Hong Kong-The Breakfast Edition

Well, howdy! It has been a VERY long time since I've posted, I know. We've been back from our trip to Hong Kong for a week now and I haven't been able to summon up the will to blog (or do much of anything, really). The jet lag is really killing me, I've been struggling to stay awake through work, coming home, and falling asleep at 6:30, then waking up in the middle of the night. Annoying! (And I have learned way more about late night TV than I ever thought I would.) So anyway, I finally uploaded the first 80ish photos from the trip on to Flickr, and thought I would kick things off with a post all about breakfast in HK.


But first, can I just show you a (crappy) picture of the atrium of our hotel? We stayed in the Royal Garden Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui (on the Kowloon side) and aside from an amazing view of the harbor from our room, the hotel had this awesome atrium. And there were glass elevators! Too cool. Of course, the first thing we thought of when we saw this was High Anxiety (there may have been a few reenactments of the newspaper scene).


So, that first morning in HK, we were severely jet lagged and got a very early start to the day. And here is my first milk tea of the trip. Mmm, milk tea. (I relied on my phone to take a lot of pictures when I didn't feel like bringing out the giant dSLR, so some of these photos are sub-par. And now I regret having been so lazy. Hmph!)


Of course we couldn't just have tea for breakfast, and thus began our obsession with macaroni soup. This was at a cha chaan teng in Central, if I recall correctly. This is a pretty standard option for breakfast, and although it seemed like a weird concept at first, it was very soothing and tasty.


The macaroni breakfast set at Fairwood, which is a chain of cafeteria style fast food restaurants. You make your order with a cashier at the front of the restaurant, then walk to the back and hand your receipt over at the pick-up counter, where they put the orders together. Man, the speed of these workers is really something else. Anyway, this is the scrambled egg and toast set.


Here's Py's version, which if I recall correctly was tomato flavored (and listed as Italian). He was just as enamored of macaroni soup as I was, and has been making it at home; if we're lucky, maybe he'll write a guest blog about his version. (HINT HINT!)


And another version; I think this one was at a place called A+ Kitchen, near our hotel. This one had a toasted bun instead of bread.


And we had iced milk tea instead of hot. Mmmm, milk tea. Have I mentioned how much i love this stuff? WELL, I DO! It'll keep you going, and if it was available here, I'd never drink coffee again.


Oh, look, a non-macaroni breakfast! Instant noodles are also popular for breakfast, and this was version was topped with satay beef.


And this was hands down the oddest breakfast I had the whole trip. We stopped in at a place with no English menu, so I just asked for the breakfast "set a" and this is what we got. Cold sliced bread (with the crusts cut off!) pre-buttered (margarined, actually), a sausage, some eggs, and a mystery piece of deep-fried meat with mayo. I think it was pork. This was not exactly my cup of tea, but I found it interesting, at least!

Okay, well I think this has gotten long enough so I'll stop here. I'm still uploading photos, and the full set is here, if you're interested in seeing other pics. I have a couple more posts to come, including a wedding banquet, some adorable pets, and much much more food!

In the meantime, Choice Eats is on Tuesday, which I am very excited for! And don't forget, Pi(e) Day is Wednesday!