Our initial plan was to go to Disneyland but since it is still raining, we shifted the Hong Kong island tour to today. We started off with Mido Cafe located on Temple St., one of those coffee shops (a.k.a.
char chan teng) much talked about in Hong Kong travel books and some blogs. We knew why when we reached there... all of the customers don't speak Cantonese and most of them carry cameras and backpacks!
This place quite easy to find, just take exit C of Yau Ma Tei MTR station and head towards Temple St., it is the last shop on your right. I have marked this place down on my google map. The shop is like those typical
char chan teng you see on any Hong Kong movies/series. There's no English Menu therefore advisable to have someone who can read Chinese with you :)
We started off with a cheese and ham sandwich (
for thui chee see san mun zhi), pineapple bun with butter (
nai yau bo lo pao) and a cup of milk tea (
nai cha), remember to add your own sugar :)
The difference between the milk tea back home is that the tea in Hong Kong is much more fragrant. Also, they have set menus, the cheese and ham sandwich came with the milk tea.
The pineapple bun is delicious as the taste has a combination of slightly salted melted butter with the sweetness of the pineapple pastry on the bun, best eaten hot :)
Then we continued to order ham and fried eggs (
for thui zhin dan). This dish came with 2 eggs, 3 pieces of ham, few sticks of carrots and potato and toast bread with butter. Funny thing is the eggs tasted a bit different from those we had back home... my wife is fussy when it comes to raw egg yolk but this time she happily slurps away :)
After breakfast, we took a stroll along the main road (Nathan Road) back to the MTR station, it was still raining... we headed to the famous Wong Tai Sin Temple located at Wong Tai Sin MTR Station. The rain got heavier but there were still a lot of people there. We took a snapped a few photos of the exterior, photography was not allowed in the praying quarters.
There are a lot of interesting shops in the MTR stations. The one below sells a variety of bottled herbal teas (
liong shui)
Next on our list was Tao Yuen Teow Chew Fishball Noodles recommended by my uncle, located near the Central (Chung Wan) MTR. The people and shops here are very different from Kowloon. People here are well dressed and shops are like Giordano Concept Store, Coach, Episode, Marks and Spencer Flagship store, etc...
In between buildings are concrete staircases and along the staircase are small stalls selling food, fruits, meat, and what not...
It was around lunch time, the noodle shop cannot be missed due to its striking red and yellow signboard and long queue. From the menu, seems like they are more famous for beef noodles... both of us don't take beef so we ordered 2 bowls of fishball noodles (
yu dan hor). Despite the number of customers, service was pretty quick. You can add more garlic and some dried chilli paste depending on taste :)
Soup is good, plain yet sweet. Fishball and fishcakes are springy, sweet and juicy. A bowl costs between HKD20-30, pretty average price for a meal in Central Hong Kong :)
We walked around some shops, Marks and Spencer and The Landmark before heading off for tea somewhere near Wan Chai MTR station.
Honolulu Cafe was one of the shops featured in 988 FM. We ordered 2 egg tarts (
dan tat), a porkchop bun (
chu par pao), pineapple bun and an iced milk tea.
Another thing to note is, you have to specify nai yau po lo pao else the order will come only as the pineapple bun. We prefer the pineapple bun we had at Mido's earlier in the day. The egg tart was fresh from the oven, the pastry had butter fragrance yet not too strong, the egg again did not have that egg smell and it was really smooth and it melted in our mouths instantly! We wanted to try the porkchop bun so that we can compare with the ones we will be having in Macau few days later.
We headed back to the MTR station and dropped by the snack shop selling chicken egg cakes (
kai dan zai) recommended by my uncle. Its located next to McDs. You can actually smell the aroma from when coming up from the MTR station and it's made upon ordering. It tasted like pancake, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, inside was half empty though :)
We are full again, so time to continue our walk. We headed back to IFC Mall at Central as my wife wanted to Visit Zara.
