Breakfast

Hong Kong breakfast is what I crave, and a lot of it is simple enough to make at home without too much effort with the exception of Dim Sum.

These are all Dim Sum dishes, typically cooked by steaming. On the bottom left, there is Shaomai, which is a dumpling containing pork and shrimp. This particular variety is what is most well known in English speaking countries, and actually has its roots in Inner Mongolia. Clockwise (ignoring the half eaten dish) is steamed ribs in black bean sauce. Top right is either a Chiu Chow dumpling or a chive dumpling, but they are both similar in that they both contain vegetables, fungus, and sometimes pork. Bottom right is a shrimp dumpling. Bottom middle is a steamed meatball. It contains beef and water chestnut and other seasonings and is served with Worcestershire sauce.

Another classic in Dim Sum – this are steamed rice rolls. The white part is made of a wide strip of rice noodle usually with filling from shrimp, pork, or beef, and the sauce on top is soy sauce.

The sight of chicken feet as something edible frequently scares foreigners. Rather than just calling it chicken feet, it’s commonly known as Phoenix Claw. It’s prepared via a complicated process of frying, braising, simmering, and steaming – one of the most difficult Dim Sum dishes to make.

The top left is the usual eggs, ham, and bread (in this case garlic bread).  The middle is Satay Beef Noodles.  Satay refers to cooking meat with a spicy, sweet, peanut sauce that originated from Indonesia.  The noodles in the picture are just rice noodles, but it doesn’t have to be.  The top right drink is Hong Kong style milk tea.  It’s similar to the British style of black tea with milk and sugar except that the Hong Kong variant uses condensed or evaporated milk – I would drink this over coffee any day of the week.

This is a pineapple bun with a slab of butter inside it (the bun is served warm so the butter slowly melts inside of it). The bun doesn’t actually contain pineapple, but it the crunchy top can sometimes resemble a pineapple. The bun itself tastes like a regular bun, but the top adds a slight sweet flavour, and of course there’s the flavour of melted butter.

The bowl of noodles is just regular instant ramen noodles (typically Nissin 出前一丁 noodles) in the restaurant’s own soup with a deboned chicken drumstick. This dish is often served with fried eggs and Spam instead of chicken.  The drink to the right is Horlicks, a malted milk drink. It’s often associated as a kid’s drink, but still enjoyed by adults.

The dish on the left is macaroni in chicken broth with ham slices. I ate this a lot growing up and for some strange reason a lot of non-Asian people I’ve explained this dish to think it’s gross. The dish on the right is the typical egg, sausage, and toast, and the drink up top is milk tea.

Congee is a popular breakfast dish and it’s common to add all sorts of different ingredients like fish, chicken, pork, Chinese doughnut, etc. The one above is congee with Chinese doughnut, fish balls, beef balls, and peanuts. Another popular one has lean pork and century egg.

Lunch/dinner

Food is cheap enough in Hong Kong such that people are okay with buying food everyday rather than cooking at home!

Hotpot is probably my favourite. Take a broth (beef, chicken, fish, spicy, or whatever) and just cook whatever you want inside it. Traditionally, the entire table all share one giant pot and everyone cooks their food inside it, but in recent times, having one small hotpot per person is becoming more popular.

These two dishes are classics in Hong Kong “Cha Chaan Teng” (茶餐廳) establishments. The one on the left is Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice. It’s not actually Portuguese and has its origins in Macau (just a ferry ride away from Hong Kong!), which was a Portuguese colony at the time. It’s essentially chicken and potatoes on top of fried rice in a creamy sauce with spices (e.g. turmeric, cumin, etc.), coconut milk, and chicken broth. The one on the right is Baked Pork Chop Rice. It’s baked in the same way as the previous one, but it’s fried pork chop and tomatoes on rice with a slightly sweet, cheesy, tomato sauce – one of my favourites. The drink is a lemon tea, which in this case it’s black tea with lemon slices and sugar.

The dish on the left is a roasted goose. It has the consistency of chicken, but has all dark meat and a more intense flavour than chicken. The dish on the right is poached chicken and roast pork belly on rice. Poached chicken might sound strange to some people, but it is actually quite flavourful if the brine is made well and the chicken is of high quality. The poached chicken is typically eaten with a sauce made of minced green onion, ginger, and oil. Roast pork belly is special mainly because of its thick crusty skin.

This is poached chicken and barbecue pork on rice. The poached chicken is the same as before and the barbecue pork is the same that is available in North America.

