I’m sitting at Hong Kong airport, connected via the Free WiFi service.

I just had one of the best Chinese meals I’ve ever had at the Sham Shui Po district.

Sham Shui Po

Friends of the family (Michael, Daniel and CK) were kind enough to show me around most of the day, starting with Yum Cha.

We then walked around the Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok areas to shop. Whilst most tourists stick to the Nathan Road area in Tsim Sha Tsui, there are far better deals in Mong Kok and it’s only 5 minute ride on the local train.

Nathan Road is 27 kilometres long and has over 3000 shops.

Aquarium shops in Tsim Sha Tsui

Whilst shopping around, I priced an unlocked iPhone at HK$9870 which didn’t seem like much of a saving from Australian prices. The HK$ to A$ is about 7.4 at the time I’m writing this. Although, I probably could have bargained that down. Still, knowing that the next software update would likely disable the ‘hack’, I decided against buying it in Hong Kong.

I did stop in the HMV store though and bought some DVDs and CDs. Again, the price was close to those in Australia but they were not yet available in Australia. So, I thought I’d grab them whilst I was there.

After a rest and coffee at Starbucks, we drove to Sham Shui Po and looked for a place to eat. It was about 6:00pm and already one of the restaurants was fully seated. We chose another.

We had 4 dishes – Cow tripe stir fried with shallots, ginger and chili. 1000-year-old-egg with watercress and omelet. Then another kind of tripe and egg – all crispy on the top and soft on the inside. Finally calamari stir fried with rock salt and chili. Washed down with beers and tea at the end.

On the way to the airport, CK stopped at a lookout to take some photos of 2 bridges – the Tsing Ma bridge (second longest bridge in the world) and the Ting Kau bridge. Awesome!

Tsing Ma Bridge

[ View more photos of Hong Kong ]

Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko from Komsomolskaya Pravda Newspaper in Moscow decided to learn first-hand how harmful cell phones are. There is no magic in cooking with your cell phone. The secret is in the radio waves that the cell phone radiates.

The journalists created a simple microwave structure as shown in the picture. They called from one cell phone to the other and left both phones on talking mode. They placed a tape recorder next to phones to imitate sounds of speaking so the phones would stay on.

After, 15 minutes: The egg became slightly warm.

25 minutes: The egg became very warm.

40 minutes: The egg became very hot.

65 minutes: The egg was cooked. (As you can see.)

Thanks for passing this on David.

Beef with Broccoli and Hokkien Noodles.

Ingredients

• garlic
• 1 inch piece of ginger
• 1 onion
• vegetable oil
• sesame oil
• 750g of beef strips
• cornflour
• soy sauce
• 500g hokkien noodles (in packets ready to be heated)
• 2 large heads of broccoli
• 1 beef stock cube
• 2 cups of boiling water

method

Chop onions garlic and ginger into small pieces,
Saute in oil in wok until slightly transparent, remove from heat,
Cover beef strips with cornflour and brown over medium heat in wok,
Return onion mix and add soy sauce,
Heat Hokkien noodles in microwave and add to wok along with stock cube and water,
Chop broccoli into small pieces and steam under wok lid until cooked but still green.

Serves 4-6

Hi again folks. Well, last night was “comfort food”. Tuna Mornay prepared by Fiona.

Ingredients

• Tuna (canned is fine)
• Milk
• Butter
• Flour
• Cheese (tasty)
• Rice
• Peas and Corn
• Garlic bread

Method

Start your plain white rice boiling.

You make a roux (paste) with butter and flour and then gradually add milk till it all thickens into a white sauce. Then add some cheese, the tasty variety (Bega, Coon) is nice. Keep stirring the cheese in until it melts.

Add your tuna. Mix in some peas and corn.

Pour the sauce over the rice and serve with some garlic bread.

It’s a quick meal that’s cheap but tasty!

Wednesday’s dinner was Chicken with black bean, ginger, Chinese broccoli and snow peas.

Ingredients

• 1 inch piece of ginger
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Sunflower oil
• 1 kg of chicken breast skin off
• Cornflour
• 2 bunches of chinese broccoli
• Large handful of snow peas
• Black bean sauce

Method

Chop ginger into thin strips, onion into rings and lightly crush garlic cloves.

Stir-fry in oil in wok until onions start to go transparent and remove from heat and set aside.

Chop chicken breast into small bite size pieces and toss in cornflour. Add more oil to the wok and fry chicken until it is golden and cooked through. Cover with lid to ensure the chicken is tender. Return onions etc to the wok and pour over half a cup of black bean sauce. 

Wash Chinese broccoli to remove any dirt and cut stems in half. Add to wok and steam under lid until the stems are cooked through, the colour should be bright green. Stir through the chicken. Add snow peas to the wok and steam lightly under the lid for no more than 5 minutes.

Mix through and serve with steamed rice.

Serves 4-6

Tonight was Pork Butterfly Steaks.

Ingredients

• Pork butterfly steaks
• Brocolli
• Tomatoes
• Asparagus
• Garlic, Rosemary
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Method

The tomatoes and asparagus are pan friend in diced garlic and butter. Have these going before you start the steaks. Make sure you take out the asparagus early, they don’t need much cooking.

Heat up some olive oil and season the oil with garlic before placing the steaks in the pan. Then sprinkle a little rosemary and garlic over the steaks. The brocolli can be steamed or microwaved. Then I pour just a little bit of honey over the brocolli.

I can recommend a Brown Brothers Pinot Grigio to go with this.

I shot this using the Nikon D70s. ISO 800 with the white balance set to AUTO -3. Basically experimenting with white balance settings recommended by Ken Rockwell.

Stay tuned for another recipe tomorrow

Tonight was Penne with bolognaise sauce.

As we all know, Bolognaise sauce recipes are family secrets. So, I’m not at liberty to divulge this recipe.

Last night I had a delicious burger for dinner. Thanks Fiona

Recipe:

• Mince burger meat
• Onions
• Tomato
• Basil

Pan fry the mince patty in oil, toast some bread.

Butter the bread and start with the fried onions. Add a little tomato sauce over the onions. Then stack the patty, freshly sliced tomato and basil leaves.

Serve and garnish with a sprig of Basil.