“Tea café” food from expensive Tsui Wah.From top left clockwise: Swiss-style chicken wings, cold honey lemon with mandarin orange juice, sizzling pork chop with fried instant noodles.
Dinner at Tai Hing Roast Restaurant–a treat for my host.From left: roast eight treasure rice (missing char siew–ran out!), iced milk tea in ice bath, roast suckling pig.
“Tea café” food from Café de Coral. It was tea time and portions were small and very cheap.From top left clockwise: lemon Coke, small BBQ pork rice, cold yuen yueng, pork cutlet with ham and toast.
Dim sum at Lin Heung Tea House. It was 7.30 in the morning!From top left clockwise: lor mai gai (glutinous rice with pork, Chinese sausage and salted egg yolk wrapped in lotus leaf), lotus seed paste bun, BBQ pork bun, rice rolls with prawns, siew mai (pork dumplings), har gow (prawn dumplings), braised chicken feet, Chinese sausage bun, jasmine tea.
Simple (and economical) fare at Lamma Island.From top: cuttlefish balls soup, satay beef instant noodles soup, pork chop with omelette and ham.
Miscellaneous goodies along the way. It seems like I did not eat a lot in Hong Kong after all…From top left clockwise: snake soup from Seh Wong Yee, wife biscuit from Hang Heung Bakery, vegetarian meal at Po Lin Monastery (fried bee hoon, soya beancurd, mango split-pea cake and snow fungus cake), wanton noodles with added fish balls from a small eatery in Shau Kei Wan, snow white sago dessert from Honeymoon Desserts.
Food (Kuala Lumpur)
KL food was pretty standard but these caught my attention.From top left clockwise: chicken sate baoz, onion chicken baoz, tri-star squid roll from Mr. Baoz, delicious char siew (BBQ pork) from Soh Kei.
Food (Singapore)
Food from our first-ever dine-out Chinese New Year reunion dinner.From top left clockwise: lobster cold plate combination (a live cockroach was found in the lobster head! Traumatising!), abalone with sea cucumber, shark’s fin soup, steamed red snapper, fried salted egg yolk prawns, pig’s trotters with buns, fried noodles, hashima dessert (frog eggs).
The home-cooked Chinese New Year feast of a lunch. Props to mummy as usual!From top left clockwise: scallops in squid flowers, steamed Hainanese chicken, dried shitake with sea cucumber, dried oysters with fa cai (a kind of hair-looking seaweed), yu sheng (raw fish salad tossed noisily for good luck, fortune and prosperity), snow fungus dessert with dried dates and lotus seeds, mixed vegetables with quail eggs, fried minced pork in beancurd skin with fried minced pork balls with longan centres (decorated with grapes and strawberries), fried salted egg yolk prawns.
Highlights (Kuala Lumpur)
We were fortunate enough to stay in a brand new condominium when Ision and I were in KL, all thanks to Eric (whose RPM class I attended for the first time–my first-ever spinning experience!). Ain’t my baby elegant on the couch?
Lots of food was converted to unburnt calories during the KL trip, something that always happens. This was just another night of gluttony with friends who all shared a common identity–they are all followers of Eric’s blog.
Whoever in charge of branding this bank should face the firing squad. Come on!!!
I simply couldn’t resist this!Highlights (Singapore)
Ision receiving blessings from a reverend in the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in Chinatown on the first day of Chinese New Year. It was a pity as I should have taken a video instead.
My first family reunion dinner with Ision. All the tales of how one should behave in front of traditional in-laws were all thrown out of the window for I have one of the coolest mums in the world! This was also my first reunion dinner not prepared by my mum. Coincidentally, there was another Asian/Caucasian gay couple seated next to our table having their reunion dinner as well. Singapore is indeed opening up!
Catching up with Siew Mei, a friend I met back in my student exchange days in Sydney in 2001. Too bad she is now living in Singapore which means that I have one less Sydney kaki to have dinner and coffee with.
Friends from my singing-at-Ark days. We were there to watch my dear friend Meilian sing (can you see that greenish ghostly figure in the distance?). I miss hanging out with all of you already!
Me posing with the samba girls at the Chingay Parade. I was very proud of myself for managing to put together a costume from scratch on the spot (I had a small pair of pink wings behind me which is not visible in the picture). I guess it should also be noted that Roy and I were the first-ever “contingent” to represent the gay community at Chingay. Did we make history? You bet!
Me posing with the group from Cosplay. I want to say thank you to my friend Roy for initiating the idea of marching though it was a pity that only the two of us out of the entire nation turned up. We kept askin people to join us but I guess no one had our enthusiasm (and guts).
Me posing with the storm troopers. Here is an article on Fridae featuring our Chingay Parade march on the last night of my vacation. The video at the end of that article has also been reproduced here:
My partner in gay crime Singapore-style and my very dear friend Roy.
Mum and I at the airport just before my departure. I think she will miss me the most. The thing about reunions is that each reunion inevitably comes with a separation–so to avoid separations should we have reunions in the first place?And there you have it finally, my month away from Sydney in vivid colour summarized in six posts. It is good to go on trips once in a while but I must say Ision and I were both totally tripped-out after that and were so looking forward to some sorely-needed quiet time at home. Kim out.
