guess who’s coming to dinner

It’s traditional for Chinese families to get together on New Year’s Eve, which this year falls on the second of February, for a dinner, sometimes at home but more often in one of the many big restaurants around town. Needless to say, trying to book a table at this time of year is very difficult, which is why our family dinner will be tomorrow night.

Hong Kong’s restaurants are a bellwether for

incomplete lists

On one level, I hate to be provided with incomplete information, but on another I view it as a challenge to come up with the missing data. An example will explain what I mean: a few years ago, I read that seven metals were known in antiquity, but the author neglected to enumerate what these metals were. Consequently, I set about working out the list for myself (using the internet is too easy and

sweet and sour

The history of kung fu is littered with stories, probably apocryphal but with some credibility, of old masters, on their deathbeds, lamenting that they hadn’t passed on all they knew to at least one of their disciples. Not all teachers were like that of course: I studied wing chun for five years in the 1980s with a teacher who said he would consider himself a failure if he didn’t have at least

and you thought it was all over

Even though the date of Chinese New Year wanders up and down the Gregorian calendar over a range of about four weeks, it always seems to be cold in Hong Kong over the new year period, and this year has been no exception. However, instead of the usual two or three days of cold weather, this year it was cold and miserable throughout the first week, threatening to dampen any enthusiasm for the

our friend tom

Well, I’m completely cream-crackered. My wife and I have just returned from visiting Tom Li, who has been out of Hong Kong for many months. Tom has a store in the remote New Territories village of Sham Chung, and every Saturday when he’s in town we cycle down from the north, a round trip of 45 miles, to eat his incomparable pan-fried noodles.

The cycling is an adventure in itself, keeping

slow food

A few years ago, while I was back in the UK, I ran into someone I hadn’t seen for some time. In the course of the ensuing conversation, he happened to mention that his family had been to New Zealand en masse to attend his sister’s wedding. On the return journey, they had a six-hour stopover in Hong Kong.

“Guess where they ate,” he said.

“No need to guess,” I replied. “They ate at McDonald’s.”

food for thought

One of my favourite Chinese delicacies is the dan taat (egg custard tart). They were also a favourite of Fei Pang (Fatty Patton, the last colonial governor of Hong Kong) and probably go some way towards explaining the latter’s corpulence. However, a dan taat is quite unlike the egg custard tarts found in many English cake shops, which are several hours old, cold and usually sprinkled with nutmeg.