Thursday 26 February 2009

Day 32 - Nutri-grain and Coffee


Day 32 - Nutri-grain and Coffee, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

A regular breakfast for me. A little messy with the milk, but I couldn't catch any drops spraying out! Perhaps next time.

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Day 31 - "Ha Ha" Pizza


Day 31 - "Ha Ha" Pizza, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

Alternate Title: That Yabbie's eating my pizza!!

Today at lunch we had my "farewell", which was a little strange seeing as I'm only planning to be away for a month, but I'm not complaining. We shared pizza and pasta, of which, this strange pizza was probably the best.

This pizza is called the "ha ha" pizza because the word for prawns and shrimps in Cantonese sounds like "ha", thus, the shrimp/prawn pizza is the Ha Ha Pizza.

~Ha ha ha, let's eat!

Tuesday 24 February 2009

Day 30 - Sweet and Sour Pork Lunchbox

A fairly basic post today guys. Hiding underneath the Sweet and Sour Pork is a little Broccoli and a lonesome Chicken Wing. My battered Columbia water bottle is in the background.

Monday 23 February 2009

Day 29 - Japanese Udon Noodles


Day 29 - Japanese Udon Noodles, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

Dinner tonight was at a small Japanese Restaurant hidden behind Ladies Market, Mong Kok. We shared a couple of common dishes (Goyza, Vegetable Tempura, Spiced Chicken Wings and Deep Fried Octopus Cake) and each choose our favourite Udon; Hot in soup for me, With Egg and Chicken (Commonly called "Parent and Child"!!) for HY and Cold for PK.

It was great and definitely worth finding again.

Sunday 22 February 2009

Triple Tie!!! Now voting on Week 4

A triple tie for the favourite photo from Week 3!

Day 18 - Mini Chicken and Pineapple PizzaDay 19 - Japanese Chicken Curry and Yuen YeungDay 20 - Happy Garden Thai

Voting is now open for week 4...

Day 28 - Shanghai Style Noodles


Day 28 - Shanghai Style Noodles, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

Today was a rather lazy day for me. Get up fairly late and have a nice slow breakfast. Head out for a run and come home for a shower and lunch.

Lunch today was Shanghai Style Noodles served along with a few left-overs from dinner last night. Not bad at all and I was starving after my run!

After lunch I got on with the important business of watching Street Kings (a fairly recently released on DVD movie) and playing Lego Starwars on the Wii. So far, this game best lets me emulate having 'force' powers myself. Yarrrrrrr...

~May the force be with you.

Day 27 - Curry Pork Cutlet with Rice

After a long night of shopping in Causeway Bay we decided to have a late dinner at a small HK Style Cafe.

Day 26 - Char Siu and Mei Fun


Day 26 - Char Siu and Mei Fun, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

I was thinking to go with a pasta dish just for the photo, but in the end the succulent Char Siu drew me back again, this time with soup noodles.

One spin-off from this "365 Days of Food" project is that I'm forcing myself to try different dishes a lot more often. I haven't motivated myself yet to give up the Yuen Yeung... hmm not sure that'll happen!

Thursday 19 February 2009

Day 25 - Weetabix


Day 25 - Weetabix, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

I still eat cereal for breakfast almost everyday and have done so for years. I always try to mix it up a bit and at the moment I'm just finishing off a box of British Weetabix and then moving onto Nutra-grain. Time to bring out the Iron Man (great movie by the way, see it if you haven't) in me, before my upcoming trip back to Melbourne!

On a related note, I often thought that even if there was nothing else to support them, Frostie's had a fantastic slogan in: "Work Hard, Eat Right and Be a Tiger". Words to live by!

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Day 24 - Smoked Duck Breast with Rice Noodles

Today was another of my favourite lunches at UST, Smoked Duck Breast with Rice Noodles. It's quite peppery with just a little bit of spice provided by the red chillies. As per usual, I'm drinking my favourite, Dong Yeun Yeung.

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Day 23 - Chicken Curry and Choi


Day 23 - Chicken Curry and Choi, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

Tonight's dinner saw the normal staple, rice, substituted with noodles. That didn't stop me from drowning them in curry sauce!

Monday 16 February 2009

Day 22 - Family Dinner


Day 22 - Family Dinner, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

A fairly standard family dinner for us tonight. In this shot is a few pieces of Roast Chicken, sitting on top of Chicken and Potato Stew, Broccoli, Shallow-fried Fish Bites and some left overs from last night: two Pizza slices, two BBQ Ribs and Chicken Wing. This is a fairly standard faire for us!

Day 21 - Cocktail and Raisin Buns

Yesterday I headed out for a full day on the rock at Central Crags on Hong Kong Island. This normally means that I pick up some bread in the morning to munch on for lunch.