Spent a few hours there and we continued our journey to
The Peak and
Madam Tussauds.
From IFC Mall, head towards Pier 6 and take bus 15C to the Lower Peak Tram Terminus which will only cost a few HKDs. There is a pedestrian walkway all the way from IFC Mall to the piers. Lots of sightseeing along the way :)
You will be able to see The Peak Counter at the entrance.
If this is your first visit, we would recommend you to get the 3-in-1 Combo Package from a smaller counter on the left where the Jackie Chan figure is standing. For HKD190, you will get a return ride via the Tram, entrance to the Wax Museum and go up to the Sky Terrace for night view of Hong Kong City.
Upon reaching the top, there are a lot of souvenier shops along the way before you get to the Wax Museum.
There are really a lot of figures of celebrities, big shots, and famous people! Some are exceptional real like Leo Ku, Andy Lau and Beckham to name a few! Here are some snapshots for your viewing pleasure :)
After the photo taking session, we proceeded to the Sky Terrace. You will need to go through a series of escalators but its worth the walk when you get to see the night view. It was really windy outside, felt like Genting Highlands but far stronger wind. My wife held on to the railings really tight, afraid that she might be blown away. Awesome view, huh? :)
There are a lot of Western restaurants there but we already have one in mind located somewhere near
Lan Kwai Fong. We went back all the way down and catch the same 15C bus back but instead asked the driver to drop us somewhere near the Central MTR (just outside The Landmark, opposite of an LV outlet) instead of all the way back to the pier. The restaurant was just a stones throw away, its called
Jimmy's Kitchen. It has been written in almost all the Hong Kong travel guidebooks we have read. So we gave it a go :)
Its located inside the South China Building:
It did not seem that posh from the photos on the website... but when we went in, it was surprisingly the opposite... I was thinking like... wow... it's definitely going bust our budget!
We ordered a Lamb Rack, a Chicken Kiev and a glass of 2007 Shiraz. It was a really long wait though... My wife's lamb came first, it was grilled to a perfect medium rare. Had a sip of wine, popped the meat into my mouth and the juice oozes out and blends with the after taste of the wine! Absolutely fantastic!
Then came my chicken... it wasn't what I had expected... I was pretty hungry that time so I hoped for a larger portion... The chicken was only the size of a KFC thigh!
Oh well... let's get things started... when I cut the chicken, there was this garlic buttered gravy flowing out of the chicken. Mixing a piece of chicken with mash potatoes and the gravy proved to be a very good match!
My wive being a small eater pass one of the ribs to me, which made me pretty stuffed after that... The dinner was pretty damaging... it came out to be about HKD650! Well, we have always seen in the movies how the actors and actresses have fine-dining in western restaurants in Hong Kong, its worth the experience :)
We have enough energy left to take a short walk to
Lan Kwai Fong as directly by the waiter. Its just located 2 roads back from the restaurant. This place is filled with Westerners and was quite happening even though its only Tuesday!
How time flies as it was already 10:30pm... we headed back to the MTR and took the train back to Mongkok.
The nearest MTR to the hotel we were staying in was Mongkok East. But in order to get there, there was a need to have a few interchanges, so we usually just take the Red Line to the Mongkok station and talk a walk back via the very long overhead pedestrian walkway. On our way back, we saw some shops selling desserts, so we went to try them out. We ordered a toufu dessert (
tau fu fah), an almond one (
hang yan wu) and a plate of fried toufu (
zhin tau fu). We forgot the take photos of the shop (from the menu and the name of the shop, seems like they are focused on soy beans and some other bean type food) and the toufu dessert, crap... The toufu dessert was extremely smooth until it was like drinking water! The fried toufu with fish cake tasted as if it was smelly toufu, but we can't confirm... it tasted pretty OK after adding some sauce and chilli :)
OK... it was getting pretty late... we headed back to the hotel and had a good night's sleep after a hot shower :)
Today was the most productive day I must say as we covered a lot of places and all the food that we had were fabulous!
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