This is Claypot Rice. It’s essentially rice, meat, and soy sauce among other things all steamed together, but it doesn’t count unless there are crusty bits of rice on the side of the bowl formed from the steaming.

This is Wonton Noodles. The Wonton is the dumpling with shrimp and vegetables (one could argue that the above isn’t an actual wonton due to the shape of the dumpling, but let’s not get into technicalities), the noodles themselves are egg noodles cooked al dente, and the soup is usually derived from fish. The soup itself has flavour, but not so much so that it doesn’t overpower everything else.

These are also typical noodle dishes. The one of the left is beef brisket in a beef soup and the other is fish balls and fish tofu in a fish soup.

This is wonton noodles with beef balls. Good for a quick meal.

Some might tell you that the dirtier the place looks, the tastier it is.

Snacks

These are the street food style snacks. Huge ones that I’m missing here are bubble waffles and egg tarts unfortunately!

The bun on the right is the Pork Chop Bun, originally from Macau. It’s essentially a pork chop sandwiched in a Brazilian style bun (so-called piggy bun).

This looks like a dessert, but it’s actually served at some Cha Chaan Tengs. The white one is steamed milk pudding and the yellow one is steamed egg custard. It’s essentially milk or eggs with sweet flavouring (e.g. sugar, vanilla extract, etc.) that is steamed. It’s almost like a Hong Kong style crème brûlée.

This toast with butter and condensed milk. Very simple, but also very delicious.

These are fish balls. A lot of times they are made from processed fish, but can be made from fresh fish as well. Generally they are served a curry sauce, but they are also available in other types of sauces for people who can’t handle the spice.

The bowl of soup on the left is Imitation Shark Fin Soup. This has no actual shark fin in it, and instead the shark fin is replaced by clear rice noodles, since actual shark fin can sometimes have a similar consistency to it (to be honest, actual shark fin is rather tasteless). The key ingredients in the soup itself is chicken stock, chicken, various types of fungus, and dried scallops, and soy sauce. The dish on the right is Shaomai. Not to be confused with the kind at Dim Sum – this is the street food version, which is made of similar ingredients as the fish balls above.

Photo album: here

Hakata Style Ramen

The soup in this ramen is made from boiling bones at high temperature, which transfers the pork fat, meat, and flavours into the soup. The noodle is also thinner and straighter than the typical style of ramen. We went to a ramen shop called Ichiran (一蘭), which is a well known chain of ramen shops. Each person sat at a booth regardless or whether they were a party or not.

Motsunabe

It is essentially a type of hot pot with a specific type of ingredients. In this case, our hot pot had pieces of pork/beef organs (probably intestines) cooked in the soup with chives, and various veggies.

Beef Heart and Horse Sashimi

I don’t think this is a food local to Fukuoka, but it is still different enough to be worth mentioning. Despite being beef heart, I thought it tasted like beef. The taste didn’t change just because the meat was from the cow’s heart. As for the horse sashimi, hose meat definitely isn’t as flavourful as beef, and is a bit chewy. After trying so many kinds of meat from different animals, it is clear to me why beef is the popular choice.

Pokemon Center Fukuoka

Not really related to food, but I came across this while walking around the mall inside the train station. Lots and lots of Pokemon plushies. In the picture, there are even Pikachu’s wearing Japan’s 2014 World Cup jersey!

Link to album here: here

The best sushi I’ve ever had was at the Tsukiji Fish Market. The place was called Daiwa (大和) and there is always a line up to get in. In Canada, we are used to eating a lot of raw salmon, but in Japan, it is all about tuna – especially bluefin tuna. We were also served sea urchin too and I would say that was the only time I’ve ever had sea urchin that was delicious. (More info here)

Sashimi by itself is definitely very delicious too. This sashimi platter was from a restaurant called Uokin (魚金), near Shinbashi Station in Tokyo.

At the same restaurant, we also ate cooked fish head. I’m sure it doesn’t look that appetizing to a lot of people, but it definitely tasted very good, and I’m someone who does not normally eat fish head, but I tried it since our hosts had ordered it. Good thing I tried it too!

This is probably a lesser known dish in Japan, but we were served assorted shellfish that were still alive along with a grill to cook them in. I thought that was pretty special. That was from a seafood restaurant chain called 鈴木水産.

And of course, there is ramen, a classic Japanese noodle soup dish. My favourite was from a place called Ramen Shokudo Ikinaisshou in Akihabara. Some people even like to mix the soup with rice too, and that’s really good too.