A personal favourite is the locally invented Cocktail Bun which is a sweet bread loaded up with some buttery, coconutty goodness inside. It's super sweet and the perfect thing for that midday energy burst.

I read that this was originally invented by combining left-overs into a bun and the result was so popular, you can now find it any any bakery in Hong Kong. I've found that often the $3.5 version of this bread is much better than the $7, perhaps because a bit simplicity just adds to it. I recommend anyone that travels to HK to at least try one cocktail bun, it's a must.

The buildings in the background of this shot are the residential towers in Central and the Midlevels, which are at about equal hight to Central Crags. I wonderful place for a snack. Also note that both my buns are a little squashed from being jammed in my bag!

Sik Bau!

Week 2's Favourite... Now voting for Week 3!

Last week's favourite photo was "Hong Kong Style BBQ"... And thus we're moving onto week 4, time to vote on Week 3!

Vote on!

Day 20 - Happy Garden Thai


Day 20 - Happy Garden Thai, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

Sorry Guys! I little behind on the blog, but I hope you noticed that the photos did go up on flickr on time!

Obviously Valentine's day was going to be both a busy day and a (probably) provide quite a few good photo opportunities. In the end we ended up going to Patio88 in Sheung Wan for lunch and then Happy Garden Thai in Shek O for dinner.

I ended up with many great photos. Lunch was a Smoked Chicken and Mango Salad and Seafood Crepe for starters, Paella and Mushroom and Truffle Oil Pasta for mains and Blueberry Cheesecake and Tiramisu for Dessert. A fairly good meal and I got good photos of nearly everything but then there was dinner...

We ended up going to a Thai Restaurant in Shek O, although we didn't know exact where we were going and didn't have a reservation. This restaurant has an upstairs terrace, and loving the open air eating I was all for it. Of course this came at a price: people smoking while eating.

There was just so many great things on the menu that I couldn't help but over order. We had Chicken and Pork Satay Skewers, A Fresh Papaya Salad, Yellow Chicken Curry, Baked Seafood Rice (served in a pineapple!), Fried Rice Noodles and Pan Fried Chicken with Mango. Everything was great, though the noodles just took me over the edge, bursting at the seams! To go along with this great meal, I also ordered a fresh young coconut for a drink, where they just chop and hole in the top and let you drink it.

I might petition to have Valentine's Day renamed: Gastronomic Adventure Day...

Friday 13 February 2009

Day 19 - Japanese Chicken Curry and Yuen Yeung

I thought I'd get a jump on today's photo and instead of waiting till tonight after dinner, just post one of lunch today.

This is my favourite lunch here at work and one that I've eaten many times. It's not really a culinary miracle, but it's big and consistently good. As per usual I also drank Dong Yuen Yeung, Yum!

Day 18 - Mini Chicken and Pineapple Pizza

Pizza Hut, from my childhood, is a very different thing from the Hong Kong Pizza Hut experience. I remember, all you can eat pizza buffets where the best idea was to always go for the most popular pizza, because it was the freshest. But most of all, I remember going to the all you could eat dessert bar many times and filling up my bowl with soft-serve. Here in HK, Pizza Hut is a waiter and mood-lighting affair. It's not really a bad thing, but very different.

Last night we had the "after 9:30" dinner set, which included Soft Drinks, Garlic Bread, Chicken and Mushroom Cream Soup, Chicken Supreme Pasta and a Chicken and Pineapple Pizza. A pretty chicken-y meal really. We also ordered a mango and chocolate pancake, but I was quite disappointed with that. For me, the pizza was an obvious high-light.

~Sik Pizza!

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Day 17 - Lunchbox


Day 17 - Lunchbox, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

The first post of my lunchbox! I was originally going to try to wait a while till I posted a shot of my lunchbox, partly because it's normally pretty uninspiring and partly because I have it everyday, but my photos of breakfast and dinner already looked somewhat like things I'd already posted!

A fairly good meal, although I've been thinking about the general Chinese way. I know that rice is the stable and so it's no surprise that half of the lunchbox consists of it, but I think it'd be better if half the lunchbox was vegie, and then the remaining area was split between rice and meat. Am I crazy? We're supposed to eat more vegie's than bread, rice, etc anyway right?

Ah well. Something to work on.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Day 16 - Wartip and Crispy Skin Chicken

This is a fairly normal sort of family dinner for us at home. It's quite standard to have at least this number of dishes and what doesn't get eaten tonight will either be tomorrow's lunch or served with tomorrow's dinner. Wartip is a personal favourite of mine!

Sik Fan

~Joe

Monday 9 February 2009

Day 15 - Yum Cha


Day 15 - Yum Cha, originally uploaded by JoeGray.

Today we had Yum Cha for lunch because it was Sunny's birthday.

