hong kong: day 2

I HAVE OFFICIALLY RETURNED TO THE WORLD OF REAL FOOD.

Oh, Chinese food, how I've missed you.

My fat-kill journey is most definitely not going to be easy.

I say fat kill because I don't want it to ever be found/appear/haunt me again.

I woke up at 9AM this morning and went to the gym. I just kind of realized today that I don't really like going to the gym all that much and it's no fun for me at the moment. I tried to run but I got shin splints really really quickly and there was a sharp pain in my butt. Hahahaha. Now I see how that's kind of funny. Because running is a pain in my butt... literally. See what I did there?

Okay. I'm sorry for that.

Anyway, I went to eat lunch at Cafe de Coral afterwards. It sounds a lot fancier than it is. It's basically Cantonese fast food, but it obviously tastes better than anything McDonald's could ever churn out.

Then I went to eat some Cantonese street food.

Eggettes! (鸡蛋仔）

a mango dessert for which there is no english name (糯米慈) 

The outer layer of the mango dessert/snack is made of glutinous rice flour, I believe, and it sprinkled with shredded coconut. There's a nice mango filling inside (with actual fruit haha.)

Then we headed to Causeway Bay. My sister was getting a facial there and I went to Forever21.

We also went to see The Hobbit. Gollum is the scariest thing ever and the movie ended way too quickly. I'm pretty sure there's a Part II. That really irritates me because by the time Part II comes out (i.e. 28347502394857 years later) I'll have forgotten what happened in Part I. I'm really bad at remembering plot lines and stories.

For example, I read Wuthering Heights last year and I remember really, really enjoying it but I can't remember much about what happens to who.

I also thought I would show you this picture I took on the MTR (i.e. subway/metro.)

For dinner, I went to a place called Fairwood which is basically like Cafe de Coral, but worse.
My father and my sister ate hot pot. I ate BBQ pork + chicken with rice.

I also went to the same street food shop thing and ate siu mai.

P.S. I ate three eggette waffles today and two siu mai skewer thingies.
P.P.S. I really need to lose fat. And weight, basically. This sucks and I feel disgusting right now.

blast from the past II

here's some nice food porn for you to look at.

i made it.

except i'm not entirely sure what it's made of.

looks like some kind of apple cheesecake thing with streusel and caramel drizzle.

drool.

blast from the past: vanilla cupcakes with icing

I think that's what you call it, right?

A blast from the past?

Bringing something from eons (not really) ago back to modern day?

I got my camera back today (I hope you got that from my previous post.) I was scrolling through the pictures when I saw really really appetizing pictures of foods that I had made in the past.

I've decided to start with these nice-looking vanilla cupcakes first.

The icing solidified quite quickly because... I don't really know why. But it "solidified" quite quickly (it just turned not-drippy).

This is why I want to explore molecular gastronomy: I'm really interested in the way flavors work together in terms of science and chemicals, as well as the cellular responses in our bodies that tell us what tastes good and what doesn't.

I'm planning on doing my extended essay (EE) for the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma.

It's not too difficult to make.

It's not difficult to make at all.

If I can make it, you can make it. :)

Vanilla Cupcakes with Icing 
Cupcakes
from Brown Eyed Baker
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon table salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature
½ cup sour cream
1 large egg , room temperature
2 large egg yolks , room temperature
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Icing
Water
Powdered sugar


1. Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line standard muffin/cupcake tin with paper or foil liners.
2. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Add butter, sour cream, egg and egg yolks, and vanilla; beat at medium speed until smooth and satiny, about 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula and mix by hand until smooth and no flour pockets remain.
3. Divide batter evenly among cups of prepared tin. Bake until cupcake tops are pale gold and toothpick or skewer inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 24 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from tin and transfer to wire rack; cool cupcakes to room temperature before frosting.

Pour powdered sugar into a bowl. Drip small amounts of water into the powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached.

reminiscing days past

I FINALLY GOT MY CAMERA!!!!!!!!!!!!

...except without the charger. So that kind of really blows.

But it's okay because I took nice pictures of delicious food.

I also went on a trip down memory lane and found some pictures of delicious noms that I made last year back in Beijing. When I still had an oven.

Here are some of the pictures I took of food that I ate either at restaurants, or just foods that don't have recipes.

japanese eel with scrambled egg slivers on rice

banana with peanut butter

papaya

I'm so excited to be taking more pictures of food. That sounded weird. But I'm going to be posting a lot of pictures of food, especially since I'm in Hong Kong, one of the foodie capitals in the world. :)

P.S. I still hope I lose weight. Hahahaha.

ass back home

Apologies in advance for the profanity in the title of this post.

