hong kong vignettes

on sunday morning victor and i went out for dim sum. apparently a lot of the places here have now gone digital and no longer use the carts to offer food to its patrons. while victor was trying to remember a good place to go, i mentioned that i had seen a place that looked good around soho - and so i now became the lead and we headed out. thankfully, i did remember where it was and i did pick a really good place.

located on the second floor, the restaurant was packed and full of activity. ladies pushing carts, old men spitting bones onto the table, lots of noise and hardly enough room to walk around. we picked a spot beside a few tables and waited for someone to leave (that's how you get a seat). after a while we found two seats at a table with 4 other people, and happily got started. the lady to our left at the table was quite nice and showed us how to pour the tea (it was not in a regular tea container) and i got up to find some food. first item - something that seemed like beef in a noodle pancake. it was tasty, with hints of peanuts but the meat was a little on the raw side and worried us a bit. then, a tray came out from the kitchen and everyone threw themselves at it - and so we wanted some. it turned out to be some sort of tall sponge cake, which was quite nice but hard to eat with chopsticks!

after the cake we returned to savoury foods, with steamed buns stuffed with chinese preserves sausage (very sweet, not my favourite) and chicken feet (because one has to - very fat and tastes like chicken, but quite hard to eat). then we had the sort of meat balls on bean curd, they tasted like the meat from the pancakes. for the last dish, we had bright yellow dumplings, stuffed wit pork and shrimp (surprise!). they were quite good but i would have prefered them not having shrimps.

we left full, satisfied and happy from the experience.

***

yesterday i ended up in wan chai, an area that can be at points quite oriented towards tourists and expats - especially the male kind. when the sun started to set the neons got turned on and bouncers can out to the street to regulate patronage at the dance establishments. the signs say that the club offer "model dancers", not strippers and nothing sexy, although the pictures on the wall do show ladies in underwear.

what surprised me was how many of such clubs there is and that most places had old ladies serving as the bouncers.

while i was sitting a lemon tea at a coffee shop, i had for a view a few of these dance clubs. at 7:30 pm, two dancers came out in from of a club - dressed to the 9 in black nylons, garter belts, mini skits and slinky tank tops - to try to get more male customers. they both stood there, bathed in the light of the neon sign, trying not to be cold. one of the girls did not seem too comfortable with this, and kept pulling on her skirt and top to cover herself more. regardless, she happily called out to white male passerby things i could not hear, but that i am certain were inviting.

ah, hong kong!