Lastly, here is a type of Japanese food known as a teishoku, or a “meal set”. This one, from a chain called Yayoiken (やよい軒), has a bowl of rice, soup, and various side dishes in a tray. This is more of a fast food place though.

Link to photos from Tokyo: here

Link to photos of just food: here

The day after going to Munich, some of my friends and I went to eat some traditional Japanese food.  We went to a restaurant called Tokio Dining (http://www.tokiodining.de) and at the time they had a deal (until the end of June) where the first 20 bowls of Miso Ramen served each day would be half price.  I actually went to this restaurant once before, but for some reason I never blogged about it the first time.  As I kept writing this, it sounded more and more like a restaurant review.  Either way, the food was so good the first time I went, I decided to go again.  It was the best Japanese food I’ve ever had.  And by Japanese food, I don’t mean sushi.

I’ve never had Japanese food in Japan before, but I’d say this place was the closest thing.  As we walked in, the chefs greeted us in Japanese, and if I knew how to reply in Japanese, I totally would have done that.  When we went in, we were the only people there and that usually says something about how good the restaurant is, but not for this place.

Jasmine Tea

Unlike Japanese restaurants in North America, they do not serve green tea to all their customers by default.  It might be a German thing where they like to charge for every drink – even water.  I ordered their Jasmine tea since it is one of my favourites.  They served it in a very traditional looking (at least to me) teapot with a teacup.

In addition to looking good, it also tasted good.  The tea had been steeped for the right amount of time for it to have flavour and yet not have taste that was too concentrated.

Edamame

My friend had this the first time we went and this dish was perfect for him because he is a vegetarian.  Edamame is a dish that has immature soybeans that have been boiled in water with a little bit of salt.

I tried a little bit and it was pretty good.  I can’t say that it’s super delicious or anything because I’m a huge fan of meat.  It was pretty fun trying to get the beans out of the pod though.

Takoyaki

The appetizer I had the first time I went was the Takoyaki.  It is a dish that has a ball-shaped pancake with grilled octopus meat as filling.  It is also served with Japanese mayonnaise, takoyaki sauce, katsuobushi (dried fish flakes), and green onion flakes.  The restaurant served it in a wooden boat shaped dish, which made it extra cool.

When I bit into one of the takoyaki balls, the pancake layer felt so soft and delicious.  The octopus part was even better, but I think I say that only because I’m a huge fan of octopus meat.  The sauce and the fish flakes made it even better.  As I’m writing this part, I’m craving more of it.

Ikura

Ikura is the Japanese word for roe, which are basically fish eggs.  The restaurant called it Ikura Oroshi and the word Oroshi apparently means a strong wind blowing down a slope (if I got the context correct too).  I guess it makes sense when considering how it was served.  It was served on a small mound of water chestnut with the caviar on top.  On the side of the mound, there were a few strips of sliced cucumber and I guess that would represent the wind.  I never realized how much sense the name of the dish made until I looked it up while writing this part.

The dish was really small, but that makes sense because roe is quite expensive to serve in large volumes.  When I bit into one of them, they just pop as my teeth sinks through the outer protective layer and when that happens juice comes out.  It had the coolest mouthfeel.

Miso Ramen

Our main dish was the Miso Ramen.  The noodles had a soup base made of miso (hence the name) and was served with a slice of pork.  It also had other ingredients such as bean sprouts, seaweed, half a boiled egg and corn.  All of that made the noodles so much more delicious.

The noodles were soft yet chewy in a way and that was perfect for my tastes.  Many people think that the instant ramen and this kind of ramen are similar, but their only similarity is that they’re both noodles with the same name.  They taste completely different.  Although the dish was kind of small, everything in it was so good that I ate all of it – even the soup.  While I was eating this, I faced a dilemma.  In Japan, it is customary to slurp the ramen loudly to show appreciation of the food, but in western countries nobody does that.  In the end, I just slurped it like how I normally ate noodles (something like in between the two extremes), while my friends were really careful about making any slurping noises.

Conclusion

Everything here was so good that I would want to go there to eat all the time until I get sick of it.  I never thought I’d be going out for Japanese food while in Germany, but I think this worked out really well.  On our way out, we said thank you to the chefs there in Japanese.

When I go back to Vancouver, I will try to find another restaurant that is on par with this if not better.  That shouldn’t be too hard since Vancouver does have amazing Japanese food.