But it's one of my favorite songs at the moment, so... :)

Anyway, I'm officially back in Hong Kong! With my sister! Today!!

I don't know how I feel about it. Strangely enough, I kind of miss AC. Except not the workload or anything. Just... the almost-busy-ness of it all (as in I've always got homework to do, but I also get enough time to socialize with everybody.)

It's strange because I remember how, at the beginning of the year, I was so determined to get out of AC by Christmastime. I'm so glad I didn't.

My first *official* meal here was steak. 

Yum yum yumm. 10oz ribeye with fries and grilled corn on the cob and tomato (they're under the steak.)

With a mango slushie/smoothie thing that I didn't really enjoy too much.

AC really, really, really does not provide real meat. And I really missed it. And it was really good.

Except I've gained 8 kilos and so I'm planning on losing weight over these holidays.

I hope it works. Heh.

I went to a place called Tequila Jack for the steak. I really liked this poster thing they had up:

After steak, we did some exploring (except not really because my sister lives in Hong Kong already) but it was still kind of an adventure for me. Here's a (crappy) snapshot of a typical Hong Kong street with all those signs hanging in the middle and stuff. I love them!

There's a really famous mango dessert place in Hong Kong. Yes, it's famous for mango dessert -- it's that specific. :) They've got a huge variety of Cantonese desserts (there aren't really names for them in English), so if you ever get the chance to go to Hong Kong, make sure you check this place out.

 I needed to take a picture of this because... it's the marriage of Lily and Oiltank.

I know as an AC student I shouldn't be making fun of people. But .... sometimes my inner devil gets the best of me.

More updates coming.
With better, higher-quality photos in TWO DAYS.
Get excited.

borough market: take two

I have so much stuff to say today it's ridiculous. This is because I was stupid and have not updated in way too long which is not very good. My laptop is also currently dying (i.e. running dangerously low on battery) so that's not too great either.

Let's go in chronological order. Because I want to put up pictures from London from October Break (yes... a month and a half later.) This is also because my post on London was absolutely terrible and I want to redo it.

A burrito which was actually a lot more appetizing (and expensive) than it looks.

Random birds that were for sale, I suppose. I'd love to try game birds sometime.

Hanging pufferfish!

Fresh seafood.

It was really crowded.

la;skdjfzd,.sd;lfakjsdfa macarons.

Oh hullo M. Blumenthal. How do you do?

There was a kitchen demonstration!

Before going to Borough Market, I was completely unaware of the huge variety of olive oils there are.

I also didn't know there could be so much cheese.

...or jam.

I definitely didn't expect chilli jam.

This stuff was actually really good. It was 3.50 per (tiny) pot but it was very, very good. I think I had the pheasant and the rabbit.

And this is what it looked like. It was really good.

This granola was quite nice as well.

I bet the Nigerians at AC could stomach this :)

If I could, I would just buy this entire freaking stall. 

I loved Dukka and Rogan Josh and Tikka Masala.

I can't stop bragging about seeing Heston Blumenthal.

Look! There he is again!

A Middle Eastern Salad, as olive oil was being drizzled in.

Lots of Turkish delights, I believe.

A cool British guy showing me what oxtail looked like.

...and I still have no idea what wheatgrass is.

Yay juice.

NOW I KNOW WHAT FIGS ARE.

This burger actually looks really good. It tasted okay; not as good as it looks though ;)

Parma ham!

This bread was huge.

Gotta love dem sausages.

YES. ASIAN GUY MAKING FRESH OYSTER.

omnomnomnom.

I. NEED. MEAT.

and more meat.

AND A HOT DOG.

Okay that was the end of my Borough Market ramble. I absolutely loved it there... it's one of the reasons why I want to go to London for post-secondary education. The amount of food there is incredible and it really opened my eyes to a world of gastronomy and culinary science that I didn't even know existed. I honestly had the best time there, and I was so angry that I didn't have enough money to buy anything, not really even lunch for myself. It was so frustrating. I love food and I love to call myself a *foodie* but I'm not sure if I can really qualify, seeing as I can't make food to save my life. Hopefully I'll be able to do something over the summer.

On another point, here are some pictures from the food co-op that I've been helping to run at AC this term. It was super stressful getting all the orders, handling money, and chasing people down all by myself but it worked for a week or two. I'll probably start up again next term but I don't know how successful it'll be, as I think a lot of people see me as at least somewhat unreliable :/

Salad bag.

fruit bag.

Okay I think that's enough for today. I'm pretty tired and it's past midnight already. I'll update some more tomorrow or something (or on the plane/at the airport back home in FOUR DAYS.)