Although Yum Cha is normally a late breakfast / brunch type meal, it's quite a frequent choice for lunch in our office, in part because there's a couple of places to get it on Campus and it's generally cheaper there than other places, but mostly because it's just so delicious...

Sunday 8 February 2009

A new poll & favourite photo from days 1 - 6

The votes are and we've already moved onto a new poll.

The favourite photo from days 1 - 6 was "Tea eggs and Coffee"

Day 3 - Tea Eggs and Coffee

Day 14 - Noodle Soup with Beef Curry and Dong Yeun Yeung

After the marathon HY and I decided to head over to Tin Hau for lunch. We stopped at some little noodle place which was hosting numerous other runners as well.

After a brief mix up with the ordering I got my dish in two separate halves, neither of which really matched the other... Ah well, next time I'll just order the Wonton Noodle Soup!

Day 13 - Pre-Marathon Pasta, Tacos & Buffalo-wings

I was originally just planning to cook up a huge bowl of very plain pasta for myself, but then it seemed that everyone was interested in pasta, so I decided to cook the pasta and PK cooked the tacos and buffalo-wings. Altogether not a bad meal.

The pasta must have done trick because I'm here now to write this!

Friday 6 February 2009

Day 12 - Hong Kong Style Barbecue

Today was the "Annual Retreat" at work, so we all boarded a bus at 9:30am that drove us to some random Baptist Church owned day-camp. We had pre-lunch address and then it was on to the Hong Kong Style Barbecue.

Due to the nature of the HK Style Barbecue it takes at least a couple of hours before everyone's had enough to eat, but it's more of a social process anyway.

After lunch we all headed off to different activities, which for me meant: Ropes Course!

All-in-all a much better way to spend the working day and perhaps I should petition to have a "Quarterly Retreat" instead... you know, to build team work and stuff...

Thursday 5 February 2009

Day 11 - Han Ah Rum Korean Restaurant

Tonight I headed to a Korean Restaurant in Causeway Bay with a couple of friends. The food was delicious and it was just too hard to choose a favourite out of these two shots. (Why not people tell me below which they prefer... If there's people out there... hello... is this thing on?).

Also in shot is the many many small side dishes that they bought out (the Kimchi was great, and peanuts and seaweed a little strange) and my OB beer. Not a bad beer, but just kind of plain.

Anyway, a great meal with great company.

.... Anybody know how to say "let's eat" in Korean?

Wednesday 4 February 2009

Day 10 - Strawberry and Black Pepper Prawns

I went directly from work to the physio tonight and called Melbourne while I was heading home. By the time I got to the dinner table, everyone else had finished and they'd only left me half a strawberry!

Bite sized battered fish pieces are in the back half of the container. Also good, but not really such a drawcard.

Tuesday 3 February 2009

Day 9 -Cinema Hotdogs and a Giant Coke

Breakfast today was Just Right and black coffee, lunch was my lunchbox (yesterday's left overs) but it was dinner that was out of the ordinary.

After work I went direct to Festival Walk, to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. This meant that we didn't have time to eat before the movie and since it's 3 hours long it would have finished at 10pm. So instead we wet for the Cinema Food option.

Actually my "Cheese Hotdog" with Tomato Sauce, American Mustard and Sweet Relish was a lot better than I expected. And I did manage to get halfway through the hot dog before the bun split in half making things a lot messier.

Bon Appetit.

Monday 2 February 2009

Day 8 - Clams, Sweet and Sour Pork, Chilli Cashew Pork and Choi

We have take-away dinner at home maybe twice a week. This is normally Chinese Food but sometimes is Japanese Sushi or something else. A family favourite restaurant is a tiny place in Sham Shui Po that sells fresh seafood. The Clams with Chilli on the left are HY's favourite and I'm a big fan of the Sweet and Sour Pork. This is a delicious meal and one I can't resist even though I'm supposed to be cutting down my intake. As they say in Chinese: "Sik Fan"!!

Sunday 1 February 2009

Vote for your favourite photos!

Thanks to a bit of brainstorming with Evie, I've decided to add a poll to the right side of my blog. Now you can vote for your favourite photos from each week!

You can vote for multiple photos and vote for whatever reason you like (good photo, delicious food, nobody's voted for it yet!). The voting will close at midnight (HK time) on Friday and I'll try to put a new poll up every Sunday along with my daily photo.

Happy Voting!

Cheers,
Joe

Day 7 - Mini Alice Springs Chicken

So today HY and I had to head to Causeway Bay to pickup my marathon gear (race number, timing chip, etc) and decided while we were there to have lunch. We decided on Outback Steakhouse. Not a bad lunch and I was surprised the price seems rather reasonable for "Outback"... I am supposed to be watching my food intake these days though!