese New Year. Here's a sneak peak of Stanley in Hong Kong...
The Saturday after Paul's birthday we tried a restaurant that is literally a couple of doors away from us. We've been wanting to try it for awhile and it gets all sorts of praise and write-ups in major outlets like the New York Times and South China Morning Post, etc., as well as recently being awarded two Michelin stars. As I explained regarding my preliminary lack of enthusiasm for the restaurant choice for my birthday, not many places here seem to live up to the hype, which is why my birthday dinner was a pleasant surprise since we really enjoyed it. Alas, Paul's birthday dinner at Bo Innovation did not impress.
Sure, it was our doing in choosing the many-course chef's menu from which we knew there were some things we didn't like the sound of, but I figured, if we're giving "extreme Chinese cuisine" a try we should get the full experience. When the first small course arrived and I stated that I would be downing it "like a shot" Paul found it amusing (or something) that we were paying what we were to eat a meal as if we were contestants on Fear Factor.
Let me tell you about the thousand-year-old egg. It's an egg that has been preserved for several weeks or months, and yes, it looks like an old egg. I don't even eat solid egg yolks when they're yellow. I never have. They're near the top of my most dreaded foods list right under celery and mayonnaise (yeah, egg salad, deviled eggs - my worst nightmare). And there I was eating a black and brown egg in a candied ginger cone. Fortunately we started off with the egg and knew it couldn't get more intense than that. There were at least a dozen courses that followed, some pretty good, some just bizarre. It was mostly about presentation; they solidified some liquid ginger with a show of smoking liquid nitrogen at our table and that sort of thing. The only thing I had to leave was the thick blob of fois gras. I tried. At the conclusion, we both decided that it was an interesting meal. We also decided that interesting is not the word you most want to describe a meal. At least we tried. Below is a disturbingly accurate photo of the customary egg. We didn't make Stanley try it.
