Hong Kong Revisited

I never expected to be back in Hong Kong again so soon, as we were only there last December, with the kids and family, in HK Disneyland. But when J&D invited us for their wedding reception there, I thought it would be nice to check out HK again without having kids in tow. And the food there is splendid, and food in HK weddings are usually very good too, so we thought, why not.

Stayed at the L'Hotel, which till now, I'm not sure if it was meant to be pronounced Lotel, like the french, or really L as in the letter L. But the HK ppl pronounce it as ELLO hotel. Situated just opposite Tin Hau MTR station, it was a really convenient base. Quite decent, supposedly 4 star, which is why I guess they had the token gym and swimming pool on the roof top.

All plans to surprise the NGXM, aka wonder woman, in the Grand Millennium Plaza Fitness First went down the toilet. See other blog for related story. Nevertheless, that gave us more leisure time before the Roast Goose Dinner at Yung Kee, courtesy of goduncle and god aunt. The latter had brought us to the Louis Vuitton shop, in Landmarks, which was huge, though I dont for my life know WHY she thought it would interest us at all. Everything had two zeroes too many. Dinner at Yung Kee was fabulous. Melt in the mouth century egg, artery clogging roast goose, (some more only wife and I had to work our way through half a goose, as our host didnt eat red meat), deep fried garoupa and the fluffiest sticky rice possible.

Day 2 saw us up bright and early, doing the token sightseeing at the Chi Lin Nunnery, in Diamond hill. Its claim to fame is its architecture, Tang Dynasty, and method of construction, not a single nail. Yadda yadda.




Amongst the topics that came up were the prohibitively expensive costs of dying in HK. Charming isn't it. The costs of cremation and interning the ashes are to die for.

After lunch at the Dynasty Club, next to the Grand Hyatt, we had to make our way to the highlight of the trip, ie, the wedding. First was the civil ceremony at the City Hall.

It was quite a novel experience, coz here people don't wear their wedding gowns for the civil registry. In place of a church service, I guess the civil registry is the most important part, legally. There they were, in their full wedding accoutrements, looking rather dishy. The legal ceremony lasted all of 5 minutes, the registrar feigning a look of remote interest, in what must have been his 100th transaction for the day.



After the registry, we headed for the exhibition centre where the Sotheby's pre auction display was on. Masterpieces from Van gogh, Matisse, etc, commanding USD12million and above, reserve prices, Ming Dynasty Artifacts in the millions, panerai watches, Emeralds the size of blocks of constipated s***, just simply bedazzling. I politely declined the offer to inspect one of the Bulgari pieces, having feigned a little too much interest. The highlight was the bowl of beef brisket noodles after that, in the Harbour Cafe of the exhibition centre.

The wedding reception was at the Park lane hotel, Causeway Bay. This delightful sight greeted me upon arrival.

Nothing like the sight of bubbly to lift one's spirits. And my favourite brand as well.

The toasts and cake cutting are done before dinner. And, YAM SENG is a Malaysian thing, much like yee sang, and bak kut teh.

The wedding cake was elegantly simple, and consisted of a very spongy sponge, interspersed with fresh cream and peaches. Quite light and refreshing, and served as a stomach liner, pre dinner. Dinner was up to standard, of course. Suckling pig, sea whelk gratin, (still dunno what a whelk is), sharks fins, chicken, fish, etc etc. And the best part was, after the initial toast, no one seemed to care much for the moet, and after awhile, the waitress more or less dedicated the whole bottle for my personal consumption. Surprisingly, by the end of it, (which was quite early), I was still sober, which was proven the next morning when I could get up without a hangover, and in time to meet GW for breakfast.

Wife and I had to share a breakfast, coz lunch was a buffet at the Shangrila Island, and we had been warned by hostess, Godaunt, to MAKE sure we came hungry. The spread is somewhat like Lemon Garden's, if not a notch above. The yellow tail sashimi was wonderful. And the desserts.....migoodness. Usually sponges with many layers of colored creams are nice to look at, but bleagh to eat. But these were sublime. So was the souffle.

The debaucherous lunch was followed by another sinful dinner at Godaunt & Goduncle's place. It being the mid autumn festival kind of warranted a major feast. Sharksfins, (I daren't even blog how much fins there were, for fear of WIASO lobbing my head off), abalone, fish, chicken, etc.



After that dinner, we took a walk to Victoria park where the remnants of the mid autumn festival carnival was still happening. Quite an interesting experience.



Saturday morning, finally met up with the newlyweds, Mr and Mrs Ng, for whom I had made the wedding cake. (not the most RECENT newlyweds). Lunched in a dim sum place in Times Square, followed by dessert, a lovely mango puree with pomelo shreds and mango ice cream and sago.


These were my main purchases throughout the trip:
Yup, cookie cutters.

Sunday - hosted a pot luck dinner for Woman I am Scared Of, who is in town for her nephew's wedding, together with her housemate.